What is the meaning of Acts 10:37? You yourselves know Peter reminds Cornelius’s household that the events surrounding Jesus were not secret. • Public awareness: “This thing was not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). • Eyewitnesses everywhere had heard or seen Jesus’s ministry; compare Luke 24:18 and John 12:17–19. • The gospel does not rest on hidden revelation but on verifiable, historical acts witnessed by many. what has happened The phrase gathers up the entire story of Jesus’s earthly work. • His teaching and miracles (Acts 2:22; Luke 24:19). • His death and resurrection (Acts 10:39–41, immediately following Peter’s sermon). • Fulfillment of prophecy (Isaiah 53:3–12 as echoed in Acts 3:18). These happenings form the factual core of the gospel message Peter is about to rehearse. throughout Judea Peter points to the wide reach of Christ’s ministry. • Crowds followed Jesus from “Judea and beyond the Jordan” (Matthew 4:25). • Even skeptics in Jerusalem heard and spread reports (John 7:1, 14). • The events were so widespread that on Pentecost “men of Judea” (Acts 2:14) instantly recognized the references to Jesus. beginning in Galilee The story starts where Jesus first preached after John’s arrest. • Jesus returned “in the power of the Spirit to Galilee” (Luke 4:14) and announced the kingdom (Matthew 4:12–17). • Galilee, a region of mixed populations, foreshadowed the gospel’s reach to Gentiles like Cornelius (Isaiah 9:1–2 fulfilled in Matthew 4:15–16). • The disciples’ early calling and training happened there (Mark 1:16–20), grounding their eyewitness testimony. with the baptism that John proclaimed John the Baptist’s ministry set the stage. • A call to repentance preparing hearts for Messiah (Luke 3:2–6). • John identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29–34) and testified that the Spirit rested on Him. • Peter later echoes Paul: “Before His coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel” (Acts 13:24). John’s baptism marks the transition from Old Testament expectation to New Testament fulfillment, anchoring Jesus’s mission in God’s unfolding plan. summary Acts 10:37 compresses the sweeping narrative of Jesus’s public ministry into a single sentence. Peter appeals to shared, well-known facts—from John’s preparatory baptism in Galilee to the broad impact throughout Judea—to show that the gospel rests on real events witnessed by many. This historical grounding assures Cornelius (and us) that faith in Christ is built on truth, not imagination. |
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