The step that Peter took across Cornelius’s threshold to enter his house was a big one. Peter had make some significant strides forward in his maturity in Christ, but this one was one of the biggest. Physically speaking, Peter simply walked into a Gentile’s house, but it was a place that the Jews would consider to be “unclean”. Spiritually speaking, Peter just walked into a place that showed his understanding and acceptance of Christ as bigger than all of the Jewish traditions and prejudices against the Gentiles.

The passage reads as the conversion of Cornelius and his household, and it is. This entire house full of people is about the receive the Holy Spirit, the first time that Peter will have seen this amongst the Gentiles. But possibly in an even greater way, this passage shows Peter’s conversion, fully leaving behind the old, human ways of thinking that had bound him and taking on the way of God by entering into Cornelius’s house.

While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.

Acts 10:27-28

How many people do we think of an “unclean”? I suspect that there might be quite a few. Those that are literally not clean, maybe they are dirty and smell bad. Or maybe those that come from cultures that are very different from ours. To us, what they eat or how they keep their home, or the way that they manage their society, is repulsive. It could even seem to be the very definition of “unclean” to us.

There could be many of these types of people, and even if we would affirm the idea in the company of others that we should be ready to go to these people, we frequently simply remain ready without actually going. There ends up being a difference in our public words and our true practice.

In Peter’s case, he needed to be taught, and thankfully, Jesus did teach him.

And we also have been taught. Through the example of Peter and many others, we can clearly see that which is God’s desire. He wants everyone to know him. Without prejudice. Without predetermination from a human perspective. He wants that all will go to the other person to tell them about him. That they also can be reconciled back to him through Jesus.

But like Peter, we can either be part of the problem, or we can be part of the solution. Peter could have chosen to ignore the vision that Jesus gave to him. Peter could have chosen to ignore the men who came to take him to Cornelius’s house. Peter could have stopped short of entering through the threshold of the home. He could have been what blocked the Gospel from going forward, but instead he became the conduit through which the Gospel came to Cornelius and his entire household. They received the Holy Spirit and were baptized.

Peter both learned a great lesson that day and went on to teach that same lesson to others, that God had given the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. But Peter only learned that lesson because he was willing to risk stepping over the threshold into Cornelius’s house.

Now, what about each of us? Will we learn the same lesson, pushing beyond that which, from our perspective, seems to be unclean? Will we be a block for the Gospel, or will we allow God to use us to bring forward the greatest story ever told and the greatest news ever heard? If we want God to use us, we will likely need to step over the threshold, take a risk, and allow him to work in the midst of that which seems to us to be unclean.