Acts 3:11-5:42

The Voice

^9-11A crowd ran to the commotion, and they gathered around this man in an open area called Solomon’s Porch. There he was, standing on his own two feet, holding on to Peter and John. They knew exactly who he was—the beggar they passed at the beautiful gate every day. Everyone was absolutely amazed at this wonderful miracle; they were speechless, stunned.

Just as Jesus promised, the Spirit comes on believers in power, enabling them to do miracles like this. Now they can participate in the truth of the good news.

Peter (to the crowd): ¹²Why are you so amazed, my fellow Israelites? Why are you staring at my friend and me as though we did this miracle through our own power or made this fellow walk by our own holiness? ¹³We didn’t do this—God did! The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob—the God of our ancestors has glorified Jesus, God’s servant—the same Jesus whom you betrayed and rejected in front of Pilate, even though Pilate was going to release Him. ¹⁴He is the Holy and Righteous One, but you rejected Him and asked for a murderer to be released to you instead. ¹⁵You not only rejected Him, but you killed Him—the very Author of life! But God raised Jesus from the dead, whom my friend John and I have seen with our own eyes. ¹⁶So that’s how this miracle happened: we have faith in the name of Jesus, and He is the power that made this man strong—this man who is known to all of you. It is faith in Jesus that has given this man his complete health here today, in front of all of you.

¹⁷Listen, friends, I know you didn’t fully realize what you were doing when you rejected and betrayed Jesus. I know that you, and your rulers as well, were acting in ignorance. ¹⁸God was at work in all this, fulfilling what He had predicted through all the prophets—that the Anointed One would suffer. ¹⁹So now you need to rethink everything and turn to God so your sins will be forgiven and a new day can dawn, days of refreshing times flowing from the Lord. ²⁰Then God may send Jesus the Anointed, whom God has chosen for you. ²¹He is in heaven now and must remain there until the day of universal restoration comes—the restoration which in ancient times God announced through the holy prophets. ²²Moses, for example, said, “The Eternal One your God will raise up from among your people a prophet who will be like me. You must listen to Him. ²³And whoever does not listen to His words will be completely uprooted from among the people.”^[a]

²⁴Every prophet, from Samuel through all of his successors, agreed. ²⁵You are the descendants of these prophets, and you are the people of God’s covenant to your ancestors. God’s word to Abraham includes you: “Because of your descendants, all the families of the earth will be blessed.”^[b] ²⁶So when God raised up His Servant, God sent Him first to you, to begin blessing you by calling you to change your path from evil ways to God’s ways.

4 The conversation continued for a few hours there in Solomon’s porch. Suddenly, the head of the temple police and some members of the Sadducean party interrupted Peter and John. ²They were annoyed because Peter and John were enthusiastically teaching that in Jesus, resurrection of the dead is possible—an idea the Sadducees completely rejected. ³So they arrested Peter, John, and the man who was healed and kept them in jail overnight. ⁴But during these few afternoon hours between the man’s miraculous healing and their arrest, Peter and John already had convinced about 5,000 more people to believe their message about Jesus!

⁵The next morning, the Jewish leaders—their officials, elders, and scholars—called a meeting in Jerusalem ⁶presided over by Annas (the patriarch of the ruling priestly clan), along with Caiaphas (his son-in-law), John, Alexander, and other members of their clan. ⁷They made their prisoners stand in the middle of the assembly and questioned them.

Jewish Leaders: Who gave you the authority to create that spectacle in the temple yesterday?

Peter (filled with the Spirit): ⁸Rulers and elders of the people, ⁹yesterday a good deed was done. Someone who was sick was healed. If you’re asking us how this happened, ¹⁰I want all of you and all of the people of Israel to know this man standing in front of you—obviously in good health—was healed by the authority of Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One. This is the same Jesus whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead. ¹¹He is “the stone that you builders rejected who has become the very stone that holds together the entire foundation”^[c] on which a new temple is being built. ¹²There is no one else who can rescue us, and there is no other name under heaven given to any human by whom we may be rescued.

¹³Now the leaders were surprised and confused. They looked at Peter and John and realized they were typical peasants—uneducated, utterly ordinary fellows—with extraordinary confidence. The leaders recognized them as companions of Jesus, ¹⁴then they turned their attention to the third man standing beside them—recently lame, now standing tall and healthy. What could they say in response to all this?

¹⁵Because they were at a loss about what to do, they excused the prisoners so the council could deliberate in private.

