Acts 10 is usually remembered as the story of a vision: a sheet let down from heaven, full of animals Peter had always been taught not to eat. But it is also, quietly, a story about houses. Where Peter was staying. Whose door he was asked to walk through. Who sat down to listen in a Roman officer’s front room.
Read it with that in mind, and it has a lot to say about the homes we keep and the people we let into them.
Lodging by the sea
When the story opens, Peter is staying in Joppa “with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea” (Acts 10:6). That small detail matters. Tanning was smelly, messy work with animal hides, and in Jewish tradition it was often regarded as unclean. A tanner’s house was not where a respectable religious leader might be expected to stay. Yet this is where Peter has been lodging for many days, and it is on this man’s roof that God speaks to him.
Before the lesson about Gentiles even begins, Peter is already sleeping under the roof of someone others might look down on. God seems to be preparing him one house at a time.
Crossing a threshold
Then messengers arrive from Cornelius, a Roman centurion in Caesarea. Peter invites them in and gives them lodging, which is itself remarkable. The next day he travels to Cornelius’s house and says plainly that it was considered unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but God had shown him not to call any person unclean (Acts 10:28).
Cornelius has gathered his relatives and close friends. The room is full. And Peter begins his message with words that must have been hard-won:
“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.” (Acts 10:34-35, NIV)
The gospel went forward that day through an open front door.
Favouritism in our own houses
Most of us would never say that some people are unclean. But our homes can tell a different story. Think about who gets invited to Sunday dinner and who does not. Which relatives are welcomed with the good plates and which are left standing at the gate. Whether the helper eats at the same table as the family. How we speak about the tenants downstairs, or the neighbours from another island, another country, another part of town.
James saw the same problem in the early church. He described a well-dressed man with gold rings being shown to a good seat while a poor man in shabby clothes is told to stand or sit on the floor, and he called it discrimination with evil thoughts (James 2:1-4). The setting was a gathering of believers, but the instinct is one many of us bring home.
Property can make it worse. Owning a house brings a kind of status, and sometimes we start to rank people by whether they own or rent, by the size of their yard, by whether their house is finished. Those rankings slip into conversation without our noticing. “Them people who rent over there.” “She married into a family with no land.”
Freedom that shows up at the door
The freedom God gives in Christ is not only inward. It frees us from the need to protect our standing by keeping certain people out. Peter was freer after Caesarea than before, even though it cost him criticism from other believers in Jerusalem. He could now sit at any table God set before him.
In a home, that freedom might look like:
- Inviting the family that recently moved into the district, whatever their background, before they have to ask.
- Treating a tenant as a neighbour, not only as a source of rent: greeting them by name, fixing things promptly, praying for them.
- Seating the elderly uncle who has nothing next to the successful cousin who has everything, and making sure both are served first.
- Letting children hear you speak respectfully of people other households might look down on.
None of this requires a large house. Simon the tanner’s place by the sea was probably nothing special. What mattered was that its door was open.
For reflection
- Who would be surprised to be invited into your home? What might it mean to invite them?
- Are there habits in your household, in seating, speech or welcome, that quietly show favouritism?
A prayer: Lord, you showed Peter that no one is beyond your welcome. Search our home for the quiet favouritism we have stopped noticing. Make our table wide and our door easy to knock on. Let everyone who comes in, whatever their name or their means, find here a glimpse of your acceptance. Amen.
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