God didn’t ordain the culture of patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were part of the ancient Near Eastern world. The law given to Moses presumed preexisting cultural values common to this wide geographical region. This is evident in part because the laws of other nations have some overlap with laws in the Torah. This is not to say that Israel had no unique laws or cultural trappings. There was such overlap, but it was tied to faith in the God of Israel, the God of the Bible.
From the call of Abraham forward, God’s relationship with Israel hints that God’s human family would extend beyond the world of the ancient Near East. God told Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Even though Abraham and Israel were called to be distinct, God knew his salvation plan was bigger than any ethnic or cultural identity. The book of Acts makes this point unmistakable.
Acts 10 records the conversion of Cornelius, a Roman centurion and a gentile. His is the first conversion account of a non-Jew in the New Testament. Peter played a central role in this conversion, but only after God had given him a dramatic vision that would convince him that the gospel of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, was for gentiles as well as Jews (Acts 10:11–15):
[Peter] saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
The dietary laws of the Torah were well known to Peter and, judging by his response to the vision, had been strictly observed throughout his life. The divine command to “kill and eat” unclean animals, and the interpretation of the vision, was an object lesson for Peter. God would direct him to the house of Cornelius later in the chapter (Acts 10:17–33). To his surprise, he was expected. Cornelius had been seeking God (Acts 10:1–8), and God answered by sending an angel to tell him a man named Peter would tell him what he needed to hear. When Cornelius told him about the angel, the vision God had sent him earlier opened his eyes (Acts 10:34–35): “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” The result of Peter’s visit opened the floodgates to the spread of the gospel to “all nations of the earth” (Gen. 12:3), irrespective of culture.