Unstoppable! 'Beauty, Stench, and Acceptance' — Acts 9:42-43

Tabitha's resurrection was news that quickly traveled throughout the town of Joppa — a beautiful sea coast city forty miles south of the important Roman city of Caesarea. (Joppa is now called Jaffa, a modern section of Tel Aviv, Israel.) Luke's notice that Peter lived with "Simon, a tanner of hides" is a vitally essential detail* in this story and the next, the conversion of Cornelius. The hides of dead animals, along with the processes and chemicals used to tan them and make them usable leather, stank terribly and could sometimes render a Jew ritually unclean. They also made Peter's location easy to find: downwind of the city on the outskirts of town, and a place that stank! The Holy Spirit is reminding us that there was no place Jesus' disciples wouldn't go, and no people with whom they wouldn't associate, to share the Good News of Christ. All barriers were gone: Rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, male and female, proper and stinky were all welcomed into the family of the Messiah!

* See the article, "The ripple effect: Simon the tanner."