ACTS 10:34-48: AN EXEGETICAL EXPOSITION WITH APPLICATION ON THE THEME, "GOD RESPECTS NO MAN.

Today, people lament over the evils in the society and the prominent among them is partiality. Many times, it is seen where what rightfully belongs to someone is given out to another.  The most annoying part of it is when the receiver is one who is even better off compared to the marginalized. In such occasions, the marginalized find it hard to talk because his/her father, brother, uncle, friend or any other relative is not in the helm of affairs. The oppressed has no other option than to swallow pin and accept the situation hook line and sinker. 

In most cases, the rate of partiality in the society has made some people to think that partiality is already a sub-culture and nothing is exempted from being partial. Even in people’s dealing with God, they sometime feel that God is partial as well. However, it should be noted that the evil of partiality is prevalent in the world of humans but not God, who is not a respecter of any man. As an all benevolent God, he treats everyone based on the right standard, no matter who the person is – academic qualifications, social status and many other reigning trends in the world notwithstanding.  For He (God) is good and in Him there is no partiality. It is in the light of this that it is considered expedient to look into the topic “God Respects No Man”  

BACKGROUND

Acts of the Apostles is known as a transitional book. First, it records a transition between the Gospels and Epistles. Second and most importantly, Acts records a transition between the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ and that of the Apostles of the early church (McCain 154). Without Acts, it would have been impossible to explain how and where the early church came from and what God’s desire for the church was (Kisau1323). Acts is believed to be written by Luke, a Gentile Physicians to Theophilus, a noble Christian and all lovers of God across the earth (Life Application Study Bible 1684).   

Acts of Apostles is characterized by a multiplicity of themes such as Church beginnings and growth, the Holy Spirit as well as opposition, but the overarching theme of the book as recorded in Acts 1:8 is that of spreading the gospel from Jerusalem throughout the earth (Polhill and Draper 23). From this, the overall purpose of the book is the presentation of the beginnings of Christianity in Jesus’ life and extension of Christianity in early Church so as to convince readers by the irresistible advance of the Gospel that God through the Holy Spirit really is working in human history for the redemption of all humankind (Gundry 220). 

Acts distinctiveness is that it is a book of firsts, as it recorded about eighteen events that first happened in the early church which had not taken place in other books of the New Testament. One of these first events is the Gentile conversion as contained in our chapter 10 where our text falls (Gromacki 154).  This chapter falls in the second part of the book which records taking the Gospel to Samaria, a Gentile nation (McCain153). The encounter Peter had in Cornelius house such as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his household and that of the Gentiles speaking in tongues made Peter to assert, “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality”(Acts 10:34). Which means God respects no man (KJV). It is this statement, “God respects no man” that would form the basis of our discussion this morning as we shall explore our anchor textt, Acts 10:34-48, as to discover what the text meant to the original recipients and to us today using the following subheadings: