Looking in the Mirror - God Changing Minds - Acts 11:1-18

4th June 2025

Acts 11v18 When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

      I.         What Peter was accused of

The accusation in Acts 11:1-3 against Peter was that he “… went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.”  As I’m sure you know, the Jews measured the practice of their religion against three main things: circumcision, kosher and sabbath. Gentile Romans obviously didn’t follow the strict kosher rules for cooking, serving food. They didn’t keep the sabbath and worst of all the men weren’t circumcised. Peter along with everyone else didn’t associate with Gentiles. So Peter needed a supernatural vision from God to allow himself to visit Cornelius, which he received in ch10.

Peter was convinced by the series of bizarre co-incidences and went to speak to these Gentiles [10:34ff]. While he was speaking the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius’ household and they began to speak in tongues. The Jews with Peter were more surprised than the new Gentile believers. Peter recognised the hand of God and ordered the new Gentile believers to be baptised.

    II.         Peter’s defence

When Peter got back to Jerusalem from being with Cornelius, there was uproar in the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem, and this is the setting for 11:18 we have just read. Peter was called in by the orthodox Jewish Christian group of the church at Jerusalem, for a ‘please-explain’ meeting … without coffee.

It is interesting that this great church leader Peter, who was appointed leader of the apostolic band by Jesus himself, was willing to be held to account. Humility is required in leadership for it to be effective. He didn’t pull rank. He didn’t say “How dare you challenge me?” or “Don’t you know who I am?” He was willing to submit to the challenge over what he had done, by visiting Cornelius. But he did bring along the 6 witnesses with him to support his story.

Peter shows that contrary to Jewish religious tradition, but in line with the heavenly revelation in the vision, it was OK to go to Cornelius’ (unclean) house, accept his (unclean) hospitality, to eat his (unclean) food and preach the gospel to him and to his (unclean) household. And that God confirmed it by sending the Holy Spirit, and the gift of speaking in tongues, which was why Peter baptised the new Gentile believers.

Peter changed the mind of his audience by logic and by testimony and by the word of the Lord himself: [1] If Jews received the baptism in the Spirit and then received water baptism why shouldn’t Gentiles? He [2] quoted Jesus’ own words (now our scripture); and he [3] gave testimony of the strange series of coincidences backed up by his 6 witnesses. In spite of his senior status among the apostles, Peter shows that it wasn’t Peter doing his own thing. God was in it. Why am I talking about this story? I’m talking about change.

Why are there mirrors on the walls of gyms? I thought they were there so buff gym fanatics could admire their growing muscles. But my recent Parkinson’s diagnosis requires me to do special exercises with a group in a gym. We need the mirrors to make sure that we are doing the exercises correctly, we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are doing them properly when we aren’t.

  III.         Changing minds - looking in the gym mirror

Having heard Peter, the Jerusalem church looked in the gym mirror of God’s revelation and agreed they needed to change their attitudes to Gentiles and their relationship with them: 18 “… they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

I had to eat a bit of humble pie recently and apologise publicly for something I had rashly said at a church meeting. Our ego resists, but the net effect when it’s done is liberating. The Jerusalem church community was liberated as they allowed their minds to be changed and accept something they had steadfastly resisted for traditional or cultural reasons. But it requires a measure of humility.

The text says that Cornelius and his household repented in response to the gospel message. That challenges the ego as well. It wasn’t a one-sided transaction, Cornelius’ worldview needed to change too.

… in conclusion …

The orthodox Jewish Christians looked in the gym mirror and realised they needed to change when confronted with a reality. Have you looked in the mirror lately? The mirror doesn’t lie. It reveals things about us we don’t want to see. So may I ask you, what change, what new thing from God are you resisting at the moment? About your work; about your relationships with others; about your inner self. Are you willing to listen? Are you willing to change your mind on something you have always held dear? Are you willing to look in the mirror to see what needs to change? Will you fall silent and glorify God and admit you may have been wrong about something, like the Jerusalem church did? Or will you continue to resist God’s Spirit?

I cannot tell you what that might mean for you individually, but you probably know what it is. It doesn’t mean that you accept ANY change, but verify it with the word of God and multiple witnesses.

And finally about your call to missions: sometimes God breaks the mould of the way we Christians think as God moves forward in his plan of salvation for the human race. We need to go with this message to people we traditionally don’t like, to people we fear, to people whose habits and culture we might find repellent, to people whose language we don’t understand. But God says, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’

 I leave you with that thought.