Church in transition. a 'home team' for 1000 years. Rules have changed. always got penalty's, free kicks, appointed the ref etc etc when we were at home. Now we're playing 'away' all has changed. For first time for 1600 years the church now faces a time when is much more like the early Church. We are in transition; extremes. we look at Acts 10 in light of that.
Acts 10 here
Pipes with taps on don't work just by planting them in the ground.
the spirit is the spirit of mission, Church can't be removed from it source
More positively: Wherever we seek to be the the church by the spirit we cn be sure of spirit's help.
Great Commission (matt. 28) is it a 'straight' or 'conditional' promise. Missional spirit of acts indicates tht either way when we engage with the task of church the spirit wil be there.
Acts is book of 'waves' of the spirit working
Wave of moving to the Jews
Wave of persecution faced by believers
Wave of moving to the gentiles
- Cornelius story and Peter's vision an example, along with Ethiopian eunuch.
- cornelius
- angels - luke loves angels, uses a sign that god's coming. enlightenment meant that we had to tell our story in a liberal way. spent a lot of 19 and 20 c rationalising and demyhtologising faith, just at the time when society re-mythologizes life. secular theology. we do n0t give time to heart all head in past. we don't believe non-spiritual enough. our faith is non sensible, n0n cerible. has our belief been drilled out of us...
- peter - why peter needed? god could have just zapped faithful cornelius? luke loves journey's donkey, 12 yr old J, samaritan, emmaeus, and lots of journey on road. conversion always happens on road (semon) peter and cornelius journeying. what of the vision of food? Is this a homer simpson moment doh 3 times and 3 time I denied J. dliemma, whether i obey or disobey god's word would appear to be challenged. Is P thiinking about the fact that often in the ministry of Jesus P etc had to ignore ritual purity laws. Nb Peter is in joppa where Jonah had rn way to. Joanh had to go to unclen Nineveh'ns.
The spirit of mission is pushing us to reconsider everything.
Even those who think they know what's what (Peter) have to journey and move on.
Wesley 'became more vile' when he broke the rules of c of e and spoke to kingswood miners. but he till did it.
God does new things. Peter opts to stick in there depiste difficulty, see acts 11, difficult conversations will follow.
cornelius and peter. who converted who? OK coernelius is converted, but also a progressive conversion of peter. 1st lukewarm towards to cornelius' men, but by time he has travelled to cornelius he has interpreted the dream to say i now see that i must not call anyone unclean (nothing to do with the food). another step along the journey of peters conversion,
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