The Mission to the Gentiles
The gentile mission is a major theme in Acts.
In ch. 6, Stephen is falsely accused of blasphemy. As a result, the people seize him and bring him before the council. False witnesses testify against him. Then Stephen makes a long speech, which recounts Israel's history, and he ends by accusing the Jews (of whom he is one) of killing the prophets as well as Jesus. Enraged, they stone Stephen to death. This stoning initiates a persecution of the Christians. In 8.1 we read,
That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.
The Jews and the Samaritans had undergone a gradual split. The earliest evidence of this comes from the Persian period (after the Assyrian Exile). According to Josephus, the origins or the Samaritans can be found in the foreigners ("Cutheans") which were brought by force into Israel after Israel's defeat by the Assyrians (722 BCE).
Samaritans only recognized the Pentateuch as scripture, and the Samaritan Pentateuch differed greatly from the Jewish Pentateuch. Like the Jews, they affirmed that there is one God, Yahweh. They believed that Moses was God's mediator. Their central place of worship was on Mt. Gerzim. Moreover, they believed in a coming Day of Vengeance and Recompense to be initiated by the Messiah, whom they called Taheb.
In Acts, Samaritans make up an intermediary category: they are halfway between Jews and gentiles.
Ironically, this persecution leads to the spread of the gospel.
We might think the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch as the next step toward inclusion of gentiles. Philip is directed by an angel to go down from Jerusalem to Gaza. He comes across a Eunuch reading a prophecy of Isaiah. Philip asks the Eunuch if he understands what he's reading, and the Eunuch replies that he cannot understand it, unless someone guides him. In 8.34-39 we read of the conversion of the eunuch:
The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.
For Lk, the full initiation of the gentile mission comes in the conversion of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. He is told in a vision of an angel that he should send for Peter, and he does so at once.
Meanwhile, Peter also has a vision:
Philip
About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, "Get up, Peter; kill and eat." But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean." The voice said to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven" (10.9--16)
For Lk, this vision is indicative of God's opening of the way for the conversion of gentiles. When the men sent by Cornelius come to Peter, he goes with them to Caesarea. In 10.44-48, Cornelius and the other gentiles who are with them receive the Holy Spirit and are baptized.
However, the question of whether or not gentiles may be saved without circumcision caused controversy among the believers.
Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders.
The question of gentile conversion resulted in the Apostolic Council, which was a definitive moment in the history of the church. The point of issue seems to have been whether or not gentiles had to become Jews (by becoming circumcised and adhering to the law of Moses) before their conversion to Christianity. After some debate, James, who is the leader of the Jerusalem church, comes to a decision:
Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues (15.19-21).
Paul himself offers a somewhat different understanding of the events of the Apostolic Council. We can read about his interpretation of these events in Galatians 2.
