Ananias and Sapphira: What Was Really Going On? Part 2
Peter's Growth In Mercy
Part 2
In my last post I highlighted insightful context surrounding the confusing story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. I encourage you to read it to better understand what was happening in the context of that story and the life of Peter, who was responsible for partnering with their deaths. Now we will turn to specifically to Peter’s growth in learning about God, himself, and others, that happened 5 chapters later in Acts 10.
This article reveals two power truths for us today.
Prayer is a powerful and foundational practice to grow in Love, therefore, the experiential knowledge of God.
An authentic spiritual journey will continually unlearn old traditions and beliefs that are not actually in alignment with who God is.
In Acts 10, Peter goes up to a rooftop to pray, while a meal is being prepared. Little does he know, God had been preparing a meal for his hungry soul that was about to be presented to him. In prayer his hunger for physical food intensified and he fell into a trance that intensified both his lack of understanding God and the possibility to learn from what was being shown. In the vision he sees a large sheet being let down from heaven containing all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds. He then hears a voice say, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” Peter rebukes this voice because he is not about to eat anything unclean. According to his understanding of God and the scriptures, many of the animals shown to him were unclean, which would have been unlawful for him to obey.
The voice spoke a second time: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
This happened three times before the vision ended.
It usually takes us seeing something three times to learn what is being shown to us but we know this was not the case with Peter. He denied Jesus three times and Jesus was so gracious in speaking with Peter after his denials by asking Peter if he loved him…three times. (John 21:15-17) Peter was hurt when Jesus asked him more than twice, but this was because the love of God was not yet developed deeply in him. Basically, he was offended, yet Jesus had no intention of hurting him, but knew his ego had to die if he was going to follow his example of loving people like Jesus. It is the same with the vision of the animals: Peter would have to “Rise up” from within who God has called him to be (his truest self) and kill that unclean mindset that projected wrong ideas about God’s love, or lack of love, for others.
Jesus was giving him another meal in order for Peter to be able to, in turn, feed God’s sheep (people) with the right heart.
After this event with Jesus we see Peter still had issues with denying the way of Christ, as seen with Ananias and Sapphira, but we know Peter kept following God the best he knew how. In Acts 10 we see this exact struggle of Peter to curse things he deemed unclean, yet God was showing him to expand his love towards others. He would eventually learn the vision he’d seen of the living creatures represented certain people. God was, and always is, on a mission to help us understand the two greatest commandments that sum up the highest law: Love God with all you are and love others as you love yourself.
When we learn there is no “other”, we learn there is no other way but the Way of Love (Christ).
So Peter disagreed with God initially about the context of this vision and as he was pondering its meaning some people came to bring him to see another praying man named Cornelius, who had a vision he was to call Peter to himself. As you can see, God is still working on Peter (and us), through prayer and those obedient to what they see in prayer, to guide us on the journey of growth as we deconstruct old paradigms about God and scripture. If we listen to what is really being shown, we will grow in our journey with God and in our understanding of Love.
The next day Peter arrives and Cornelius falls to the ground in honor of Peter. Here we see Peter’s progression of learning humility as he immediately tells Cornelius to stand up because he is just a man like himself. If you’ve journeyed with Peter to this point in his life, you’d see how important this quick response was. He was learning that the ones he had considered “other” and therefore to be cursed, devalued, or written off, were just like himself. Peter then says,
“I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”
Those first three words are important:
“I now realize…”
Peter did not have a full revelation yet, but he was slowly realizing in part, the unconditional love of God. His life was progressing through prayer, revelation, and community with others, particularly those not like him, how the love of God was to be known in our everyday lives. What are some things you thought you knew about God and others that turned out to be incorrect? Is there something you are now realizing while reading this? Where have you shown favoritism that God might not? Does God love the whole world, or just those chosen few, like us?
All in all, Peter’s journey is enlightening as we’ve seen how he moved from partnering with death in the cursing of Ananias and Sappirha to him learning to stop cursing things, and people, he had thought were evil and unclean. Jesus was continually teaching him grace and what that looked like to live it out. Peter was not perfect, but he was growing, which is an encouraging example for us to follow.
In closing, I encourage you to develop a life of prayer. Both Peter and Cornelius were devoted to prayer, which resulted in surprising visions and revelations about God and how God is at work in the world, often in the people we least expect. Prayer gives us the eyes to see, even if startling or offensive at first, what God is revealing about God, others, and ourselves. The more we have the eyes to see, the more veils are removed that have blinded us from seeing the Love of God for others and even ourselves. The more we taste the Lord is good, the more we can receive the revelatory meals God has in store for us, both in scripture and in our actual lives. If we eat those meals, that Love will get down into the depths of our being, even if it has to be shown to us over and over and over again.
Tasting and Seeing,
-PH
“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” - 1 Peter 2:1-3
