What does Acts 11:5 mean?
Peter is in Jerusalem, explaining to the church why he ate with Gentiles in Caesarea Maritima. He starts his story in Joppa, where he had been called to raise Dorcas from the dead (Acts 9:36–43). He was staying at the home of a tanner named Simon and went to the rooftop to pray. Simon lived in Joppa, near modern-day Tel Aviv. In this verse, Peter is specifically repeating the events given in Acts 10:9–11.On the sheet are several different types of animals, including reptiles and carrion birds which the Mosaic law forbids as food (Acts 11:6). A voice tells him to kill and eat. When Peter refuses, the voice tells him God has made unclean things clean (Acts 10:12–15).
Vision is from the Greek root word horama. It typically means the image of a prophecy one sees while still awake, like Peter and the sheet of non-kosher food (Acts 10:9–16). Dreams is translated from the Greek root word enypnion and essentially means a prophecy received while sleeping. Prophesy is from the Greek root word prophēteuō. It means "to declare information given by revelation from God."
Peter's vision taught him that as Jesus had declared all food clean (Mark 7:19), He likewise declared all people clean—not that all are saved, but that no person should be thought of as spiritually "unclean" and beyond God's salvation. Peter should welcome all the people from the four corners of the world—or sheet—to his table. In the church, the strict segregation of Jew and Gentile is nullified (Romans 10:12).