Acts 10:44-48: in context

Peter is in the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, preaching the gospel to a room full of Gentiles, something he had only just been persuaded by a vision that God permitted. And before he can even finish speaking, God acts. While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. The Jewish believers who had come with Peter are astonished, amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, because they heard them praising God in other tongues, exactly as had happened to the first believers. God did not wait for Peter to finish, or for the church to hold a meeting and approve, or for these outsiders to first become insiders. He poured out his Spirit on them directly, on his own initiative, running ahead of every category the believers were still holding.

Watch Peter's response, because it is the only honest one available. Faced with the undeniable fact that God had already welcomed these people, he asks, can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? He does not get to decide whether they are in; God has already decided, visibly, before Peter could object. All Peter can do is catch up to what God has plainly done. The boundary the insiders wanted to police, God simply stepped over, welcoming the outsider by his own hand while the gatekeepers watched, amazed.

That confronts my own instinct to police the boundaries of who belongs. I have my categories of who is really in and who is not, who I expect God to welcome and who I quietly assume he would not, and I can spend energy guarding those lines. Acts says God pours out his grace on the very people I would exclude, running ahead of my categories, and leaves me, like Peter, only able to catch up and say, who am I to withhold what God has already given? When God's grace falls on someone outside the boundaries I have drawn, am I amazed and resistant, or do I recognize his welcome and ask, who am I to stand in the way?