Luke, the beloved physician and constant companion of Apostle Paul on his missionary journey never gave us the impression that he was anything special. He never spoke about himself and his qualifications. You have to search diligently to discover anything about him. We only found out that he was a physician in Colossians 4: 14. Since the book of Acts started as a letter to a highly placed nobleman, he must have been a physician of no mean caliber and moved in corridors of power.
When you read his voluminous and comprehensive accounts of our Lord’s birth and life on earth, as well as the activities of the Holy Spirit through His Apostles and the early church (Gospel according to Luke, and the book of Acts), there is no doubt that he must have done a whole lot of research in the process. He it was who filled in many of the details surrounding the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he must also have been a very disciplined, diligent and consecrated man of God.
What a refreshing demonstration of self-effacement on the part of Luke in fulfilling his ministry! So diametrically opposed to what we see around us today. While his calling was different and less visible and acutely private when compared to the apostles, he nevertheless left behind a legacy of accuracy, transparency, faithfulness, humility, and love.
This Father, is my fervent prayer as I worship and serve my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Household and society at large.
And you’d be right to wonder what Luke, the beloved physician, has to do with the title you read above, although we know it for a fact that he must have been a prayerful Gentile (debatable) too. I guess I just felt I owe a tribute to this man who worked so hard (anyone who has done research and written a book will tell you that). Also, I am and so overwhelmingly thankful for his faithfulness in recording events in the bible and more specifically in this case, as it relates to the conversion of arguably the first gentile in Christendom, as it teaches so much about God’s amazingly impartial Grace to anyone regardless of gender, race, colour, origin or antecedent.
Isn’t it amazing that there are more ‘Gentile’ Christians today, and it is the Messianic Jews who are now very much in the minority!! The exact opposite of how the Church started. It is indeed the ‘ Time of the Gentiles, and we do well to remember that if we as Christians cannot stand up for Christ now, we are not likely t be able to once the Rapture (catching of all Christians into heaven) takes place and the Anti-Christ is given control of governance on earth. At that time, God’s focus will return once more to the Jews, so He can fulfill His Promise to redeem Israel as nation. Which is why we must never forget that the Period of Grace is closing fast, and now is the time to rush to enter in. But I digress.
Cornelius, is the person we shall focus on in this first part of the topic. The Bible describes him as a sincere and prayerful God-fearing man who cared about the less privileged and practice what he believed as best he could. So why did his conversion deserve this special divine attention? There are no indications whatsoever that he was a proselyte (convert ot Judaism), but I dare to stretching my creative imagination a bit here by suggesting that he had probably heard about Jesus Christ and the events surrounding His crucifixion before his conversion.
The first few verses in Acts chapter 10 reminded me of the details given us about the ‘just and devout’ Simeon who first acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah in Luke 2: 25 – 32, when Jesus was taken to the temple to observe the Jewish rite of circumcision 8 days after His birth! And to imagine this was no Jew.
To the contrary, Cornelius was a Roman soldier! A very unlikely candidate for such a profile! In the first place, Romans worshipped a pantheon of gods alongside the Emperor. And to get an idea of what soldiers were like in those days, we only need to refer to the warning of John the Baptist to the soldiers who came to be baptized. According to Luke 3: 14, their stock in trade seemed to have been extortion, bribery, false accusation, violence, and corruption of all kinds.
And to buttress this, all we need is to check out the role they played during the crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. They were clearly hardened, violent, vicious, proud and greedy men who went beyond the call of duty in their wickedness. It was not enough for them to follow the instructions to whip or Lord Jesus Christ to the point of death. They also had to humiliate him by dressing him up in royal robes and putting a crown of thorns on his head, and spitting on Him. All this against a defenseless, non-violent man who had done them no personal harm. And to cap it all, they were so shameless in their greed that they did not hesitate to share his clothing during his crucifixion!!
Cornelius, though high up in the pecking order, might have had every opportunity to benefit from the proceeds of such devious activities, as is common with those high up. And yet he was described in the Acts 10: 2 as devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.
As the book of Proverbs declares, ‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom’. So Cornelius was not only a wise man, but his fear of God went beyond talk to practice. Furthermore, it is clear that he was able to carry his family along in his beliefs, which suggests that he must have been a loving man. And judging from the friends he invited to the meeting with Peter, (Acts 10: 24) he did not hide his beliefs, but gladly shared and influenced many positively. In an odd way, it was as if he too had heard and obeyed Jesus’ instructions to His disciples to gather in one place in order to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit!! And as we all know, they, all thses Gentiles, did receive the Holy Ghost baptism in exactly the same way that the gathering of 120 disciples did!! What a glorious, faithful, merciful God we serve!
Lord increase my love for you and grant me the grace to be able to stand out among my peers as your child, in the mighty Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!
