Acts 11:1-18

v2: Biblically when speaking of going to Jerusalem it is referred to as “going up”. Leaving Jerusalem and going to any other place is referred to as “going down”. Jerusalem was seen as the pinnacle -both physically and spiritually.

· The circumcised believers =Judaizes. They held to the doctrine that the gospel was only for Jewish people. They believed a Gentile needed to convert (be circumcised) before accepting the gospel. They also believed that if a man was not a Jew outwardly then he could not be saved inwardly.

v3: This was against traditional law but NOT against Biblical law. Yeshua Himself did not agree with the traditional laws (Matt 15:1-12)

v4-10: Peters vision repeated – emphasized. Peter is telling the believers in Jerusalem that if G-d has cleansed the Gentiles then they are clean (again… This passage is not talking about/emphasizing clean or unclean food, what we can or cannot eat -this passage has far greater significance than this issue)

[v11-17: The testimony of what happened in the Gentiles (Cornelius) home repeated]

v15: This is different to what happened in Acts 8:17. Peter was still speaking – no hands were laid on them to receive the Holy Spirit. This time around it was not a lesson in Apostolic authority (what G-d had been teaching the church in chapter 8) G-d was teaching the church something new in this passage.

· “At the beginning” ie at Pentecost/Shavuot.

v17: The same Holy Spirit was given to both Jew and Gentile.

· The indwelling and baptism of the Holy Spirit came about because they believed in the L-rd Yeshua as Messiah.

v18: A successful changing of a wrong mindset…

Even as Christians we can believe things wholeheartedly and they might be completely wrong mindsets. Does everything we think and believe line up with the Word of G-d? Are we willing to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us where we err and are we humble enough to change and bring ourselves back into alignment with G-d and His Word?