Worship & law

Peter and the unclean food: Acts 10:14

Years after Jesus’s ministry, Peter has a vision of unclean animals and hears a voice telling him to kill and eat. His first answer tells us a great deal about what Jesus had taught his closest disciples.

1The question

What does Peter’s reply in Acts 10:14 tell us about Jesus’s teaching on food?

2What Christians believe

Christians read Peter’s vision as a turning point. God shows Peter that the old line between clean and unclean no longer divides his people, and the voice says, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common” (Acts 10:15).

Christians connect this with Mark 7:19, which many modern Bibles translate as Jesus declaring all foods clean, and with Paul, who says he is persuaded “that there is nothing unclean of itself” (Romans 14:14). On this view the food laws ended with the new covenant, and Peter had to learn it.

3What the texts say

The vision

And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth:
Acts 10:11 · KJVRead in context →
And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
Acts 10:13 · KJVRead in context →
But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
Acts 10:14 · KJVRead in context →
And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
Acts 10:15 · KJVRead in context →

What Peter says the vision meant

And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.
Acts 10:28 · KJVRead in context →

Mark’s account of Jesus’s teaching

And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;
Mark 7:18 · KJVRead in context →
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
Mark 7:19 · KJVRead in context →

4What scholars say

Craig S. Keener (Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, 2012–2015) notes that when Peter explains the vision himself, he applies it to people: God has shown him not to call any person common or unclean (Acts 10:28). The vision prepares him to enter the house of Cornelius, a Gentile.

James G. Crossley (The Date of Mark’s Gospel, 2004) argues that the dispute in Mark 7 is about washing hands and purity customs added by tradition, and that the passage assumes the food laws of the Torah are still kept.

Scholars agree that Peter, by his own account, had never eaten unclean food up to this point, and that the early church argued for years about how Jewish and Gentile believers could share meals.

5The Islamic perspective

In the Qur’an Jesus confirms the Torah and makes lawful only some things that had been forbidden, by God’s permission. The Qur’an explains that some good things had been forbidden to the Children of Israel as a burden:

And (I come) confirming that which was before me of the Torah, and to make lawful some of that which was forbidden unto you. I come unto you with a sign from your Lord, so keep your duty to Allah and obey me.
Qur’an 3:50 · PickthallRead in context →
Because of the wrongdoing of the Jews We forbade them good things which were (before) made lawful unto them, and because of their much hindering from Allah's way,
Qur’an 4:160 · PickthallRead in context →

Muslims read Peter’s words as a witness to Jesus’s practice. A disciple who walked with Jesus for years had never eaten anything unclean, which fits a prophet who upheld the food laws. Pork remains forbidden in the Qur’an too (2:173), as it was in the Law Jesus kept.

6Objections and responses

“The voice tells Peter, ‘What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common’ (Acts 10:15). That is about food.”

Response: Peter himself explains the vision a few verses later: God has shown him that he “should not call any man common or unclean” (Acts 10:28). The vision is about welcoming Gentiles, and Peter draws that lesson, not a new rule about pork.

“Jesus had already declared all foods clean in Mark 7:19; Peter simply had not understood.”

Response: Mark’s Gospel is traditionally said to preserve Peter’s own memories. If Jesus had openly declared pork clean, Peter of all people would have known. The KJV reads “purging all meats”, describing digestion, and the passage is about eating with unwashed hands (Mark 7:2–5).

7Conclusion

Both sides agree that Peter had never eaten unclean food during and after his years with Jesus, and that his vision opened the way for Gentiles. Christians see the vision as also ending the food laws. Muslims see Peter’s words as evidence that Jesus kept those laws and never taught his disciples to drop them.

Read Acts 10:9–35 as one passage and notice what Peter says the vision meant.

8Watch and read more

Watch

Video coming soon. [Add your YouTube video link for this topic here.]

Related topics

Sources