Acts 10:15
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The voice spoke to him a second time: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common--The ceremonial distinctions are at an end, and Gentiles, ceremonially separated from the chosen people (Act 10:28), and debarred from that access to God in the visible ordinances of His Church which they enjoyed, are now on a perfect equality with them.
Open source ↗It is a turn very new and remarkable which the story of this chapter gives to the Acts of the apostles; hitherto, both at Jerusalem and every where else where the ministers of Christ came, they preached the gospel only to the Jews, or those Greeks that were circumcised and proselyted to the Jews' religion; but now, "Lo, we turn to the Gentiles;" and to them the door of faith is here opened: good news indeed to us sinners of the Gentiles. The apostle Peter is the man that is first employed to admit uncircumcised Gentiles into the Christian church; and Cornelius, a Roman centurion or colonel, is the first that with his family and friends is so admitted. Now here we are told, I. How Cornelius was directed by a vision to send for Peter, and did send for him accordingly (Act 10:1-8). II. How Peter was directed by a vision to go to Cornelius, though he was a Gentile, without making any scruple of it, and did go accordingly (Act 10:9-23). III. The happy interview between Peter and Cornelius at Cesarea (Act 10:24-33). IV. The sermon Peter preached in the house of Cornelius to him and to his friends (Act 10:34-43). V. The baptizing of Cornelius and his friends with the Holy Ghost first, and then with water (Act 10:44-48).
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience,
To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
A man is not defiled by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out of it.”
because it does not enter his heart, but it goes into the stomach and then is eliminated.” (Thus all foods are clean.)
I am convinced and fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.
He said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.
But the voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’
Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to let his eating be a stumbling block.
He made no distinction between us and them, for He cleansed their hearts by faith.
Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.