Where did God show Peter that he should not call any man common or unclean?
God showed Peter in a vision of a sheet filled with clean and unclean animals. Through that vision, Peter understood he should not call any man common or unclean. The lesson applied not merely to food but to the human race and the opening of the gospel to Gentiles.
Les explains that Peter, speaking to Cornelius, recalled how it was unlawful for a Jew to keep company with or come unto one of another nation. But Peter said, “God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.” The place God showed him was the vision of the sheet with all of those clean and unclean animals. Les points out that Peter then got the meaning: God was not talking about just eating food, but about the human race. This fit the opening of the gates to Gentiles, which would widen in chapter 11 and then extend through Paul and Barnabas’s missionary journeys in chapter 13, largely to Gentiles as Jews rejected it.