Monday, January 19th

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Monday, January 19

Acts10:1-8

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, "Cornelius." And he stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea." When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him, and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

I began my life in ministry as a Youth Pastor and spent roughly 10 years working with Junior and Senior High School students.

As any student pastor will tell you, when working with adolescents you are constantly looking for creative ways to hold their attention, have fun and teach them something important about God; all at the same time.

I tried all kinds of things; some worked pretty well, some not so much.

But one of the games/group exercises that did work very well every time I tried it went like this:

First, you selected 2 or 3 students that would serve as your “guinea pigs,” and had them stand off to the side. Then you told the rest of the students to form themselves into groups; 6 to 8 students in each group.

So you have 5 or 6 groups of kids and 2 or 3 individual kids off to the side. Then the only instruction you had to give was to say to the individual students that their job was to get into one of the groups. That’s it. I wouldn’t give the groups any instructions at all; I only told the individual kids to try to get into one of the groups.

What do you think happened?

Total mayhem.

The students who were in the groups would immediately lock arms and turn themselves into an impenetrable wall of backs, arms and elbows, doing everything they could to discourage the individual students from getting into their group.

The students who were outside the groups would fight and scratch and claw to get into a group, sometimes launching themselves like human projectiles trying to break through the wall.

Each time I tried it I had to cut off the game before it got too violent; before someone got hurt; and before I lost my job!

But the teaching point was clear and powerful. As I debriefed the experience I would ask the individual kids why they tried so hard to get into the groups. They would say, “Because you told us to! And because we wanted to be included!”

Then I would ask the groups why they worked so hard to keep the individuals out of their groups. They would say, “Because you told us to!” Then I would say, “No, I didn’t! I only told the individuals to try to get in, I didn’t say anything to the groups about keeping them out! You could have simply welcomed the newcomers into your group with open arms, but you didn’t; why not?”
Then the discussion would begin!
Isn’t it true that the whole world, in a sense, is about who’s in and who’s out? From ethnic groups to religions to elite universities to exclusive peer groups in high school, everything seems to be about who’s acceptable and who’s not.
That’s the issue Luke raises as he begins this story.

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort...

Caesarea was a coastal town located right on the Mediterranean Sea. The city was named after Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, who was, you will remember, the ruler who declared that a census should be taken for a new tax, which, in turn, forced Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem, where, of course, Jesus was born.

Right off the bat Luke is reminding his readers that Israel was being ruled by the power of Rome; and the Romans were resented bitterly by the Jews.

We are told that Cornelius was a “centurion of the Italian cohort.” This means simply that he was an officer in the Roman Army. He served in the Italian regiment (or battalion) stationed in Caesarea. A cohort was a company of approximately 1000 soldiers and, as a centurion, Cornelius would have  had charge over a hundred soldiers, making him the equivalent of a captain in today's army.

Luke is making it very clear that Cornelius was different; Cornelius was an outsider.

Over the past couple of weeks, as we have studied through chapters 9 and10, we have seen several stories of the gospel reaching those who would have been considered “outsiders.”

We saw this theme in the story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Saul was a persecutor of the church, an arch enemy of the gospel, who was confronted by Jesus himself in a light from heaven. 

With the help of Ananias Saul not only becomes a follower of Jesus, but a powerful witness to the gospel as well.

We see it in the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch; a man from a different culture, who enjoyed elite political status as servant of the Queen of Ethiopia, who had been physically altered as a eunuch. God sends Philip to explain the gospel to him. One could scarcely imagine a more unlikely pair! But the Ethiopian comes to faith in Jesus.

Now we have a Roman centurion. Remember, the Romans would have been considered pagans by the Jews, and it was Roman soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross then thrust the spear in his side to make sure he was dead.

The early Christians were all of Jewish background and they would have immediately seen Cornelius as one of “them;” a Roman, an outsider!

Yet, what we are going to see as we move through chapter 10 is that God loves the outsider as much as he loves the insider. We’re going to see that through the gospel God reaches right through the barriers that we often use to separate people and that he changes forever our understanding of “insiders” and “outsiders.”

Are you ready for the journey?

Pastor Brian Coffey