Book of Common Prayer
More than he bargained for
3 One day, Peter and John were going up to the Temple at three o’clock in the afternoon, the time for prayer. 2 There was a man being carried in who had been lame since birth. People used to bring him every day to the Temple gate called “Beautiful,” so that he could ask for alms from folk on their way in to the Temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John going in to the Temple, he asked them to give him some money. 4 Peter, with John, looked hard at him.
“Look at us,” he said.
5 The man stared at them, expecting to get something from them.
6 “I haven’t got any silver or gold,” Peter said, “but I’ll give you what I have got. In the name of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, get up and walk!”
7 He grabbed the man by his right hand and lifted him up. At once his feet and ankles became strong, 8 and he leaped to his feet and began to walk. He went in with them into the Temple, walking and jumping up and down and praising God. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized him as the man who had been sitting begging for alms by the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. They were filled with amazement and astonishment at what had happened to him.
An explanation is called for
11 All the people ran together in astonishment towards Peter and John, and the man who was clinging onto them. They were in the part of the Temple known as Solomon’s Porch.
The evidence of John
19 This is the evidence John gave, when the Judaeans sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”
20 He was quite open about it; he didn’t try to deny it. He said, quite openly, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 “What then?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?”
“No, I’m not,” he replied.
“Are you the Prophet?”
“No.”
22 “Well, then, who are you?” they said. “We’ve got to take some kind of answer back to the people who sent us. Who do you claim to be?”
23 “I’m a voice calling in the desert,” he said, “ ‘Straighten out the road for the master!’ ”—just as the prophet Isaiah said.
24 The people who had been sent were from the Pharisees. 25 They continued to question him.
“So why are you baptizing,” they asked, “if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”
26 “I’m baptizing with water,” John replied. “But there is someone standing among you that you don’t know, 27 someone who is to come after me. I’m not good enough to undo his sandal-strap.”
28 This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.