I can relate to Peter’s dismay at being challenged to eat ‘unclean’ food (see Acts 10:9-16). Growing up in a Jewish family with a mum who strictly adhered to all the Jewish dietary laws, I know how it really goes against the grain to eat anything not kosher.

I remember when I was about 10 years old, sneaking out with my brother down to the local Wimpy shop (that’s the original hamburger chain if you’re too young to remember!) and enjoying the delights of a tasty burger in a toasted bun. Unfortunately, the pleasure was short-lived as an intense feeling of guilt soon set in which lasted for about two weeks! Ask any Jewish person who was a child evacuee during World War II about what they hated the most about being evacuated to new families (other than being taken away from their own family) and probably at least 95% would say having to eat non-kosher food. It would have been the nearest thing to torture!

So for Peter, this was a radical change that went against the very heart of his identity. To add insult to injury, God led him to eat together with non-Jews for which he got strongly condemned (see Acts 11:1-3). But it’s clever how this issue over clean/unclean food develops on to the gospel message being available to everybody. It’s with a certain amount of shock that the Jewish believers come to the realisation that salvation is available to the Gentiles (see Acts 11:18) after all, in their eyes anybody not a Jew was considered to be ‘unclean’ just like unclean food.

I guess even as Christians, we can fall into the same trap as the Jews did by looking at others as being ‘unclean’. It can be pretty annoying sometimes to think that God wants us to embrace everybody, whatever they’re like. Maybe the key to this is to recall the words in Isaiah 64:6 - But we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. Oh dear - how very humbling!