Peter's Vision: Animals or Men?

 

A couple of days ago, my family attended a laid back birthday gathering that included friends, acquaintances and strangers. As I changed tables after the meal and sat beside my wife, who was engaged in a conversation with an acquaintance, things turned interesting. This kind lady said the following: “I know this may be an odd question and I hate to ask it but, why do you guys not eat pork? I know it’s for religious reasons, but could you explain to me why?”

My heart lept! Someone willing to ask questions and merely discuss biblical things that are not predictably scripted! Over the next several moments I did my best to explain several elementary things. One text was, of course, today’s that is Peter’s vision of the sheet that descended with all kinds of animals upon it. After a very simple explanation, that only took fifteen minutes or so, she said the following [paraphrased of course]: “Well that makes sense. That’s not really that complicated at all.” She simply felt encouraged by the Word and had more questions. It was wonderful! Father’s ancient Ways truly are a beautiful thing to share! The entire account of Peter and what he was troubled with was completely worked out and explained clearly, for any reader who simply reads the text in its entirety. This vision had absolutely nothing at all to do with “God changing what animals are food now.” To assume that, and then create a doctrine from it, is just absurdity really. The key? Peter was told something that seemed to contradict Yahweh’s commands. Thereby, he was “perplexed.” Troubled. Why? Something didn’t line up. So what did he do? Verse 19 of Acts 10 tells us that Peter kept reflecting on the vision. He didn’t run out and buy a pork BBQ sandwich because He was now “free in Jesus to eat whatever he wanted.” He peered further into the matter, and used ongoing circumstances around him to unfold and then reveal the correct purpose and interpretation of the vision. Peter waited. He met Cornelius’ men. He allowed things to progress so that he could rightly understand what he had seen. There are many other keys within this text that we have explored in much more detail on the podcast that we will not cover here (I will link below.) This entire event is a divinely-inspired one. Yet it is in no way some upheaval of what a man is permitted to sit down and eat. This was, as the text reveals, about men. May we be like Peter and also demand that what we read, hear and see be rightly understood, and then applied correctly, so that we too may be men that can carry out Father’s purposes.