Acts 10:9-16. The day after Cornelius has his vision, Peter has a vision in Joppa. While awaiting a meal, Peter goes onto the rooftop to pray, and there he falls into a trance where he sees something like a sheet descending from heaven, filled with every kind of bird and animal. A voice says to him "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." Peter protests that he has never eaten anything unclean, but the voice says "What God has cleansed, you must not call common." This happens three times before the sheet is raised back up into heaven.

(What is it with Peter having to deny things three times before he gets the point?) This vision will later convince Peter to visit Cornelius, a gentile, but right now it's all about the food! Everything in this world was put here for us, and God wants us to enjoy the fruits of His handiwork. But God had given Moses very detailed laws about what the Jews could and could not eat, so Peter was not wrong to protest (at least the first time!🙂).

Obviously, there was a time and a reason for the prohibitions against eating certain things but, also obviously, that time has now passed. Something has changed, and the voice tells us what it is. It says "What God has cleansed, you must not call common." Everything in creation has been cleansed by its Creator's death! This applies to the food we eat, as well as the people we serve, as we will see when Peter visits Cornelius.