The First Gentile Church
Acts 11:1-30
Our study takes us this morning to the 11th Chapter of Acts. We're continuing in a study of the book of Acts coming to Chapter 11. We have been studying in Chapter 10 four weeks in a row, that one chapter, dealing with salvation to the Gentiles. We know that originally in the book of Acts Jesus said, "After the Spirit of God has come upon you, you shall be witnesses, my witnesses, and you shall be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the utter most part of the earth.
And the plan of the evangelization of man began at Jerusalem and then it just spread. The last great link in that spread of evangelism was taking the gospel to pagans, Gentiles. As we come to Chapter 11, the gospel has already been taken to Jews in Jerusalem and outside Jerusalem. It has been taken to Samaritans, half-breeds, and in Chapter 10 it was taken to the first group of Gentiles in the house of Cornelius and Peter was the messenger. And you remember Cornelius was wonderfully saved as was his household.
Now it is time for Peter to go back to Jerusalem, as we come to Chapter 11, and he must report to the Jews in Jerusalem, his brothers in Christ, what has happened. And he realizes that it's not going to be easy for them to handle. Now he found it even difficult to allow Gentiles into the church and God had to give him a special vision to prepare his heart. They have had no such vision. They are still locked into the typical prejudice to the nationalistic spirit, to a separatistic view and they have not had the benefit of what he has seen and so it's going to be very difficult and he well knows it.
He returns beginning in verse 1 of Chapter 11 and this is the record of what occurs and I'm going to read through verse 18, and we're going to say very little about those verses because they are simply a verbatim recitation of what we've already studied in Chapter 10.
Verse 1, "And the apostles and brethren that were in Judea, heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God."