Following God into Mission

This week, while you meet with your Faith Formation Group you may want to reflect on our Scripture passage by reading Acts 11:1-18 (printed below) and discuss the questions from the Scripture and Sermon as a way to begin a conversation. 

Acts 11:1-18

Acts 11:1    Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God. ² But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him. ³ “You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!” they said.

Acts 11:4    Then Peter told them exactly what had happened. ⁵ “I was in the town of Joppa,” he said, “and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky. And it came right down to me. ⁶ When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and wild animals, reptiles, and birds. ⁷ And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’

Acts 11:8    “‘No, Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean.^a’

Acts 11:9    “But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times before the sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to heaven.

Acts 11:11    “Just then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. ¹² The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. ¹³ He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. ¹⁴ He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’

Acts 11:15    “As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning. ¹⁶ Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?”

Acts 11:18    When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.”

Questions for Consideration:

Acts 11 is one of the first watershed moments within the early church. The leaders of the church had to decide if they were going to keep this new movement of Christ locked up within the traditions and assumptions of the historic “inherited” Church or whether they would have the faith to follow the outward missional calling of the Holy Spirit to allow the Gospel to speak to new people in different context then their own. 

1. What was the response of the leaders of the church when they found out that Peter had given the Gospel to Gentiles?  Have you ever experienced this type of response because of doing something out of the leading of the Lord? Have you ever responded like the leaders to something someone has done within your church that you don’t find consistent with your beliefs?
2. How did Peter respond to the criticism of the leaders?
3. What was the end result of the meeting?
4. How can we apply this message to our church today?

As you meet this week, we encourage you to also take time to open yourselves up as a group and dialog on the following Wesley Challenge question: How do I spend my spare time?  (Pages 79-83 in The Wesley Challenge)