Tag Archives: Simon the Tanner

THE BOOK OF ACTS – CORNELIUS WADES IN

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CORNELIUS WADES IN

“Cornelius said, ‘Four days ago at about this time, mid-afternoon, I was home praying. Suddenly there was a man in front of me, flooding the room with light. He said, ‘Cornelius, your daily prayers and neighbourly acts have brought you to God’s attention. I want you to send to Joppa to get Simon, the one they call Peter. He’s staying with Simon the Tanner down by the sea.’

“‘So I did it — I sent for you. And you’ve been good enough to come. And now we’re all here in God’s presence, ready to listen to whatever the Master put in your heart to tell us.'” Acts 10:30-33 (The Message).

Finally! Cornelius’ explanation put the last piece of the puzzle in place. Peter had his story and Cornelius had his; the two stories blended into one, and the whole thing began to make sense. God was at it again, moving on people to reveal Himself to a hungry heart.

Cornelius made no reference to Peter’s scruples. He did not apologise for overriding Peter’s inhibitions. It was not an issue to him and he would not make Peter’s issues his own.

What was it that had drawn God’s attention to this ex-pagan Roman soldier? Was God really interested in non-Jews? Idolatry was abhorrent to Him and this man had been born and brought up to worship idols, but at some stage in his adult life he had become disillusioned with his religion and attracted to the Jewish faith.

The Jews worshiped only one God, an unseen spirit being whom they said was the Creator of heaven and earth. Their Holy Book told stories of His power and His interaction with people, including accounts of miracles that showed His love for His people.

Cornelius had never known the love of a god. The Roman and Greek gods were evil, vengeful and capricious. Their worshipers had their time cut out either trying to get their attention or appeasing their anger. They were always demanding and never giving; so unlike the God of Israel who was constantly doing things for His people.

Cornelius had been drawn towards this religion, and the outcome was that he had absorbed its lifestyle and requirements — prayer and generosity had become his way of life. Prayer meant reciting psalms and set passages of Scripture at specific times of the day. Consequently he was laying down a foundation of God’s word in his heart.

Recognising and meeting the needs of people around him, as required by the teachings of the Torah, the five books of Moses, had fostered the kind of generosity that pleased God, breaking his natural human bent towards selfishness and greed and moving him beyond the confines of his own needs and the needs of his family. These were the things that indicated his seriousness towards God.

God responded by setting up a meeting with him through the human agency of His servant Peter. Where supernatural visions and angelic visits were necessary, they happened, to bring the two parties together, Peter with his knowledge and experience of Jesus and Cornelius with his hunger to know the truth.

What an example of God’s personal and intimate involvement with us. He is not indifferent to our unspoken longings. He will never ignore even the faintest cry for Him or the slightest move towards Him. It is His will that everyone should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Unless He intervenes and draws us, we cannot know Him but He intervenes to move heaven and earth so that we will encounter Him and experience the truth.

Peter had every reason, having heard Cornelius’ side of the story, to believe that this meeting was of God and to launch into an explanation of the meaning of Jesus’ life and death so that Cornelius and his household and friends could have an opportunity to believe and receive the truth. He was free to fellowship with Cornelius in his home because God said it was okay.

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES – PHASE TWO

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PHASE TWO

“Cornelius stared hard, wondering if he was seeing things. Then he said, ‘What do you want, sir?’

“The angel said, ‘Your prayers and neighbourly acts have brought you to God’s attention. Here’s what you are to do. Send men to Joppa to get Simon, the one everyone calls Peter. He is staying with Simon the Tanner, whose house is down by the sea.’

“As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two servants and one particularly devout soldier from the guard. He went over with them in great detail everything that had happened, and then sent them off to Joppa.” Acts 10:4-8 (The Message).

Cornelius was busy carrying out his duty to God faithfully. He was not aware that there was much more to this “religion” he followed that he knew about. As far as he was concerned, he was doing what was required of him and doing it well and with all his heart.

But God had His eye on him. Cornelius was not one of His chosen people, but He was about to show this Gentile that His desire was to open the door of His grace to all nations. This had been His plan from the beginning. He had chosen Israel, not to have exclusive rights to His love and favour, but to be the vehicle through which He would reveal Himself to the world.

The Israelites had completely misinterpreted God’s requirement that they separate themselves from the idolatrous nations around them. God wanted them to be uncontaminated, not exclusive and isolated. They thought they were better than every other nation in spite of hob-nobbing with them and practising their wicked idolatry.

Instead of revealing the true nature of God as a loving and caring Father, they hated and despised the Gentiles, refusing to interact with them in any way. God would have to do something out of the ordinary to break down their prejudice and convince His followers that the good news of Jesus was for all nations, not only for the Jews.

Phase one was to alert Cornelius that there was something more in store for him. He was still living in a spiritual twilight zone and needed the supernatural intervention of God to move him into the light of new life in Jesus.

Cornelius was not used to anything as spectacular as a vision. He was flabbergasted and bewildered by the appearance of an angel. All he could stammer was ‘What do you want, sir?’ That the angel actually replied to him was even more of a mystery. Amazingly, he did not question his sanity or hesitate to do what he was instructed to do.

This was too dramatic and intrusive an experience to ignore. He called his subordinates to go at once to Joppa to fetch the man about whom he had received detailed instructions.

It is not often that anyone catches a glimpse of the supernatural realm of God which is all around us, but which we cannot see. In the ordinary course of life, we live and experience the natural world in the conviction that the realm of God’s presence is as near to us as our breath; but there are unusual times when God pulls aside the curtain for a brief moment for a specific purpose.

Cornelius needed just such a moment to convince him that God had noticed him and wanted him to enter that supernatural realm by faith in Jesus. He stood on the threshold of the greatest experience of his life when he would step over from darkness to light, from death to life and from the dominion of Satan into the kingdom of God.

This was not just another religious exercise. God was setting up an encounter with His Son that would transform Cornelius’ life forever, and open the door for a heavily prejudiced Jew to understand the enormity of the grace that sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world.