Acts chapter 11. I'd like to read beginning verse 1, the first 18 verses. Hear God's word. Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, saying, You went in to uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, an object descending like a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners, and it came to me. And when I observed it intently and considered, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, rise, Peter, kill, and eat. But I said, not so, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth. But the voice answered me again from heaven, what God has cleansed. You must not call common. Now this was done three times, and all were drawn up again into heaven. At that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was, having been sent to me from Caesarea. And then the Spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me And we entered the man's house. And he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved. And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord. how he said, John indeed baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized by the Holy Spirit. If therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God? And when they heard these things, they became silent and glorified God saying, then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. Those who seek these as precepts will walk at liberty. Heavenly Father, please open our hearts to receive your word with meekness and open our ears to hear and Lord, move us by your Spirit to obedience. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips this morning, that through a vessel of clay, Lord, your glory and your riches in Christ may be opened to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, this passage is mostly a repeat of all of the events that happened in the previous chapter. And it's not exactly a one-verse summary or repeat of all those events. It's a more detailed accounting of the exact same things that happened before. And when we see this kind of repetition, I think it's good to ask ourselves, why? Why? Especially when it's repeated immediately after the first account. Why is Luke going over the exact same material again? There's not a lot of new additional information. There are a few additional things that he brings out. It's not a lot. I think the reason is that there is another lesson being taught here. Social pressure is very strong. I'm sure we've all experienced it. And we all know that we have a strong desire to be pleasing to the group, to the crowd. We have a strong desire to go along in order to get along. We all have, I think, that fear of man to some extent. I know I do. such that maybe we'll even be silent when we know that what we believe would not be popular to the crowd that we are with. And there's maybe a right place for that as well. But it can also be a matter of the fear of man, because we want to be liked. We want to avoid conflict. Well, that part is good. We want to be well-liked, to be accepted in our peers. We want to fit in. And sometimes that can result from pride, our own pride. See, social pressure is not... It's strong, but it's not necessarily changing people's minds directly. It's just powerful in getting them to go along with something that they don't necessarily want to do. And there's a difference between changing somebody's mind and just having them go along in order to not be different. The National Geographic covered a social experiment conducted by Jonah Berger, I think he's a University of Pennsylvania researcher, and a bunch of other social researchers, and maybe you've seen this experiment, it was done a few years ago, in which they filled an eye doctor's waiting room with about 15 or 20 people who were all briefed ahead of time on this experiment, so they were all in the know. And they were instructed that they were to stand momentarily whenever a beep went off in the room. Then an unsuspecting test subject came in thinking they were coming for a free eye exam. And by the third beep, this new person is now standing momentarily when the beep goes off and sitting down again. Nobody told them to do this. They have no idea why they're doing this. They're only doing it because... And there was a camera recording this whole thing. They were looking around. Everybody else was doing it. So they started to do it. She started to do it. She didn't want to be the sole person that was sitting in this room when everybody else is standing up. Even though it's absurd. Why do you stand up and then sit down just because a beep went off? Well, one by one, all the people were called back for their appointment. And eventually, she's the only one left in the room. Guess what? She still stands up every time the beep went off. But it gets worse. New people, test subjects, start coming in for their free eye exam. And they sit down. And within a couple beeps, they now start standing up every time the beep went off. No idea. Nobody in the room has any idea why they are standing up every time this little beep goes off. They had no idea why they were doing it. They were just doing it because everybody else was doing it. And you can see how then there's a collective memory to do something that nobody there had any idea why they were doing it anymore. And it was passed along. Nobody in that room was there when this thing started, and yet this group mentality got passed along. And I think that's an example of the power of social pressure. And this text here is an example of how social pressure can be wrongly used and how to respond in wisdom when it is used wrongly. We might call this relational wisdom since we are studying this in our afternoon. I think Peter demonstrates relational wisdom in how he responds to it in this instance. But we'll also see that Peter is also subject to this peer pressure as well, this social pressure as well. And he doesn't, he isn't always able to respond as he does in this text. But let's look at this then. In the first verse, we find out that the church in Judea heard about what happened at Cornelius' house. News like this always travels, it seems, faster than any one person can travel somehow. And it gets back. And so when Peter gets back, instead of rejoicing, at the grace of God, some believing Pharisees are consumed with jealousy and pride that the people they had so long despised, these Gentiles, these people that they thought of as in a lower social status to them, they were so filled with jealousy and pride that they attacked Peter. They thought they should be, they're, jealous