Acts 10:9-15
The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.
And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance
and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.
In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.
And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”
And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
Bible Gateway link
The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.
And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance
and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.
In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.
And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”
And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
Bible Gateway link
Enjoy your posts.
ReplyDeleteI believe Salvation is a gift / blessing from God, not possible to "earn the right" to Heaven.
"For we walk by Faith not by sight"
Bless you, Dave
There's an unfortunate tendency in much of modern Christendom to focus so much on "faith" as to denigrate good deeds. The New Testament brings us the abolition of the vast majority of the ritual law (why, after all, does the Apostle Paul go on extensively about circucision, for instance). Peter's vision above, like the Council in Jerusalem, is another example of this. It does not mean that we should not do things, though. The parables in Matthew 25 are among the numerous instances in the New Testament that make it plain that the Lord expects us to do good deeds--to feed the hungry, to visit the prisoners. One knows faith is true faith when it is accompanied by virtuous living and repentance. "Opening your heart" to the Lord doesn't mean a blessed thing, if it's just an idea or a feeling entirely divorced from the way one lives. One does not earn one's way into Heaven by works or, frankly, by anything, (grace is, after all, a gift of God), but one certainly makes it likely to be rejected, like the goats, if one "believes" without doing.
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