Peter's Vision of the Sheet

Text and Narrative

The account appears in Acts 10:9–16. Peter was staying in Joppa at the house of Simon, a tanner (one who works animal hides) (Acts 9:43). About noon he went up on the housetop to pray, became hungry, and fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and a vessel like a great sheet, knit at the four corners, let down; in it were four-footed beasts, creeping things of the earth, and fowls of the air. A voice said, "Rise, Peter; kill, and eat," but Peter refused, saying that he had never eaten anything common or unclean. The answer came: "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." After this happened three times, the vessel was taken back up into heaven. At that very moment, men sent by Cornelius, a centurion of Caesarea, arrived. Cornelius had earlier seen a vision of his own and had sent them. Peter later recounted this vision in Jerusalem (Acts 11:4–10).

Background

The Mosaic law divided animals into clean animals, which could be eaten, and unclean animals, which could not (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14). These regulations served as a marker distinguishing Jews from Gentiles. Jews regarded close association with Gentiles as unlawful (Acts 10:28). The Greek word koinos, translated "common," means "ordinary, not set apart as holy." Akathartos, translated "unclean," means "impure." Othonē, translated "sheet," refers to a linen cloth.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

Peter applied the vision to people. He said, "God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean" (10:28), and "God is no respecter of persons" (10:34). As he preached in the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles, and they were baptized (10:44–48). This event is cited again at the Council of Jerusalem as grounds for not requiring circumcision of Gentile believers (Acts 15:7–9). With regard to food, the passage is often read together with Mark 7:18–19, where Jesus' words are understood as declaring all foods clean (KJV: "purging all meats"). Peter, however, later withdrew from eating with Gentiles at Antioch and was rebuked by Paul (Galatians 2:11–14). This episode shows that the insight did not take hold immediately.

Interpretation and Debate

• Food or people? Most Protestant denominations read the vision as carrying both meanings: a call to accept Gentiles, and an indication that the ceremonial law (the laws concerning sacrifice and ritual purity), including the Old Testament food regulations, came to an end in Christ. The Westminster Confession of Faith likewise confesses that the ceremonial law has been abrogated. The Seventh-day Adventist Church takes a different view. It holds that because Peter himself interpreted the vision as concerning people, the passage did not abolish the Levitical distinction between clean and unclean foods. It therefore counsels its members not to eat unclean animals.
• Supplementary interpretations: Some interpreters take the four corners to represent the four directions of the whole world, or connect the threefold repetition with Peter's three denials. These ideas, however, are not stated in the text itself. Nor does the text say that any particular animal, such as the pig, was in the vessel.
• The first Gentile convert? Many accounts treat the Cornelius episode as the starting point of the mission to the Gentiles. Because it is preceded by the account of Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8), however, interpreters differ on whom to regard as the first Gentile convert.

In the Korean Church

The Korean name for the episode, the "bojagi vision," came into wide use because the New Korean Revised Version (Gaeyeok Gaejeong) renders the vessel as a "great bojagi" (a traditional wrapping cloth). In preaching, the passage is cited when addressing missions and the overcoming of prejudice and discrimination.