that God would treat these people as an equal with them and cleanse them. And they are called the circumcision. It says that those of the circumcision Sometimes this phrase refers to Jews in general, like in Romans 15, eight, where it says, now I say that Jesus Christ has become the servant of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. There it's being used to speak of all of the Jews. But this use seems to be referring to a group within the Jews, primarily Pharisees, I think we read later on in Acts 15, who believed that the Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to come to Christ. And that conclusion is based on other passages and other developments. So in Acts 15, 1, we read that certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Paul would call these people the Judaizers later. And they contend so strongly against Paul and Barnabas that the church in Antioch there decided to appeal the matter to the apostles in Jerusalem. And we have in Acts 15 then this first ecumenical council that meets. And at that meeting, we read in verse five that some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed. So these are believers, the Bible says they believe, and they are Pharisees. We know that many Pharisees believed, we know many priests believed, the Bible says many priests came to faith. But they have this problem, they have this pride, this jealousy that the Gentiles, whom they regarded as beneath them, would be also included as equals with them in the covenant, in the church. And they rose up in this council and they said it is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. Now, This is a very strong social pressure being brought in the church on this point. These people are aggressive. They are contending with Peter. They're attacking. And even Peter, we read in Galatians, succumbs to this attack at one point. And Paul writes to the Galatians, now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, before these Judaizers came up from Jerusalem, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. Peter himself was of the circumcision, and so were others. So it's talking about this group of Judaizers who are very aggressive in going after anybody who recognizes the equality of the Gentiles and their ability to come or their right to come into the church without being circumcised first. And it says in verse 13, so he withdrew because he was afraid of those who were the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him. So even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. And so Paul says, when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before all, if you being a Jew live like in the manner of Gentile and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? In other words, he was a Jew and he was living like a Gentile. He was eating with them and drinking with them. And so he's saying, now why do you turn around and compel the Gentiles to live like a Jew when they're not Jews and you are? Okay, so there's an example of just how powerful, how strong this social pressure is to conform and to avoid conflict. And so these are the people that are accusing Peter in this chapter here in verse three. They pick a fight with him because he went into Cornelius' house and ate with him. They make an accusatory statement. They didn't ask him a question. Why did you do this? They made an accusatory statement. You went into uncircumcised men and ate with them. These people of the circumcision didn't seek to confirm these facts that they heard through hearsay with Peter before making the accusatory statement. And if Peter was wrong, even if he had done this, which he had, but even if he was wrong in doing that, they weren't coming alongside of him in the spirit of gentleness, lest they also be overtaken in the same fault. They were coming to fight with him, to contend with him. And they open up with a hard statement, an accusatory statement. You did this. You might think that if they had heard actually heard what had happened, how the Holy Spirit had fallen on the Gentiles, how they'd receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit like the Jews did at Pentecost, that they would at least realize that this was of the Lord. But in their in their pride or in their arrogance, they ignore these wonderful displays of grace and they attack Peter for not following one of their rules, not eating with Gentiles. And how does Peter respond? I think this is where Peter shows a lot of relational wisdom, biblical relational wisdom. Proverbs 15.1 says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. And Peter gives a solid defense, but it is a soft answer to their attack, to their harsh words. And he does, in fact, turn away their anger. A soft answer consists of gentle words not words in kind, delivered with tenderness, showing humility and deference. This is the kind of answer that brings the coals of fire on the head of an angry person. It can undercut their resentment, erode their passions, and can break the anger. When it's done in humility, not when it's done in a passive-aggressive way, but when it's done in true humility and true deference, it undercuts that anger. A soft answer also shows mercy. It doesn't give the deserved response. Doesn't give them what they deserve. It offers kindness. Instead of an in kind answer. There's a big difference. It offers kindness instead of an in-kind answer. And this is very, very powerful. It's as powerful as a sword or a rod of iron. Proverbs 25, 15 says, by long forbearing, a judge is persuaded and a soft tongue breaks the bones. By long forbearance, people are persuaded and a soft tongue breaks the bones. It's not the hammer and it's not the hard answer that changes people's minds. Gil says, mild words, gentle expressions, deliver with kindness and tenderness, humility and submission. They will work upon a man's passions, weaken his resentments, and break and scatter the storm of wrath raised in his breaths, just breaking forth in a very boisterous and blustering manner. And this is how Peter does. He gives A soft answer. A soft answer requires humility. Peter wrote later on, above all things, we are to be clothed with humility. And he says, therefore, let us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt us in due time. And that's what Peter does here. We want God to be glorified, not ourselves proven right. And Peter shows, I think, humility in a number of ways in his response here. First, he's willing to respond to their accusatory statement without