When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?’” vs. 12
Acts 3:12-16
Many believers have a mixed attitude toward miracles. We will gladly pray for healing whenever asked, but then when healings actually occur we are reluctant to call them miraculous. That wasn’t the case among the apostles in Jerusalem during the early years of the church. Luke records many miracles in his account of the Acts of the Apostles, but he always notes that the disciples did not take credit for these wonders but always claimed that they had been done by the power of God. In this instance Peter, who by this time had become the leader of the apostles, had gone with John to the temple for prayers. Some of those at the regular prayers had become Christians, but not many. Peter takes advantage of a crippled man’s healing to remind the unbelieving bystanders in the temple that all the power of their God had been focused in Jesus, the man whose death they had caused, and it was that power that had enabled the man to walk. The apostles expected to see signs and wonders like this in the life of the community–it’s what happened with the Risen Christ. It wasn’t an embarrassment to them. They used them as opportunities to testify. Sometimes we wonder why it’s an embarrassment to us!
Thought for the Day: Why do some discount stories of healings?
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