While He Was Still Speaking
While He Was Still Speaking
The Holy Spirit's personal autonomy
It’s Holy Spirit season in today’s Acts 10 reading. But we get only a small postlude at the end of a pivotal story, the meeting of Peter with Cornelius, who becomes the first Gentile convert to Christianity. We need the whole story in order to get 10:44-48.
A Turning Point with the Movement
So earlier in this same chapter we learn that Cornelius is a Roman centurion in Caesarea. He is not a Jew, but a devout God-fearing man nevertheleess. One afternoon, he’s given a vision and visited by an angel to send men to Joppa for Peter.
Meanwhile, Peter is in Joppa, praying and hungry, and “while the food was being prepared” (Acts 10:10), he falls into a trance. This is what some of us may already know as Peter’s famous dream, where a sheet descends from heaven with all these ritually unclean animals on it, with a voice telling him, “Kill and eat.” (10:13) Peter resists this because he’s never eaten anything profane, to which the voice says, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” (10:15)
So Peter is confused about this, leading to a few more “while Peter” moments. “While Peter was greatly puzzled” over the vision (10:17), suddenly the men sent by Cornelius arrive. Then, “While Peter was still thinking” about it, the Holy Spirit calls to him, “Look, three men are searching for you.” (10:19)
So, Peter goes with them back to visit Cornelius, and he preaches some solid gospel: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all” (10:34-36). While Paul would be “apostle to the Gentiles” who famously fights with Peter over circumcision, it is Peter who first preaches the gospel to them.
And then we get today’s “While Peter”:
While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Acts 10:44-48
And so we have a key story in the early Church and the movement of the Holy Spirit. Let’s talk about that Spirit.
Holy Spirit 101
While the Holy Spirit is one third of the Trinity, some churches hardly talk about it. Let’s refresh ourselves on some basics of the Holy Spirit: the Holy Spirit is a Person, indwelling in all the faithful, with power and a will apart from humanity, sent from Jesus as his Parakletos (John 14:16), that is, his Advocate, Helper, Aid, Assistant, Comforter, Intercessor, and more. The Holy Spirit is not really about us, or even the Spirit’s own person, but about pointing us back to Christ.
As we see in our passage, the Holy Spirit loves to act while we are doing something else: “While the food was being prepared,” “While Peter was puzzled,” “While he was thinking,” “While he was still speaking.” While we’re doing something else with our own ideas, the Holy Spirit will act. Sometimes, the Spirit will act in a way that we pray for, like the Spirit did for Cornelius. Sometimes, the Spirit will go against our inclinations and first instincts, as it did for Peter.
Let’s also refresh ourselves on what the Holy Spirit is not: the Holy Spirit is not a feeling. It’s not something we can control, it’s not something we can buy, it’s not something we can manipulate. If we can manipulate it, it’s not the Holy Spirit. This is why in Acts 8, Peter is so strong in rebuking Simon the Sorcerer, and while he was initially wrong about the Gentiles in Acts 10, he was right to insist that the name of the Holy Spirit not be abused for gain:
Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money!”
Acts 8:18-21
This is a passage and point I bring up often, but it’s still important: the Holy Spirit cannot be conjured, no matter how technically proficient we become at crafting an experience. The Spirit is not a feeling, or a vibe, or the emotions in a really good worship service, but a Person, sent by Jesus to advocate for him, always pointing us back to him and the truth. Sometimes, the movement of the Spirit is quiet and discerning. Sometimes, as we’ll see with Pentecost, the Spirit is vibrant. But the Holy Spirit is uncontrollable.
The rule of thumb is that if it’s something we can control, it’s not the Holy Spirit. This is why it is always a fine line with what we do in worship in terms of music or anything else. In my church, I hope we can play music that glorifies God and points to God and gestures to God, but if we think that if we don’t play the most beautiful, perfect music that the Holy Spirit isn’t gonna be present, we are mistaken. If we think we need more musicians, or a different style, or a whatever to increase our HSQ (Holy Spirit Quotient), we’re wrong. The Holy Spirit will decide to work in Christ’s church and beyond it however the Spirit will, no matter how the music is going.
Christians traditionally believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in all baptized believers, helping us and encouraging us in our faith. But this Acts story also shows us that the Holy Spirit can come upon those who have not been baptized and had only just begun to hear the Word.
While He Was Still Speaking
And so Peter’s up there preaching a good word, saying all the right things about Jesus, but “while he was still speaking” about where Jesus had been and what God had done, the Holy Spirit came up and showed what God is doing right there and then.
The Holy Spirit often moves us towards inclusion, and this is perhaps the classic story of that in the Christian tradition: “What God has made clean, do not call unclean.” But the Holy Spirit also has boundaries, as we saw in Acts 8, and sometimes people desire to manipulate Scripture for their own purposes. It’s dangerous to presume that we fully know where the Spirit leads us, or should lead someone, or that the Spirit won’t take us one direction first before taking us another direction. As Rev. Dr. Delmer Chilton relayed his Methodist bishop saying, “If the Holy Spirit were just telling us where we already wanted to go, then the movement of the Spirit would not be necessary.” Like Peter, it’s often things we don’t want to do, sometimes calling us into struggle, strife, and pain for the sake of others.
And sometimes, we may not know the Holy Spirit’s movement until much later in retrospect. The times we’ve gotten through which went against anything we would have preferred at all, but fully relied on God and depended on Him to get us through whatever hell we were in. As George MacDonald said of Christian freedom being in dependence in God, “Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom indeed.” The Holy Spirit is our Helper in this freedom.
What are the “while Peter” moments from your own life?
And what are you “whiling” about right now?
And are you ready for the Holy Spirit to lead you another way?