defensiveness. He's willing to present why he did this in a very natural and even-handed way. Secondly, I think he shows humility in that he acknowledges his own initial rejection of God's command, and he admits his sin in this area to his attackers, and that's very hard to do. If somebody's attacking you to acknowledge your sin right into them, and that moment, that takes humility. But that's what he does. He recounts how he said not so to the Lord. and resisted the Lord. And so he's kind of putting himself in their shoes and saying, I understand how you're thinking, because I thought the same way myself. Thirdly, he doesn't assert his apostolic office to shut down their question and simply say, well, you're wrong. I'm telling you as an apostle, you're wrong. They don't get that kind of response. They don't get an authoritative pronouncement that tells them just you're wrong. He doesn't also, he doesn't rebuke them for questioning God's command. He could have said they deserve to be told, well, this is what God said. Who are you to deny what God has said? He doesn't give them that answer. He gets to that point, but he does it, we'll see, very indirectly. And I think that shows his humility. He's not here to justify himself. He's here that God would be glorified. He's here that these believers, because they are believers, that they would be restored and recovered from this error in their thinking. Now, it's not always the case that we have to give an answer to every question that's asked. There are times Jesus did not answer questions that were asked. So there are times, but in this case, this is not one of them. Peter gives a soft answer and he shows humility. And thirdly, he responds with self-control. These Judaizers of the circumcision contend with him. They're fighting with him. But he doesn't contend back. He responds by explaining something to them, and he does so in a very orderly way, starting from the beginning. That's the response of somebody who is in control of their emotions, who is not letting their agitation at being attacked get in the way. of their being able to give an orderly response from the beginning. See that he gives an orderly response and he lays out the key steps from the beginning. You're not getting a from the hip emotional response from Peter. So what does his response look like? What's the content of his response? The soft answer that's given in humility with self-control. Well, first he establishes that he prayed about this matter. That's where he starts. I prayed about this. I was praying about this. This happened while I was praying. That doesn't justify anything, but it's a good place to acknowledge that what flows came out of prayer. What follows came out of prayer. He was praying when the men from Caesarea appeared. He appeals. next to a vision from God. He quotes the word of God in appealing to this vision that God gave him, directing him to kill and eat. So right away, he's pointing to the word of the Lord for the actions that he's doing. This is what God told me in a vision. And then he, as we noted earlier, he identifies himself with their position. He says, in a sense, I thought the same thing you did. He doesn't do it in a patronizing way. He acknowledges something that would be hard to acknowledge, that I told God no, not so. So these are the kinds of identifying with where they are. Not saying to them, I don't understand why you're over there. He identifies himself with them. He says, I understand why you're there. I was there myself. And that's wisdom. That's relational wisdom in appealing to people who are fighting with you. He then relates how God sent this three times. Three times. When God says something three times, that's like underlining it in bold red, putting the letters in caps, bold red caps. Repetition in Hebrew and Greek is emphasis, and in English too. Repetition is emphasis. When we want to emphasize something, we might repeat it. And so he recounts how God told him this three separate and distinct times. God is emphasizing this. This is important, and he brings that out as well. There are very few things that God says three times. One of them is that God is holy, holy, holy. And the other here we see is that nothing that God regards as clean should we regard as unclean. Peter then relates the providential timing that accompanied this vision. At the very moment that he had this vision, he said, then these men appeared. See, God's timing is significant in things. Even when people want to explain miracles by natural laws or events like gravity, that still doesn't explain timing. If the Red Sea parted by some amazing event in the natural world, that doesn't explain why it happened exactly when Moses lifted his rod over the Red Sea. Plus, of course, who passed these natural laws? Who passed the law of gravity? God did, right? These terms are just... Our way of describing God's work in the world got the law of gravity is God's law. He passed it He enforces that he upholds it because he upholds all things by the word of his power He gives he maintains all things in existence. And so Peter emphasizes this timing Right as he has this vision the three men appear who are from the Gentiles and so it's significant It's significant in Peter's case. He then also cites the direction of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit, he says, told him to go. And we can't refuse to obey the Spirit's direction. Then he cites, next he cites his six witnesses to everything that happened. You notice he says, I took six. That's a detail that was not included in the previous chapter. People went with them, but Luke didn't record exactly how many, because it wasn't significant. But now it is. Why? Because these are witnesses to what happened. And Peter doesn't have just three witnesses. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, everything will be established. Peter cites, I have six witnesses. I have double the witnesses to these events. See, every word, everything is established by the mouth of two or three witnesses. And so Peter is establishing this, the truth of what happened, the truth of that timing, the truth of these visions. He's establishing it by six witnesses who were also of the circumcision. He then in verse, that's verse 12, and then in verse 16, he cites the word of God. He shows that this is consistent with God's word. He said, then I remembered that God said he would baptize them with the Holy Spirit. and then he also seeks to glorify God and not himself. He puts this visit to Cornelius's house as the means by which Cornelius's household is saved. And God is glorified in the salvation of sinners. And so Peter highlights this. The words that he spoke were the words that the Lord used to save them, to bring faith to them. