Acts 10:36

The word which he sent unto the children of Israel, preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all).

Peter's entire speech, as recorded here, requires only fifty-eight seconds to be read aloud, which fact underscores the error of Dibelius, who said that "in the conversion of a centurion, such a comparatively long speech can have no place. (It) is a literary composition of the author Luke."[21] There can be no way of viewing this as "such a long speech"; such a criticism exposing the bias and unreliability of the criticism.

The same author declared that, "Except for Acts 10:34-35, there is nothing in the present speech relevant to the special question of Gentile evangelization."[22] But that remark is an unbelievable affirmation that (1) the lordship of Jesus Christ, (2) the mighty works of the Master, (3) the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, (4) the final judgment of all men, (5) the remission of sins through faith in Christ, and (6) the fact of Christ's being appointed to be the Judge of all men in the last day - that none of these things is relevant to evangelizing Gentiles! Dibelius' contention in this is as wild, irresponsible and unbelievable as any comment this writer has ever seen. It is repeated here only to illustrate the monstrous errors men will swallow in their efforts to discredit some portion of the New Testament.

All of the mighty teachings listed in (1) through (6) above are not merely relevant to the evangelization of every man on earth, whether Jew or Gentile; but they are the sine qua non of the whole system of Christianity as delivered by Christ and his apostles.

[21] Martin Dibelius, Die Bekehrung des Cornelius (Gottingen, 1951), p. 97.

[22] Ibid.