Therefore, Whether We Live or Die, We Are the Lord’s

An angel tells Cornelius to send for Peter, and Peter, while at prayer, sees a vision. A sheet let down from heaven is filled with unclean animals, and when a voice commands, “Kill and eat,” Peter replies, “I will not eat anything impure.” After this happens three times, Cornelius’s men arrive at the door, and the Holy Spirit tells Peter to go with them, doubting nothing.

Peter knew that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ, yet he was still bound by the outward forms of the law. Later, at Antioch, he was sharing a meal with Gentile believers but drew back when the circumcision party arrived, and the apostle Paul rebuked him for it. In the church at Rome as well, Jewish Christians who kept the feast days and food laws and Gentile Christians who felt free of them were judging one another. Paul declares neither side right or wrong; instead he says that their quarrel has nothing to do with salvation.

Scripture forbids despising a brother or causing him to stumble over food and feast days. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s, and so to wait for a brother until he grows for himself, holding him close in the meantime, is the maturity God desires. A church whose members build one another up in this way is not one he rebukes.