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. So he glorifies God by appealing to the sovereignty of God and the supremacy of his word, not himself. when he delivers this very gentle rebuke to them. And he's in the form of a question. And when he does it in the form of a question, it softens it. He says, who am I that I should withstand God? You know, he didn't say who are you, why you withstanding God. Who am I to withstand God? You see, it's indirect. It's subtle, but it softens his answer, and there's wisdom in this soft answer that he gives back. They can get the implication of what he's saying. If he can't withstand God, then they can't either, but he doesn't have to actually say that. He can say, who am I? He puts it back on himself. Who am I that I can withstand God? So Peter's relational wisdom in answering and giving a soft answer to their harsh accusation, in doing so with true humility and a true desire to glorify God in this transaction and not simply defend himself or justify himself, where it accomplishes the purpose of bringing at least a temporary peace. They are quieted. Notice it says they are quieted. They don't have anything more to say. They became silent. They were silenced. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit. that they don't come back and continue the fight. But I think we can also say the Lord uses the relational wisdom in Peter in this answer to do that. But. Note that they are unwilling to concede that they were wrong and that they falsely accused Peter or they made an accusatory statement. They don't ever admit that, do they? There's no admission of their guilt because their minds were not changed. Peter's wise response turned away their harsh anger at that moment, but it didn't change their view on the matter. They couldn't answer the fact that God had told them to do this, and they couldn't, and his soft and humble response placated their anger, it undercut it. but their minds are not changed. And we know that because of what we read earlier about how in Acts 15, they come back and they still are contending for this. And when Peter goes to Antioch, there are still these people up there who are pushing, pushing, pushing. So it doesn't, it doesn't, change their minds, but they do glorify God by stating the truth that God has granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life. That is true. God did grant to the Gentiles repentance unto life, but that was not the point of contention. They never disputed that God granted Gentiles repentance unto life. What did they dispute? They disputed that Peter, as a Jew, was eating with uncircumcised Gentiles. That was the dispute. That was what they were arguing about. Not that whether or not God saved these people. And so, you see, in every way, their response is completely unsatisfactory. This debate, as we'll see, is not closed, and it's not resolved. So what do we learn from this? Well, I think, very briefly, we, again, learn Peter's relational wisdom in this situation, in that, one, Peter did not demand an apology. He'd been, they'd accused him, they'd come attacking him. He didn't say, well, you should apologize, or demand it. He was content that they were quieted, because his purpose was to see God glorified in this, not himself vindicated. So he doesn't demand an apology. He doesn't demand to be vindicated or for them to acknowledge that his view was the correct view in this. Again, because his goal is to be a peacemaker and to see God glorified, not himself proven right. I think Peter showed a lot of wisdom in not pushing this doctrinal point at this time when it was still new. there's a certain pragmatic wisdom in this, that this wasn't the right time to make a definitive doctrinal statement. This was so new. This was such a huge change that he's willing to give time for the Holy Spirit to change these hearts. He's willing to give time for people to become used to and comfortable with this massive change in their lives. And so he doesn't, this matter is not pursued. Peter doesn't call for a council and bring this matter up and have a big debate there to establish the truth. I think that Peter was wise in not doing that, in waiting. because this was a new change to the other apostles as well, right? This was something that Peter had happened to him, and he three times told the Lord not so. So where are the other apostles going to be? They haven't had the benefit of seeing these visions, of seeing this providential timing, of seeing the baptism of the Holy Spirit on these Gentiles. They haven't seen all that themselves. So Peter's aren't recognizing, hey, they're probably grappling with this as well as I was. And so he wisely decides this isn't the time to pursue a doctrinal definitive statement on this. He lets it ride. But it's not over. And we'll see that this issue does indeed come back. And there does have to be an ecumenical council that makes a ruling that is a binding decree on all the churches. But that that comes later. What we see here, and I think why the Holy Spirit put this into this passage and repeats all these things, is to give to us this instruction, this example of how to give a soft answer and turn away wrath and be a peacemaker, and how to exercise a pragmatic but principled wisdom in picking the right time to have a definitive statement be made by the church on this. And so may God give us this kind of humility, this kind of wisdom, relational wisdom, that we can be that we can be peacemakers and not succumb to the fear, fear of man. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, We thank You for the beauty of Your Word, for its completeness, that in it is everything we need to know to be thoroughly equipped to every good work. It is all the doctrine. It is a correction to us. It's instruction. It's training in righteousness. It's all we need. Lord, help us to read Your Word for all that it is worth, to plumb it for all of its wisdom, for all of its truth. And to apply it in our lives, may we not be those who, having read and learned, go away and immediately forget what we have learned or fail to apply it. But Lord, may we be doers of your word as well as hearers. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our precious Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, our elder brother. Amen.