Acts 10:1

The book of Acts tells the story of the early Christian church expanding outward from Jerusalem to the rest of the world. Cornelius was a Roman centurion — a military officer commanding approximately 100 soldiers — stationed at Caesarea, a major coastal city in what is now Israel. He was a Gentile, meaning he was not Jewish, which was a significant social and religious distinction in the first century. The early followers of Jesus were almost entirely Jewish, and many assumed the gospel was primarily for Jewish people. Cornelius' story will go on to permanently break that assumption wide open.

God, you work in the most unexpected people in the most unexpected places, and I keep missing it because I have already decided who qualifies. Forgive me. Open my eyes to who you are already drawing near to you, and give me the courage and humility to walk toward them. Amen.

A Roman soldier. A man from the occupying empire. Not a rabbi, not a religious expert — just a military officer whose name Luke drops at the opening of a chapter that will change the direction of Christian history. What we learn shortly is that God was already at work in Cornelius before any preacher arrived. He prayed. He gave to the poor. He sought God across every barrier that should have made him invisible to the early church. The story begins before the ministry begins. It is easy to assume we know who God is drawing and who he is not. We form quiet conclusions about people based on their background, their job, their relationship to organized religion, their politics. But this single introductory verse — a man's name and rank, nothing more — quietly dismantles all of that. What if the person you have already written off is someone God is already at work in? What would it look like to approach the people around you with that kind of open, expectant imagination?