Acts 11:18 When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.
God’s Accent
I love listening to accents, and each of us has one. If you think you have no accent, all you would have to do is travel outside of the country for someone to know where you are from by how you talk. We all feel at home with the accent with which we are accustomed. For instance, when we get home to Middle Tennessee and I listen to the radio I do not think to myself, “There’s a southern accent.” I think instead, “There’s a Nashville accent.” Accents can be very specific. We tend to feel at home with people that sound like us, look like us, or have the same customs. With what does God feel at home and at peace? Where does God place His accent?
The word “accent” means “to give special attention to.” When we are talking, it can be to say a part of a word with greater stress. It is important to remember that God puts a greater accent on what you believe and whom you believe than He does on where you were born or where you live now.
In Acts chapters 10 and 11 we find that the gospel was spread not just to the Jewish people, but also to Gentile people. God sent a Jew named Peter to take the good news to a Gentile named Cornelius. Some of the Jewish people confronted Peter by saying, “It is not right that you fellowshipped with a Gentile like Cornelius.” Peter emphatically defended his gospel witness to Cornelius, and explained that God was the God of the whole world and that anyone could come to God by faith in His Son.
Peter and Cornelius had almost nothing in common except the time in which they lived. Peter was a Jew; Cornelius was a Gentile. Peter was a fisherman; Cornelius was a soldier. Peter was an apostle; Cornelius was a centurion. God puts a greater accent on what you believe than where you live or what you do.
The gospel is God’s greatest unifier. The thing that Peter and Cornelius did have in common was their faith and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is greater than our culture, the why and the way we do things here and now. I should have more in common with God’s people who don’t sound like me or live far from me than I do with people close by who don’t yet know the Lord Jesus. We should love both groups of people, but we should realize that the gospel is the highest source of unity.
Where do you place your accent in life this morning? Love the people where you are, but remember that God puts a greater accent on what you believe than on where you live.