“Cornelius was expecting them.” Acts 10:24
In Acts, chapter 10, most people focus on Simon Peter, and for a good reason. The vision of the unclean animals and the later teaching of the gentiles at Cornelius’ house lead to the first gentile conversions and a questioning by church authorities in Jerusalem. Big stuff.
Today I was struck by Cornelius, however.
Photo by Duncan Sanchez on Unsplash
At this point in Acts, we should be used to the appearance of angels. They were there on the day of Jesus’ Ascension, telling the disciples to stop staring into the sky (Acts 1:10–11). An angel let the apostles out of prison (5:19). Stephen’s face was like that of an angel (6:15), and it was an angel who sent Philip to find the Ethiopian eunuch (8:26). Now, an angel will appear to Cornelius, a devout Roman centurion:
One afternoon at about three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” (Acts 10:3)
It was three in the afternoon. If the God-fearing Cornelius was following Jewish tradition, he might have been praying. And as he prayed, an angel appeared. Luke says that Cornelius saw the angel, stared at him—and was terrified.
A Roman centurion was a man’s man: tough, disciplined, level-headed. However, in Scripture, people shake in their sandals when angels come to visit. Even centurions, apparently.
What interested me today was his response. He was instructed to send for Peter and told where he could find him. What he wasn’t told was why. Still, Jewish/gentile tensions aside, centurions were apparently men who knew how a chain of command worked and obeyed without question.
Simply put, when an angel shocks you out of your socks and then tells you to do something—well, you do it. Cornelius assembled a team of three and sent them on their mission to Joppa.
Three days later, the men return with Peter and his entourage. In the meantime, Cornelius had gathered his family and friends together because he was expecting them to come. He believed the angel’s directions were true. He believed his men would find Peter. He knew Peter would come back with them to a gentile’s house and that he would have a message for them, so he invited people to be there.
Before this, we knew that Cornelius gave alms to the poor and was a prayerful and devout man, but his response to the angel’s message tells the world even more about who he was. His faith changed his behavior. His faith even altered the behavior of family and friends. He knew that they were coming. He was expecting them! All of this before he had heard the gospel.
I am praying today that I might have a faith that works like Cornelius’. I seek a life of prayer that would receive the message from God so that it would impact my life and the lives of those around me.
How can the Cornelius story speak to you?