"Kill And Eat"

Like Matthew 15, Acts 11 is a chapter of the Bible widely but superficially assumed to confirm that the dietary obligations of Leviticus 11 are no longer moral requirements.  Peter's vision of different categories of animals with a voice saying "Kill and eat" (Acts 11:5-7) would necessitate that he had seen images of animals if the event happened as written, yes.  Even though the text says he saw this vision three times (11:10), the vision and the sequence of events with Peter are not ultimately about food at all.  Rather, they are meant to push Peter to discover what he could have already known from the Torah: non-Jews are not separated from God by default for the circumstances of their birth and geography.

Before Peter told the Christians in Jerusalem about this experience, he was criticized for eating with uncircumcised men (11:1-3).  It is in this context that he relays his vision of various animals to others.  He recounts the vision of a sheet falling from heaven in which he sees reptiles (an animal class prohibited for consumption in Mosaic Law), birds, and other creatures before he hears the divine or angelic voice.  If only the account of the imagery and the voice commanding Peter to kill and eat were present, it might seem like perhaps the dietary laws, completely secondary to the morality of treating other people and regarding God justly, are annulled.

However, before the description of the vision, the focus is on interactions between Jewish early Christians and Gentiles, and afterward, the focus is the same.  Peter adds that three men came to the house where he was staying and that he went with them when it seemed like he was prompted by the Holy Spirit (11:11-14).  When the Holy Spirit is granted to Gentiles (11:15-17), he thinks of how there is no basis to discriminate against Gentiles in this regard.  Yahweh offers eternal life to repentant Gentiles no less and no less willingly than he does to Jews.

Now, Genesis 1:26-27, where it is stated early on that all humans bear God's image, and the universal moral obligations described in Mosaic Law already make it clear that being a Jew or Gentile does not grant someone additional baseline value as a human, mean someone is more aligned with reason and morality, or bring someone relationally closer to God.  Only an irrationalist would think that the Bible or its deity only invite non-Jews to accept these things in the story of Acts 11.  Any other belief would be an assumption, and one the full text contradicts from Genesis onward.

The context from the first verses of Acts 11 all the way until it shifts from the details and aftermath of Peter's vision are about Jews welcoming Gentiles alongside them as fellow humans who of course can be reconciled to God, serve him in righteousness, and be at peace with each other.  Nowhere does God say that his moral nature changed with regard to food (Malachi 3:6).  Just as Jesus was only talking about the washing of hands in Matthew 15 when he says that what goes into someone's mouth does not make them unclean, as this was a legalistic and thus irrational tradition (Deuteronomy 4:2 condemns all legalism), Peter's vision is really about something other than which kinds of animals a man or woman eats.