Which brings us to the main point of our topic: What I imagine, going by the above, would have been Cornelius’ regular prayer:
O Lord God, Creator of Heaven and Earth. The Only true and righteous God who is full of mercy, even towards a gentile like Naaman, a soldier like me who did not know you but whom you healed. The self-existence God who reveals Himself to anyone who seeks you with all their heart and soul and mind. I thank you for revealing yourself to me and for all your goodness in my life. I come to you again today because I am confused and I know you are the only One who can bring peace and calm into my confusion.
There is this story that has been flying around that the promised Messiah has come. They say he looked like any other human being, and yet performed miracles of all sorts at a scope and that no man ever before had done, even to the point of raising a man who died and had been buried for four days! And the man is still walking around among us today to confirm the story! Lord, God, this does not make sense to me! What kind of Messiah looks like, and dresses like everyone else that it took one of his friends to point him out to the soldiers who went to arrest him?
What kind of Messiah rides on a donkey?
What kind of Messiah does not have, and even goes as far as to warn warn his disciples publicly not to fight with the sword! And this was confirmed in ranks of soldiers as we hear he patched back in mere seconds, the ear of a soldier cut off by one of his followers, thereby averting the senseless killing of so many by-standers! And that he even declared publicly that if he wanted he could ask his Father to send a legion of angels to protect him. But that He wanted to be arrested to fulfill what the Jewish scriptures had prophesied!
Lord God of hosts, we now hear that he was indeed crucified on the cross like a common criminal on the basis accusations that even Pilate, that violent man, knew to be false. They say Pilate knew and even declared him innocent and tried his best to get him released but the Jewish leaders resisted energetically and even incited a mob to drive home their point!
So much confusion in my spirit Lord. We have had many so-called messiahs in the past and we never needed the Jewish leaders to point them out to us. This is because they had all been violent men who disturbed the peace by inciting riff-raff to sabotage the government and terrorize the populace. And the Jewish leaders never said a word in the past against these violent messiahs who have proved false! Why, I even heard one of these Jewish leaders supporting the last so-called messiah, expressing his hope that he would deliver them from subservience to the Romans!!!
So Lord, how come this time, it was the Jewish leaders who had never given a damn in the past, who now spearheaded the jungle justice to ensure this man was killed? I even heard to my greatest horror that when Pilate pointed out the innocence of the man, they were so insistent that they publiclydeclared that his blood should be upon themselves and their descendants!! What makes this man such a threat to them, Lord? A man who lived such a lowly life hat he did not even have a house to call his own! And why would he allow himself to be crucified in such an undignified manner if he was the true Messiah?
And even more confusing, Lord God, is that I now hear that he is still alive!!! They say he had clearly declared he would rise again several times to his disciples before he was crucified! They said this was why the Jewish leaders asked that the tomb he was buried in be guarded closely! And now I hear a rumour among the battalion that some of the guards posted to guard the tomb are now living in luxury. Luxury far beyond the extortion that most others soldiers like them could enjoy.
Some say the soldiers were bribed with heavy sums by the Jewish leaders to say that the body of the man was stolen by his disciples when they fell asleep! All the soldiers fell asleep?? I know that cannot be true!! And how come they are all still alive, when the automatic punishment for such negligence was death! We also hear that some other soldiers returned the money and have now joined the followers of this Messiah, who are called the Way, while others have developed psychological issues continually insisting, secretly of course, that they know that nobody stole that man’s body and could not understand how he disappeared! And to buttress their point, the supposed stolen body has not been found anywhere till today! Plus none of the disciples has been arrested for this supposed misdemeanor.
And the story now running the rounds is that this man, who is supposed to be dead, has appeared to many of his disciples physically since then! Even to as many as 500 at a time!! So it cannot be hallucination. Mighty God, what exactly is the Truth? I am confused Father God! Could this man indeed be the True Messiah? And if so, how come he hasn’t yet taken over power? When is He going to take over power and rule with a rod of iron?
And again there is the new boldness and courage of those semi-literate, simple men who were his disciples! We hear they are going about declaring that the man is the expected Messiah, and that they are performing miracles in his name just like he did! I don’t know what to believe, Lord God. Help me please because I know that this is a matter of heaven or hell for me. If this is the Messiah, I need to know so I can follow him …
And that was when God answered Cornelius’ prayer. He sent an angel to tell him (Acts 10: 4 – 6): “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter, He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea”.
Cornelius sincerely asked God all the right questions and God sent His angel to reassure him his prayers would be answered if he obeyed Him once again. And our amazing God left no detail out. The angel provided Cornelius with all the information he needed – names, profiles, address, and even directions on how to get there! A divine Google and GPS in the first century AD! How great is our God! What a great and wonderful adventure to know Him and serve Him! Glory be to His holy Name!
God assigned this great assignment no less than the apostle Peter to to bring the Good News to this Gentile who was desperately seeking God. And to imagine that I too can attest today, over two thousand years later, that this God is the same yesterday, today and forever (PLEASE CHECK MY CONVERSION TESTIMONY ON THE WEBSITE). Praise be to His Holy Name.