I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 9-10.

    As is often the case, Saul went from being an enthusiastic persecutor of the Church to one of its biggest proponents. And, as is also often the case, those who had supported Saul when he was a persecutor of the Church became his enemoies as soon as he started to preach on behalf of the Church. They did not take his conversion as a reason to re-evaluate their position. Instead they became hostile to Saul. Interestingly, Luke tells us that after Saul converted and departed for Tarsus, persecution of the Church died down. It is also worth noting that Saul was not converted by someone preaching to him. He was converted by direct intervention from God. Something we may want to keep in mind when facing strenuous opposition.

    There are some things about Cornelius that are worth noting. He was a God-fearing man who gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly. Cornelius was seeking God when the Gospel came to him. He is an example that those who seek will find. However, as most people observe, the most important part of the story of Cornelius is the message God gave to Peter. Peter realized that he should not consider any person as impure or unclean. That is the main point of this story. In God’s eyes, everyone is clean. We should not refuse to associate with anyone, no matter what. There may be people with whom, for one reason or another, we should only associate with in the company of others, but there is no one we should refuse to associate with. If they refuse to associate with us, that is on them not us.