Healing the Rift

Day 35: Deuteronomy 11–15; Proverbs 12–16; Acts 10–12

Deuteronomy 11-15 concerns laws and instructions concerning how the people are to behave in the promised land.  Th writer warns against idolatry, following the detestable ways of the Canaanites and to remember the true God who lead them out of slavery in Egypt.  They are to not sacrifice under trees or at any altar, but at the place where God appoints His sacrifices to be made.  This is the writer's way of pointing forward to the temple in Jerusalem, generations in the future. 

If animals are eaten their blood must be drained, for the life is in the blood (Deut. 12:22-23).  God, the life-giver, has already appointed the blood as an atonement for the people.  Blood is not to be ingested for it is set aside for this life giving, life redeeming purpose. (Sorry, Count Dracula!)

There is a reminder also of the food restrictions in Deuteronomy 14.  And there is provision through a ten percent tithe of the harvest a means by which Levites, the poor, widowed and orphaned and the foreigner are cared for (Deut. 14:28-29).  Chapter 15 urges the people to be "open handed" toward the poor.  If the Israelite gives tot e poor without a stingy heart, God will bless him in all his work and everything he does (Deut. 15:10).

"Whoever shows kindness to the poor will be happy (Pr. 14:21b)."
"The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life (Pr. 14:27a)."

Kindness to foreigners, strangers and the poor is something the early church also learned to practice.  But by the time of Jesus and His followers Jewish tradition had made it religiously illegal for a Jew to enter a foreigner's house (Acts 10:28). 

Peter was given a vision of a sheet falling down from heaven with a variety of unclean animals forbidden by the holiness code.  No Jew is to eat them.  On the sheet may have been...

the camel, the hare, and the hyrax, and the pig, the eagle, the bearded vulture,
the black vulture, the kite,the various kinds of falcon, every kind of raven, the ostrich,
the short-eared owl, the gull, the various kinds of hawk,  the little owl, the long-eared owl,
the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, the stork, the various kinds of heron,
the hoopoe, and the bat and winged insects. (Deut. 14:7-19)

God told Peter to eat what the law forbid.  Peter thought it a test and refused claiming never to let any unclean or common food into his mouth.  But the voice of God in the vision said, "do not call unclean or common what I have made clean (Acts 10:15)."  This happened three times convincing Peter that God had spoken to him and prepared him to go with 3 gentiles who were sent by a Roman centurion named Cornelius. 

Cornelius was a God-fearer and a man who practiced charity.  The Jewish community of Caesarea respected him.  Now Cornelius' good works and His faith were being rewarded.  He was told to send for Peter in a vision.   The one who showed kindness to the poor was soon to be blessed with eternal life!

Peter shared the gospel and Cornelius and his whole household were filled with the Holy Spirit.  Peter and his Jewish Christian companions were amazed that God had poured out the Spirit on Gentiles as well.  So they baptized them with water in the name of Jesus.

In the ministry of Jesus we see a redeeming of rifts and separations which were necessary under the covenant with Moses.  Israel was yeast in the dough, light in the darkness.  They had to separate from the gentiles in order to become a people holy to God.  Through this centuries long work of God Israel produced Messiah Jesus.  Now through the new covenant in His blood, a repentance resulting in life (Acts 11:18) is now healing the rifts and bringing Jew and Gentile together in one family of God (Eph. 2:13-19).

Lord, Thank you for the work of healing You have done and are doing in Jesus.  It means a poor gentile like me might come to enjoy the rich blessings of the children of God through the repentance resulting in life. Amen