Acts 10: Power and humility

How easy it would have been for Peter to become puffed up.

Just a few years ago, he was a humble fisherman. But look at him now!

When he speaks, thousands hang on his every word (2:41); he heals the lame (3:7, 9:33-34); people "carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them" (5:15); he even has power over life and death (5:1-10, 9:36-41).

How easy it would have been for Peter to start thinking that he was pretty great. Maybe even as great as Jesus? After all, what could Jesus do that he couldn't?

And now this.

Peter is summoned to the house of a Gentile, a centurion named Cornelius. As he enters, "Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him" (10:25).

Now, I don't know what it's like to be worshiped. I'd imagine it could be quite intoxicating. But Peter doesn't let his mind become so muddled as to believe that his power is his own. He does not forget that everything he has, everything he is, is a gift from God, and that he acts only in the name and the power of Jesus.

Peter knows he is not the new Christ. He is only, as it were, the babysitter; Jesus had to go away for a little while, so he asked Peter to tend his flock while he was gone (Jn 21:16).

So he lifts up Cornelius, saying, "Stand up; I too am a man" (10:26).

And then he preaches to the Gentiles the Gospel of the true God-man.

(Image: Francesco Trevisani, "Peter Baptizing the Centurion Cornelius," 1709)