Acts 10:17-23. While Peter is perplexed and pondering the strange vision he had, the men sent by Cornelius arrive at his door. The Spirit speaks to Peter and says "Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them." So Peter goes down and greets the men, asking the reason for their visit. They reply that they have been sent by "Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation," and that Cornelius had a vision in which an angel told him to send for Peter and to hear what he has to say. Peter invites the men in for the night and then leaves for Caesarea with them and some of the brethren from Joppa the next day.

Two things occur to me: 1. There are no coincidences; and 2. God is economical. As for the first point, Peter just had a pretty strange vision that, as far as he can see for now, was only about food and that now any animal can be lawfully consumed. In no way does that vision seem related to these men who have just arrived at his door, but the vision, the men, and the Holy Spirit telling Peter to accompany the men, happen in such quick succession that there must be some relation, and we will later see what that is.

Peter (and we, if we were reading this for the first time), might very well think that everything that just happened - Cornelius having a vision to send for Peter, Peter having a vision about all animals being edible since Jesus has cleansed them all, and the Holy Spirit telling Peter to go with these strangers coming to his door - is merely coincidental. But God has a plan and everything works towards its completion. So there really are no coincidences, all has been taken into account by our omniscient God and all is used for His purposes, and when He acts directly, by sending angelic visitors or visions, then we can be sure there is something big going on and we must trust and do our best to do His will.

That brings me to point 2 - God is economical. The most important thing happening at the time of these events is the growth of the Church. God is providing every necessary miracle, situation, power, and gift, to get His new Church off and running. But if He had to communicate every single detail by vision or message of an angel to His disciples, the disciples would be spending an awful lot of time listening to His messages; an awful lot of time being perplexed; and they would come to rely too much on His messages. God wants us to use our own talents, abilities, and reason to do His will, He's not always going to tell us blatantly what that is!

However, in this situation, there is a large hurdle to overcome for the Jewish apostles to start welcoming Gentiles (much less a centurion!!) into the new Church. This is an area where God does have to let the apostles know that this is what He wants. There is also a large hurdle to the Gentiles becoming true believers in whether or not they will have to start following all of what they see as arcane Jewish laws and customs, such as dietary restrictions, and circumcision (which will come up later). So God sends Peter a vision, and that vision seems to be about the lifting of dietary restrictions, but it contains the seeds of welcoming the Gentiles into the Church, as well. If Jesus' death cleansed all of the animals of the earth, it certainly also cleansed all of the people of the earth, including the Gentiles. This will not occur to Peter until later, but God has given Peter all he needs to figure it out from this vision.

God's messages almost always have multiple meetings. Often the meaning we get from them at the time is meant for that moment, while further meanings don't become clear until later (and we should keep an eye out for seeming "coincidences" in order to flesh out those further meanings). All of the meanings are true and intentional, because God is economical and accomplishes much with a single Divine interaction.