Archive for February, 2012

If you remember, we are considering the miracle recorded in Acts 3:1-12. Sometimes, as I read miracle accounts like this, I imagine myself as a talk show host and think what I would ask in an interview with Peter and John about this incident. One of the questions I would include would be, “How did you know that Jesus wanted you to command this man to walk?”

I imagine the answer would go something like this, “We simply experienced a strong impression that both of us recognized as God’s Spirit. Since we both had this thought at the same time we were confident this was God and we obeyed this inner impression.”

I can’t think of any other way it could have happened given Luke’s account which seems to be unusually detailed. Things like…this happened the ‘ninth hour’ (3:00 PM)…the man was ‘laid daily at the gate of the temple’ indicating that Peter and John and everyone who faithfully went to prayer observed this man more that once. Also, this shows the whole affair was not a setup by two con artist. Why had Peter and John not acted to ‘heal’ this man on a prior occasion?

I believe the answer can be found in 1 Corinthians 12:11 where Paul is discussing the nature of the body of Christ—the church. He says that the Spirit’s gifts or workings are distributed “to each one individually as He wills.” So the notion that Peter and John went around performing miracles at will seems not to be accurate.

Luke also notes that they both Peter and John fixed their eyes on the man. This is a very detailed observation for Luke to report. Since he was a historian and obviously was reporting to Theophilus what he had heard when this miracle was related by Peter or John, he includes this detail. I suspect that while they were essentially staring at the man the Spirit was showing them what to do so they acted in faith and God did the rest. This seems to be a good example of the gifts of healings working to glorify Jesus in His people.

Do we have nothing to do with God acting in this way? Well, not exactly…I suppose one must discern and obey the impressions of the Holy Spirit. Also, in the same discussion on Spirit-granted gifts, Paul says desire spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14:1). So it seems that ‘desiring’ Spiritual gifts is another part that belongs to the believer.

How is faith in the name of Jesus obtained? To answer this question I will start by admitting that what I can say in the few words posted here will be very simplistic. First, faith as used by Peter in this passage (Acts 3:16) seems to simply mean to believe that Jesus is who he and his followers said he was. That leads us to ask how human beings come to believe anything at all then. The simple answer is…we ‘think’ it’s true.

Now, let’s back up one more step and ask what does it mean to ‘think’? It means to decide on the meaning of a thought and then look for some type of evidence that would confirm or deny that the thought corresponds to reality. We usually go through this process so quickly we are hardly conscious it.

As I considered this it seemed to me that most things I believe, I believe because someone or some entity (feelings, an institution, senses, etc.) that I trust indicated it was true. In school I was told that all matter was made up of atoms. I simply believed that the teach and the author of the science book were telling the truth. We all believed it but not one of us (including my teacher) had ever done a scientific experiment that would confirm this to be true nor had we actually seen a single atom. Yet we believed it based on people we thought to be reliable witness.

This is why Jesus gently rebukes Thomas for not believing the other disciples report that claimed to have seen Him. Thomas chose to up his criteria for believing higher than necessary. Why would all Thomas’ friends who were grieving Jesus’ death suddenly lie or experience a mass hallucination about something like that?

So to answer the question, Peter and John believed on the name of Jesus because of their (and many others’) past experience with Jesus. The next quest is this. How did they ‘know’ that if they commanded this particular man to walk and pulled him up that he would be able to walk? We will leave that question for another blog.

There was once a day (in the 1950s) when almost no one carried a credit card. Merchants still extended credit however, but credit accounts were tracked, recorded and billed in house. So, when I purchased something at the corner drugstore, the clerk would ask, “Cash or charge?”

Occasionally my parents would send me to purchase medication, I would say, “Charge it,” and the clerk would fill out a “ticket” with my father’s name at the top and I would sign it. This meant I was authorized by my father to buy the medicine. The pharmacist believed that my father would pay for the item when he received the bill. He did not speak to my father or even see him but “believed” that Dad was honest and that I was acting in his name. Therefore, I was allowed to take the product out of the store without paying based of ‘faith in my father’s name.’

Now, if someone neglected to pay their bill they were said to have a ‘bad name.’ This meant that there was a flaw in their character or a problem with their economic power and the person could not be trusted to pay.

Now this notion of a person’s name being associated with his character and ability seems to have been present in the first century. This is why Peter explains the cause of the remarkable miracle recorded in Acts 3 by saying, “And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.”

To have faith in Jesus’ name is to trust that Jesus will do what He says He will do and that when He says something He posses the power to do it. So one has to conclude that Peter and John ‘somehow’ knew God’s will for this man’s health at that percise moment and acted boldly to grab the man’s hand and lift him up trusting that Jesus’ would heal him. Over and over we are taught in the Bible that faith in the person of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit will result in God’s will being done through us. Next time, how is faith like this gained.

Acts 3:16

I suppose one could list a large number of events going all the way back to the creation of the universe to finish the sentence propose in the last blog: This miracle would not have happened if … However, the best place to begin (so this blog doesn’t turn into a book) is Peter’s answer found in Acts 3:16. “And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.”

At first glance this may seem like a simple explanation. However, asking a few questions will help us come to a greater understanding of the underlying dynamics of this miraculous recovery which seems to have something to do with faith. The first question is obvious to me. Whose faith? Well, it certainly seems to have had little to do with the man’s faith or belief. He certainly had not sought out Peter and John for healing. He was only asking for and expecting to receive money not a miracle.

So Peter must have been talking about the faith that he and John had in the name of Jesus. Since it was Peter and John’s faith that led to the command given and action taken the next obvious question is what does Peter mean when he attributes the miracle to faith in the name of Jesus? Or even more specific what did Peter, Jesus, and the early believers mean when they spoke of having faith?

In this context Peter simply meant the things he believed to be true concerning Jesus. Some (especially skeptics today) would like to define religious faith as believing something is true with absolutely no evidence. This fuels the idea that people with faith are irrational.  However, C. S. Lewis, a noted Christian thinker, I believe captures the concept of faith in the Biblical sense when he writes, “Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.” I maintain that it is not possible in the healthy human psyche to really believe or exercise faith apart from some (at least thought-to-be-by-the-believer) evidence that something is true. Whatever one actually believes he or she at least ‘thinks’ that there is good reasons to accept it as reality in some sense. To think something is true is the definition of having “faith” in an idea…to believe is to posses faith in the normal since of the word.

So let us eliminate the idea that faith is believing with absolutely no reason at all. Now whither or not a  reason is good enough as a basis for a belief depends on what one believes about how we can tell if something is true or not.  That question will have to be left for another time.

Next time we will answer this: What does faith in the name of Jesus mean?

Acts 3

Today you have joined me while I’m traveling through the book of Acts. I have arrived in the third chapter and am wondering about the place of miracles in the fledgling church and in the church today.

From chapter two we learn that the first organized church in Jerusalem had settled into a devotional life style that Luke, the author of Acts, describes like this:

⁴¹ Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. ⁴² And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. ⁴³ Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.

I like the translation that says…then awe came upon everyone…this seems to better describe how they must have felt as they witnessed the glory of God unfolding around them.

In chapter 3 Luke takes time to give the details of a certain notable miracle since it resulted in a remarkable in-gathering of people to the faith (5,000…2,000 more than the Pentecost outpouring…Acts 4:4) and the first official government opposition to the gospel. Read it and next time we will focus on this question. What dynamics were in play that set the stage for this notable public display of God’s glory? In other words complete this sentence: This miracle would not have happened if …