But Peter helped him up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
We have here the meeting between Peter the apostle, and Cornelius the centurion. Though Paul was designed to be the apostle of the Gentiles, and to gather in the harvest among them, and Peter to be the apostle of the circumcision, yet it is ordered that Peter shall break the ice, and reap the first-fruits of the Gentiles, that the believing Jews, who retained too...
Commenting on Acts 10:19-33
But Peter took him up,.... As he lay at his feet, and lifted him up and set him on his legs: saying, stand up; and continue in this posture: I myself also am a man; a mortal man, a man of like passions with others, no better than others by nature: and it was by grace, and not any merit of his own, that he...
Verse 26. Stand up, etc. This does not imply that Peter supposed that Cornelius intended to do him religious reverence. It was practically saying to him, "I am nothing more than a man, as thou art, and pretend to no right to such profound respects as these, but am ready in civil life to show thee all the respect that is due."--Doddridge. (d) "stand up"