Jewish Leaders: ¹⁶What do we do with these fellows? Anyone who lives in Jerusalem will know an unexplainable sign has been performed through these two preachers. We can’t deny their story. ¹⁷The best we can do is try to keep it from spreading. So let’s warn them to stop speaking to anybody in this name.

¹⁸The leaders brought the prisoners back in and prohibited them from doing any more speaking or teaching in the name of Jesus. ¹⁹Peter and John listened quietly and then replied,

Peter and John: You are the judges here, so we’ll leave it up to you to judge whether it is right in the sight of God to obey your commands or God’s. ²⁰But one thing we can tell you: we cannot possibly restrain ourselves from speaking about what we have seen and heard with our own eyes and ears.

^21-22The council threatened them again, but finally let them go because public opinion strongly supported Peter and John and this man who had received this miraculous sign. He was over 40 years old, so his situation was known to many people, and they couldn’t help but glorify God for his healing.

²³Peter and John, upon their release, went right to their friends and told the story—including the warning from the council. ²⁴The whole community responded with this prayer to God:

Community of Believers: God, our King, You made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything they contain.^[d] ²⁵You are the One who, by the Holy Spirit, spoke through our ancestor David, Your servant, with these words:

    Why did the nations rage?
        Why did they imagine useless things?
²⁶    The kings of the earth took their stand;
        their rulers assembled in opposition
        against the Eternal One and His Anointed King.^[e]

²⁷This is exactly what has happened among us, here in this city. The foreign ruler Pontius Pilate and the Jewish ruler Herod, along with their respective peoples, have assembled in opposition to Your holy servant Jesus, the One You chose. ²⁸They have done whatever Your hand and plan predetermined should happen. ²⁹And now, Lord, take note of their intimidations intended to silence us. Grant us, Your servants, the courageous confidence we need to go ahead and proclaim Your message ³⁰while You reach out Your hand to heal people, enabling us to perform signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.

³¹They finished their prayer, and immediately the whole place where they had gathered began to shake. All the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began speaking God’s message with courageous confidence.

The Holy Spirit changes everyone and everything. If there is any doubt about the power of the Spirit, just take a look at Peter. When Jesus was captured, Peter cowered in fear that he might be identified as a man who loved Jesus. Now this same man is preaching, healing, and pointing his finger in the face of Jewish officials who have captured him and John. With a boldness that is not his own, he blames them for the death of Jesus and does not cower at their show of violence.

³²During those days, the entire community of believers was deeply united in heart and soul to such an extent that they stopped claiming private ownership of their possessions. Instead, they held everything in common. ³³The apostles with great power gave their eyewitness reports of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Everyone was surrounded by an extraordinary grace. ³⁴Not a single person in the community was in need because those who had been affluent sold their houses or lands and brought the proceeds ³⁵to the emissaries^[f] of the Lord. They then distributed the funds to individuals according to their needs. ^36-37One fellow, a Cyprian Levite named Joseph, earned a nickname because of his generosity in selling a field and bringing the money to the apostles in this way. From that time on, they called him Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement.”

This portrait of the early church as an unselfish community is captivating and inspiring. It presents a challenge for many followers of the Anointed One who want to show sacrificially their love to Him and His church. Many today wonder how to translate this into a modern culture so shaped by consumerism and self-interest, but no translation is necessary. These problems weren’t foreign to the early community. In contrast to the generosity and sincerity of some like Barnabas, Luke now explains that others gave not out of love, but out of a desire to be honored by the community.

5 Once a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira fully cooperating, committed fraud. He sold some property ²and kept some of the proceeds, but he pretended to make a full donation to the Lord’s emissaries.^[g]

Peter: ³Ananias, have you allowed Satan to influence your lies to the Holy Spirit and hold back some of the money? ⁴Look, it was your property before you sold it, and the money was all yours after you sold it. Why have you concocted this scheme in your heart? You weren’t just lying to us; you were lying to God.

⁵Ananias heard these words and immediately dropped to the ground, dead; fear overcame all those who heard of the incident. ⁶Some young men came, wrapped the body, and buried it immediately. ⁷About three hours had passed when Sapphira arrived. She had no idea what had happened.

Peter: ⁸Did you sell the land for such-and-such a price?

Sapphira: Yes, that was the price.

Peter: ⁹Why did the two of you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Do you hear those footsteps outside? Those are the young men who just buried your husband, and now they will carry you out as well.

