We learned that a new church is established mainly among the heathen, comparatively few of a former church becoming members of the new church. There is generally, among those of an old church, a prejudice against heathen, because they do not believe as the church does. This prejudice was very strong among the Jews. Remember that they had "no dealings with the Samaritans," and that at the trial of Jesus the Jews did not dare enter the judgment hall of Pilate, he being a Roman and so a heathen, as it would defile them or make them unclean, and so unfit them to take part in the great feast of the Passover.

It almost looks from our today's chapter in Acts as if Simon Peter, who had been a Jew, shared this prejudice, and thought that only Jews would become followers of Jesus the Christ. He probably did not fully understand the Lord's injunction to "teach" (or, more literally, to "make disciples of") all nations; nor that the Lord's saying that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations" meant among the Gentiles. He may have thought that it meant those Jews who lived in other lands and spoke the tongues of the nations of those countries. Be that as it may, it was evidently necessary for Simon Peter to be taught by means of the vision, and also by means of the coming of the three men by Divine direction, that the "unclean," or heathen, were to become Christians as well as the "clean," or the Jews.

What a beautiful story this is in the Acts! See how the Lord hears the devout prayer of this good heathen, who believes in God, even though he may not have had a true conception as to who or what God is. For you know that the Romans worshiped many gods. Yet the Lord had respect to this Roman centurion, Cornelius, because he was an earnest and good man and wanted to know the truth. Indeed the Lord began with him to establish the Christian Church among the heathen.

Once before, during His presence on earth, the Lord had come in touch with a Roman centurion. Can you find the place in the Gospels? You will notice that the Lord had laid the foundation of all His subsequent work among Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles by His own acts, while He was still visibly among men.

In the second chapter of Acts the story is told how the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples like cloven tongues of fire, which sat upon them, and, being filled with the Holy Spirit, they began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now we read how, when Peter visited Cornelius at Caesarea, and preached to the company of relatives and friends whom Cornelius had invited to hear Peter, the Holy Spirit came down upon these Gentiles, and they also "spake with new tongues."

All this was in fulfillment of what had been foretold by John the Baptist and by Jesus Himself. When John the Baptist called upon the people to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and when he baptized people, thus preparing them for the coming of the Lord, he told them, "I indeed baptize you with water, but there cometh one after me. . . . He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." And Jesus Himself, after His resurrection and before His ascension to heaven, when commissioning the eleven apostles to go into the whole world and preach the gospel, said that those who would believe in Him would "speak with new tongues."

The coming down of the divided tongues as of fire upon the apostles was a Divine miracle. Being such, although it is told in the book of the Acts (which is not an inspired book of the Word, and does not contain a continuous internal sense), the miracle nevertheless signifies spiritual and heavenly things. This is what distinguishes Divine miracles from miracles that are not Divine. The fire signifies love. Here it signifies the love of truth. Their being filled with the Holy Spirit signified their receiving the Divine truth from the Lord. The new tongues signified their confessing the Lord from the love of truth. To love the truth is to be zealous for it.

It was similar with Cornelius and his company. They were in a state of mind ready to listen to and receive what Simon Peter said, and as they heard and believed what he said, the truths they heard became part of their minds, and from these truths, which were new to them, they confessed the Lord. Their speech thus was new.

It matters little whether or not we speak foreign languages, but it does matter a great deal whether we think from the heart the truths of genuine Christianity.

At the present day the Lord has very kindly and mercifully and lovingly given us genuine truths in abundance, so that we may and do "speak with new tongues." Sometimes other people do not understand us when we speak of our religion. The ideas we have and even the terms we use to express these new ideas are a "foreign tongue" to them. But if they are really in search of the Truth and pray to the Lord, as Cornelius did to God, then they will learn to understand and speak the new tongue; that is, think the new thoughts which the Lord reveals to us out of heaven from Himself, in the Writings of the New Church.

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