Acts 10-13

The Voice

10 Cornelius, a Roman Centurion and a member of a unit called the Italian Cohort, lived in Caesarea. ² Cornelius was an outsider, but he was a devout man—a God-fearing fellow with a God-fearing family. He consistently and generously gave to the poor, and he practiced constant prayer to God. ³ About three o’clock one afternoon, he had a vision of a messenger of God.

⁷ After the messenger departed, Cornelius immediately called two of his slaves and a soldier under his command—an especially devout soldier. ⁸ He told them the whole story and sent them to Joppa.

⁹ Just as these men were nearing Joppa about noon the next day, Peter went up on the flat rooftop of Simon the tanner’s house. He planned to pray, ¹⁰ but he soon grew hungry. While his lunch was being prepared, Peter had a vision of his own—a vision that linked his present hunger with what was about to happen: ¹¹ A rift opened in the sky, and a wide container—something like a huge sheet suspended by its four corners—descended through the torn opening toward the ground. ¹² This container teemed with four-footed animals, creatures that crawl, and birds—pigs, bats, lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, and vultures.

¹⁶ Peter saw this vision three times; but the third time, the container of animals flew up through the rift in the sky, the rift healed, ¹⁷ and Peter was confused and unsettled as he tried to make sense of this strange vision.

At that very moment, Peter heard the voices of Cornelius’s delegation, who had asked for directions to Simon’s house, coming from the front gate.

^19-20 Peter’s mind was still racing about the vision when the voice of the Holy Spirit broke through his churning thoughts.

²¹ Peter rushed downstairs to the men.

²³ Peter extended hospitality to them and gave them lodging overnight. When they departed together the next morning, Peter brought some believers from Joppa.

²⁴ They arrived in Caesarea the next afternoon just before three o’clock. Cornelius had anticipated their arrival and had assembled his relatives and close friends to welcome them. ²⁵ When Peter and Cornelius met, Cornelius fell at Peter’s feet in worship, ²⁶ but Peter helped him up.

²⁷ They talked and entered the house to meet the whole crowd inside.

⁴⁴ Peter wasn’t planning to stop at this point, but the Holy Spirit suddenly interrupted and came upon all the people who were listening. ^45-46 They began speaking in foreign languages (just as the Jewish disciples did on the Day of Pentecost), and their hearts overflowed in joyful praises to God. Peter’s friends from Joppa—all of them Jewish, all circumcised—were stunned to see that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on outsiders.

⁴⁸ So he had them baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The new disciples asked him to stay for several more days.

11 ^1-2 By the time Peter and his friends from Joppa returned to Jerusalem, news about outsiders accepting God’s message had already spread to the Lord’s emissaries^[c] and believers there. Some of the circumcised believers didn’t welcome Peter with joy, but with criticism.

⁴ Peter patiently told them what had happened, laying out in detail the whole story.

¹⁸ There was no argument, only silence.

¹⁹ The believers who were scattered from Judea because of the persecution following Stephen’s stoning kept moving out, reaching Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. Until this time, they had only shared their message with Jews. ²⁰ Then some men from Cyprus and Cyrene who had become believers came to Antioch, and they began sharing the message of the Lord Jesus with some Greek converts to Judaism. ²¹ The Lord was at work through them, and a large number of these Greeks became believers and turned to the Lord Jesus.

²² Word of this new development came to the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch to investigate. ²³ He arrived and saw God’s grace in action there, so he rejoiced and urged them to remain faithful to the Lord, to maintain an enduring, unshakable devotion. ²⁴ This Barnabas truly was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith. A very large number of people were brought to the Lord.

²⁵ Barnabas soon was off again—now to Tarsus to look for Saul. ²⁶ He found Saul and brought him back to Antioch. The two of them spent an entire year there, meeting with the church and teaching huge numbers of people. It was there, in Antioch, where the term “Christian” was first used to identify disciples of Jesus.

²⁷ During that year, some prophets came north from Jerusalem to Antioch. ²⁸ A prophet named Agabus stood in a meeting and made a prediction by the Holy Spirit: there would be an expansive, terrible famine in the whole region during the reign of Claudius. ²⁹ In anticipation of the famine, the disciples determined to give an amount proportionate to their financial ability and create a relief fund for all the believers in Judea. ³⁰ They sent Barnabas and Saul to carry this fund to the elders in Jerusalem.

12 Back in Jerusalem, hard times came to the disciples. King Herod violently seized some who belonged to the church with the intention of mistreating them. ² He ordered James (brother of John) to be executed by the sword, the first of those appointed as emissaries to be martyred. ³ This move pleased Jewish public opinion, so he decided to arrest Peter also. During the holy festival of Unleavened Bread, ⁴ he caught Peter and imprisoned him, assigning four squads of soldiers to guard him. He planned to bring him to trial publicly after the Passover holiday.

⁵ During Peter’s imprisonment, the church prayed constantly and intensely to God for his safety. ⁶ Their prayers were not answered, until the night before Peter’s execution.

Picture this event: Peter is sound asleep between two soldiers, double-chained, with still more guards outside the prison door watching for external intruders. ⁷ Suddenly the cell fills with light: it is a messenger of the Lord manifesting himself. He taps Peter on the side, awakening him.

The chains fall off Peter’s wrists.

Peter puts them on and just stands there.

