Acts 11 is divided into two parts. We have Peter defending Gentiles having received the Word of God. They didn’t seem to have the idea of God’s sovereignty reaching to the receiving of the Word of God. Meaning, they didn’t seem to think that if they received the Word, then God must have moved them to receive it. They do, however, trust God’s moving because they trust Peter’s account of how God led step by step.

The accusation against Peter had been that he ate with uncircumcised men. But they were circumcised of heart, a distinction of utmost importance to God.

God not only offered salvation to the praying, generous centurion but also to his whole household. He hadn’t earned his salvation through his giving, but through his right heart toward God and others, he won salvation for his whole family.

Live right toward God, because the Word tells us He answers the prayers of those doing the things that please Him. Pray for your family. God answers prayers.

We have a couple of new definitions in the first part of the chapter. We have Peter calling Cornelius and the others speaking in tongues as having been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Also, we have the believers in Antioch being called Christians. That’s when the name originated. It means follower of Christ.

In Acts 11 we have the beginning of the ministry partnership of Paul and Barnabas. We aren’t told why, but Barnabas goes and finds Paul and brings him to Antioch. They minister together there for a year.

Barnabas is described with the same words used to describe Stephen: full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

Do they go together? Can you have one without the other? The Holy Spirit in us has full trust in God! We need to empty of self and renew our minds in the Spirit and live by the full faith of Jesus living and believing through us.

I don’t understand the giving of a gift to believers in Jerusalem for the famine that hadn’t happened yet, but that was coming on the whole world. Why would the believers be more needy in Jerusalem? Did the prophecy also say that they should act now? I don’t know the answers, but I do know that people who act in faith don’t need the reasoning behind their actions. They are acting on faith and not on how things look. Beware the decision made by reasoning!