Breaking Down Barriers

Human beings love to erect boundaries. In Jesus day, there was a big barrier between Jew and non Jew. Today, we have our own barriers that separate people on social, racial and political lines.

So you can imagine the scene when Peter meets with the leaders, and they have concerns about boundaries. “You mean you went into Gentiles houses. You ate with them. You baptized them!! But they need to become one of us. They need to be circumcised to enter the covenant”.

So Peter told them a story - the story of what God had showed him. He told them the story of a vision of a sheet with all sorts of animals and a voice that says, “Kill and eat”. Peter, a good Jewish man, could not eat an unclean animal. It’s against the Jewish law. It’s a barrier that dare not be crossed. But the voice replied “Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean.”

The vision was not really about food at all. It was about people. The Gentiles, who good Jewish people saw as unclean don’t need to go through the Jewish rituals to become God’s people. God includes them, involves them, invites them.

Whenever barriers are broken down; wherever the “other” is embraced in Christ, someone has caught the vision. Grace happens. And it’s an act of God reflecting the will of God.