⁹ Peter does so, but he is completely dazed. He doesn’t think this is really happening—he assumes he is dreaming or having a vision. ¹⁰ They pass the first guard. They pass the second guard. They come to the iron gate that opens to the city. The gate swings open for them on its own, and they walk into a lane. Suddenly the messenger disappears.

¹¹ Peter finally realized all that had really happened.

¹² Peter immediately rushed over to the home of a woman named Mary. (Mary’s son, John Mark, would eventually become an important associate of the apostles.) A large group had gathered there to pray for Peter and his safety. ¹³ He knocked at the outer gate; and a maid, Rhoda, answered. ¹⁴ She recognized Peter’s voice, but she was so overcome with excitement that she left him standing on the street and ran inside to tell everyone.

¹⁶ All this time, Peter was still out in the street, knocking on the gate. Finally they came and let him in. Of course, the disciples were stunned, and everyone was talking at once. ¹⁷ Peter motioned for them to quiet down and then told them the amazing story of how the Lord engineered his escape.

Then he left to find a safer place to stay.

¹⁸ But when morning came and Peter was gone, there was a huge uproar among the soldiers. ¹⁹ Herod sent troops to find Peter, but he was missing. Herod interrogated the guards and ordered their executions. Peter headed down toward the coast to Caesarea, and he remained there.

²⁰ At this time there was major political upheaval. Herod was at odds with the populace of neighboring Tyre and Sidon, so the two cities sent a large group of representatives to meet with him. They won over one of Herod’s closest associates, Blastus, the director of the treasury; then they pressured Herod to drop his grudge. Cooperation was important to the two cities because they were all major trading partners and depended on Herod’s territory for food. ²¹ They struck a deal, and Herod came over to ratify it. Dressed in all his royal finery and seated high above them on a platform, he made a speech; ²² and the people of Tyre and Sidon interrupted with cheers to flatter him.

²³ Herod should have given glory to the true God; but since he vainly accepted their flattery, that very day a messenger of the Lord struck him with an illness. It was an ugly disease, involving putrefaction and worms eating his flesh. Eventually he died.

²⁴ Through all this upheaval, God’s message spread to new frontiers and attracted more and more people. ²⁵ Meanwhile, the time Barnabas and Saul spent in Jerusalem came to an end, and they reported back to Antioch, bringing along John, who was also called Mark.

13 The church in Antioch had grown strong, with many prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon (a dark man from Central Africa), Lucius (from Cyrene in North Africa), Manaen (a member of Herod’s governing council), and Saul. ² Once they were engaged in a time of worship and fasting when the Holy Spirit spoke to them, “Commission Barnabas and Saul to a project I have called them to accomplish.” ³ They fasted and prayed some more, laid their hands on the two selected men, and sent them off on their new mission. ⁴ Having received special commissioning by the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Saul went to nearby Seleucia on the coast. Then they caught a ship to the island of Cyprus.

⁵ At the city of Salamis on the east side of Cyprus, they proclaimed the message of God in Jewish synagogues, assisted by John Mark. ^6-7 They went westward from town to town, finally reaching Paphos on the western shore. There the proconsul named Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man, summoned Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear their message. At his side was an occult spiritualist and Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus ⁸ or Elymas (which means “magician”). Elymas argued with Barnabas and Saul, trying to keep Sergius Paulus from coming to faith.

⁹ Saul, who is also known as Paul, was suddenly full of the Holy Spirit. He stared directly into Elymas’s face.

At that instant, it was as if a mist came over Elymas and then total darkness. He stumbled around, groping for a hand so he could be led back home. ¹² When Sergius Paulus saw this happen, he came to faith and was attracted to and amazed by the teaching about the Lord.

¹³ Paul and his entourage boarded a ship and set sail from Paphos. They traveled north to Perga in Pamphylia. John Mark, however, abandoned the mission and returned to Jerusalem.

¹⁴ Paul and Barnabas continued from Perga to Pisidian Antioch; and on the Sabbath, they entered the synagogue and sat down. ¹⁵ After the regular reading of the Hebrew Scriptures—including passages from the Law and the Prophets—the synagogue leaders sent a message to them: “Brothers, if you would like to give us some exhortation, please do so.” ¹⁶ Paul rose to his feet, offered a gesture of greeting, and began his message.

⁴² Paul and Barnabas prepared to leave the synagogue, but the people wanted to hear more and urged them to return the following Sabbath. ⁴³ As the people dispersed after the meeting, many Jews and converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas. Privately Paul and Barnabas continued teaching them and urged them to remain steadfast in the grace of God. ⁴⁴ The next Sabbath, it seemed the whole city had gathered to hear the message of the Lord. ⁴⁵ But some of the Jewish leaders were jealous when they saw these huge crowds. They began to argue with and contradict Paul’s message, as well as slander him. ⁴⁶ Paul and Barnabas together responded with great confidence.

⁴⁸ These words created two strong reactions. The outsiders were thrilled and praised God’s message, and all those who had been appointed for eternal life became believers. ⁴⁹ Through them the Lord’s message spread through the whole region. ⁵⁰ But the Jewish leaders united the aristocratic religious women and the city’s leading men in opposition to Paul and Barnabas, and soon they were persecuted and driven out of the region. ⁵¹ They simply shook the dust off their feet in protest and moved on to Iconium. ⁵² The disciples weren’t intimidated at all; rather, they were full of joy and the Holy Spirit.