Acts 11:4-24

⁴Then Peter told them all the things that happened.

⁵He said, “I was in the town called Joppa and I was praying, and I had like a dream, but I was still awake. I saw something like a big sheet with things in it. Somebody was holding on to the 4 corners and they let it come down from heaven to me, on the ground.

⁶I looked inside it and saw all kinds of animals, and lizards, and snakes, and birds.

⁷Then I heard a voice say to me, ‘Get up Peter. Kill some of those animals and eat them.’

⁸But I said, ‘No, boss. I will not. Our law says we can’t eat that kind of animal. They are no good, so I never eat any of them.’

⁹Then I heard that voice from heaven again. It said, ‘If God says that something is good, don’t say it is no good.’

¹⁰That happened 3 times, and then that sheet and everything in it went back up into heaven.

¹¹Just then 3 men came to the house I was staying in. They came from Caesarea.

¹²The Holy Spirit told me, ‘Don’t worry, just go with those men.’ So I went with them, and these 6 other men here, they went with me too. We got there and went into a man’s house.

¹³That man told us that he saw an angel in his house. The angel said, ‘Simon Peter has a message for you, so send somebody to Joppa to get him. He will tell you the way God can save you, and your family, and everyone else in your house too.’

¹⁵I started talking to those people and then the Holy Spirit came into them. It was just like the first time that he came into us.

¹⁶And I remembered that our leader Jesus said, ‘John baptised people with water but God will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’

¹⁷You know, we believed in our leader Jesus Christ and God gave us the Holy Spirit. And now those people that are not Jews, believe in Jesus too, and God gave them the Holy Spirit too, just like he gave him to us. So, you see, I couldn’t try to stop God, could I? No way.”

¹⁸The Jewish Christians heard Peter say that, and they stopped growling at him. They started to thank God and say he is really good. They said, “Now we understand it. God will let anyone come to him, even people that are not Jews, and after they turn away from doing bad and come to him, he will give them new life that never stops. God is so good.”

¹⁹Before this, at the time when some men killed Stephen, they wanted to kill the rest of the Christians too. So a lot of Christians ran away from Jerusalem, and went a long way, even to other countries. They told people in those places the message about Jesus, but they only told it to their own countrymen, the Jews. Some of those Christians went to Phoenicia country, and some to the island called Cyprus, and some to the town called Antioch.

²⁰But some of them, men that belonged to Cyprus and the town called Cyrene, they went to Antioch and didn’t just talk only to Jews. They talked to Greek people too, and told them the good news about our leader Jesus.

²¹God helped them tell his message, and a lot of people that were not Jews believed in Jesus and followed him.

²²The Christians in the church in Jerusalem heard about these things happening at Antioch, so they sent one of their men called Barnabas to Antioch.

²³He got there, and he saw everything that was happening, then he knew that God was very good to those people in Antioch, so he was very happy. He told those new Christians, “Stay strong for Jesus and keep following him all the time.”

²⁴Barnabas was a good man. The Holy Spirit controlled him and he really trusted God. He got lots more people there to follow Jesus.