Bible Verses About Peter: Advocates, in the council of the apostles and elders, the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles

The apostles and brothers throughout Judea soon heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers took issue with him

and said, “You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

But Peter began and explained to them the whole sequence of events:

“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision of something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came right down to me.

I looked at it closely and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air.

Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat.’

‘No, Lord,’ I said, ‘for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

But the voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’

This happened three times, and everything was drawn back up into heaven.

Just then three men sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying.

The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s home.

He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter.

He will convey to you a message by which you and all your household will be saved.’

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He had fallen upon us at the beginning.

Then I remembered the word of the Lord, as He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder the work of God?”

When they heard this, their objections were put to rest, and they glorified God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

After much discussion, Peter got up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that the Gentiles would hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.

And God, who knows the heart, showed His approval by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as He did to us.

He made no distinction between us and them, for He cleansed their hearts by faith.

Now then, why do you test God by placing on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?

On the contrary, we believe it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”