¹⁰She—like her husband—immediately fell dead at Peter’s feet. The young men came in and carried her corpse outside and buried it beside her husband. ¹¹The whole church was terrified by this story, as were others who heard it.

In these formative days, God sends some strong messages about His work in the church: the power to heal, the beauty of life in the Spirit, and His hatred for arrogant religion. If God does not rebuke the married couple who chooses to make a show of their supposed generosity, then Christianity might drift in the wrong direction. While the Jewish leaders are using religion as a means to gain power and increase their reputations, the teachings of Jesus lead down a path toward the kingdom of God rather than toward human advancement. God chooses to expose these bad motives quickly, so that the church can give out of pure motives rather than out of a desire to appear righteous.

¹²Those were amazing days—with many signs and wonders being performed through the apostles among the people. The church would gather as a unified group in Solomon’s Porch, ¹³enjoying great respect by the people of the city—though most people wouldn’t risk publicly affiliating with them. ¹⁴Even so, record numbers of believers—both men and women—were added to the Lord. ¹⁵The church’s renown was so great that when Peter walked down the street, people would carry out their sick relatives hoping his shadow would fall on some of them as he passed. ¹⁶Even people from towns surrounding Jerusalem would come, bringing others who were sick or tormented by unclean spirits, all of whom were cured.

¹⁷Of course, this popularity elicited a response: the high priest and his affiliates in the Sadducean party were jealous, ¹⁸so they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. ¹⁹But that night, a messenger of the Lord opened the doors of the prison and led them to freedom.

Messenger of the Lord: ²⁰Go to the temple, and stand up to tell the people the whole message about this way of life from Jesus.

²¹At dawn they did as they were told; they returned to their teaching in the temple.

Meanwhile the council of Jewish elders was gathering—convened by the high priest and his colleagues. They sent the temple police to the prison to have the Lord’s emissaries^[h] brought for further examination; ²²but of course, the temple police soon realized they weren’t there. They returned and reported,

Temple Police: ²³The prison was secure and locked, and the guards were standing in front of the doors; but when we unlocked the doors, the cell was empty.

²⁴The captain of the temple police and the senior priests were completely mystified when they heard this. They had no idea what had happened. ²⁵Just then, someone arrived with this news:

Temple Messenger: You know those men you put in prison last night? Well, they’re free. At this moment, they’re at it again, teaching our people in the temple!

²⁶The temple police—this time, accompanied by their captain—rushed over to the temple and brought the emissaries^[i] of the Lord to the council. They were careful not to use violence, because the people were so supportive of them that the police feared being stoned by the crowd if they were too rough. ²⁷Once again the men stood before the council. The high priest began the questioning.

High Priest: ²⁸Didn’t we give you strict orders to stop teaching in this name? But here you are, spreading your teaching throughout Jerusalem. And you are determined to blame us for this man’s death.

Peter and the Apostles: ²⁹If we have to choose between obedience to God and obedience to any human authority, then we must obey God. ³⁰The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from death. You killed Jesus by hanging Him on a tree, ³¹but God has lifted Him high, to God’s own right hand, as the Prince, as the Liberator. God intends to bring Israel to a radical rethinking of our lives and to a complete forgiveness of our sins. ³²We are witnesses to these things. There is another witness, too—the Holy Spirit—whom God has given to all who choose to obey Him.

³³The council was furious and would have killed them; ³⁴but Gamaliel, a Pharisee in the council respected as a teacher of the Hebrew Scriptures, stood up and ordered the men to be sent out so the council could confer privately.

Gamaliel: ³⁵Fellow Jews, you need to act with great care in your treatment of these fellows. ³⁶Remember when a man named Theudas rose to notoriety? He claimed to be somebody important, and he attracted about 400 followers. But when he was killed, his entire movement disintegrated and nothing came of it. ³⁷After him came Judas, that Galilean fellow, at the time of the census. He also attracted a following; but when he died, his entire movement fell apart. ³⁸So here’s my advice: in this case, just let these men go. Ignore them. If this is just another movement arising from human enthusiasm, it will die out soon enough. ³⁹But then again, if God is in this, you won’t be able to stop it—unless, of course, you’re ready to fight against God!

⁴⁰The council was convinced, so they brought the apostles back in. They were flogged, again told not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released. ⁴¹As they left the council, they weren’t discouraged at all. In fact, they were filled with joy over being considered worthy to suffer disgrace for the sake of His name. ⁴²And constantly, whether in public, in the temple, or in their homes, they kept teaching and proclaiming Jesus as the Anointed One, the Liberating King.