Acts 10:35

In every nation. Peter dimly realized that Christianity was not to be national. In his dealings with Cornelius he began to see how this might be, though he did not yet understand it thoroughly. Paul would shortly declare that neither race, nor sex, nor social status have any bearing in God’s sight.

The Jews had come to look upon themselves as exclusively the objects of God’s interest, care, and mercy. Whereas prior to the Babylonian captivity they had conformed their lives and their religious beliefs and practices to those of the heathen nations about them, after the Captivity they put forth extreme efforts to insulate themselves from their Gentile neighbors. They developed a spirit of exclusiveness that made them despise non-Jews and deny their eligibility to acceptance with God.

At first this spirit of exclusiveness constituted the chief barrier to the advance of the gospel among non-Jews. Had Christianity remained but a sect of Judaism — as Jewish Christians at first conceived of it — it could never have claimed the allegiance of all men everywhere. The first major task of the church was therefore to break the tight bonds of Judaism. In the conversion of Cornelius the Holy Spirit led the infant church to take its first important step in that direction.

Feareth him. This and the following phrase may be thought of as covering, respectively, the two tables of the law — the first referring to man’s duty to God, the second, to his duty to his fellow men.

Accepted. Or, “acceptable.” God has no longer a chosen race of people. He calls all men to repent, and accepts those who do so in sincerity.