Do not call anything impure that
God has made clean – Acts 10:
15.
This revelation of God to Peter was
about the Gentiles who, until Christ died and rose again, were not to be
considered part of God’s family. But after Christ died and rose again, the door
of acceptability by virtue of the new life in Christ was open to them as to the
Jews too. Until then, the Jews considered themselves the privileged elect of
God. After all, God chose their father, Abraham, and from him the entire race
came. “Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the
covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of
Christ” (Romans 9: 4 – 5). We
cannot ignore the fact that the Jews had God’s favour better than others on
earth, who, collectively, were known as Gentiles. The words ‘clean’ and
‘unclean’, ‘circumcised’ and ‘uncircumcised’ were commonly used to
differentiate between Jews and Gentiles. Some foods were considered ‘clean’ for
them, some ‘unclean’. This egotism marked the life of many Jews, and Peter was
no exception.
So, when God, in a vision, told him to rise, kill and eat (Acts
10: 13) Peter naturally protested because in the table set before him were all
kinds of animals, including the unclean. God answered Peter and told him not to
call unclean what He (God) has cleansed.
The lesson?
Peter’s egotism of having a better
relationship with God than the Gentiles may not be different from the classism
many Christians exhibit today. We use classism here as that egoistic separation
from others in mind, words and action in that self-delusory belief of
superiority. We create a chasm between the supposedly do-wells and the
non-do-wells, between city and village workers, between those who have suffered
official discipline and those who have not. Without saying it we look at the
one as superior and the other as inferior. Is that not what makes some reject
transfers from cities to villages? Is it not what perennially keeps some
workers circulating around a given locus of service? Some church workers even
unfortunately refer to their colleagues laboring in rural areas as village
workers. Some do not even trust their colleagues to effectively officiate in
so-called big marriages, burials, etc.
This segregationist attitude is
also seen in the pew – among church members. There are church members who do
not know their fellow members. At best they know those of their class or clime.
Or they may know others when they have occasions in which ‘nothing is too
small’ to contribute. By this attitude we unwittingly call them unclean whom
God has cleansed. To consider others as not of your class is to call them
unclean. It is segregationist. It breaks God’s command in Acts 10: 15 and more
than anything else splinters the body of Christ. It negates the Lord’s priestly
prayer in John 17: 20 – 21 that they may be one.
Brethren, let’s awake to God’s
righteousness and throw off ours. If we know we all depend on God’s grace we
would see others who also depend on it as equals. On the platform of grace,
there is neither Jew nor Greek, clean or unclean, circumcised or uncircumcised,
male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore live as
one, love as one, serve as one, and seek to promote others rather than run them
down. As the hymn writer says
Blest be the tie that binds
Our
hearts in Christian love
The
fellowship of kindred minds
Is
like to that above
Before our Father’s throne
We
pour our ardent prayers
Our
fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our
comforts and our cares.
May God grant us better understanding of these things to His
glory.
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