“I truly understand that God shows no partiality….” (Acts 10:34).
We were studying Acts 10 in our church Bible study last evening, and I was once again struck by the significance of this one line spoken by Peter.
It’s a remarkably simple sentence. No parable. No metaphor. No theological gymnastics. Just the clear truth. God shows no partiality. God doesn’t divide people into all the categories we have created; rather, God created us all and sees us as his beloved creation. God sees all and loves all … not just the “us’s” but also the “them’s.”
Peter says this standing in the home of Cornelius, a Gentile centurion—an outsider by every metric that would’ve mattered to Peter in his world. This understanding didn’t come easily. It required more than a little nudging by God to get Peter to the point where he could make this statement with conviction of its truth. God stepped in to rearrange Peter’s theology by showing him the breadth and depth of God’s grace. And God wants to do the same for us.
The simplicity of the statement is part of its power—and part of its challenge. We like to keep our exceptions. We prefer rules with footnotes for ourselves, grace with boundaries, and love with qualifiers. “God shows no partiality” leaves no room for that nonsense.
And that’s where it gets hard.
Impartiality sounds beautiful in the abstract. In practice, it challenges our instincts to sort and rank others according to our arbitrary standards. It presses against our assumptions about who belongs and who is worthy. It exposes the quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, ways we divide the world into “us” and “them,” even when we know better.
Peter’s realization didn’t come from winning an argument. It came from meeting people face-to-face that he’d have preferred not to have met at all. It came from listening. It came from watching the Holy Spirit come to people whom Peter assumed it would ignore. God didn’t wait for Peter to approve; grace moved first. Peter simply had the honesty to see it for what it was and name it.
That may be the invitation for us as well.
Whose faith have we questioned because it doesn’t look like ours? When have we doubted God’s love for others because we don’t “like” them? What if the church’s task is not to manage God’s generosity, but to keep up with it?
The center of Peter’s speech that day isn’t a rulebook or a boundary line, but a person. Jesus. “All the prophets testify about him (Jesus) that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:43). That’s the only test, our only standard.
Everyone who believes receives. No exceptions. Again and again, we are surprised by the wideness of God’s welcome. Again and again, we are invited to catch up.
