Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
While the man held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.
“Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.’
“Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’ When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”

• Acts 3:1-26

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Acts 3:1 ‘destroyed in good time’: “Observe here how Old Testament dispensation melts into the new. The temple was no longer what it had been before. The type was of no further use now that the great antitype of the temple had come. Yet these apostles still went to it at the hour of prayer. Some men are great at destroying. It will be time to destroy the old when the new is ready, and even then it may be possible to let the darkness gradually melt away into a twilight, and so the day will come with no great gap, no marked surprise.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Acts 3:2 ‘gate of the temple … called Beautiful’: “A large and ornate gate inside the temple mount on the eastern side, separating the Court of the Gentiles from the Court of the Women. alms. A charitable donation of money.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 3:3 ‘into the temple.’: “Beggars considered the temple the best site to operate because the daily throngs came to impress God with their pious good works, including offerings at the temple treasury.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 3:8 ‘an emotion inward witness’: “One cause of the decline in the quality of religious experience among Christians these days is the neglect of the doctrine of the inward witness.
“Stamping our feet to start the circulation and blowing on our hands to limber them up, we have emerged shivering from the long period of the theological deep-freeze, but the influence of the frosty years is still felt among us to such an extent that the words witness, experience, and feeling are cautiously avoided by the rank and file of evangelical teachers. In spite of the undeniable lukewarmness of most of us we still fear that unless we keep a careful check on ourselves we shall surely lose our dignity and become howling fanatics by this time next week. We set a watch upon our emotions day and night lest we become over-spiritual and bring reproach upon the cause of Christ. Which all, if l may say so, is for most of us about as sensible as throwing a cordon of police around a cemetery to prevent a wild political demonstration by the inhabitants.”

• A. W. Tozer, Born After Midnight

Acts 3:11 ‘porch … Solomon’s’: “A portico surrounding the temple’s Court of the Gentiles. This was also where Jesus had taught about the Good Shepherd (John 10:23). Cf. Isaiah 35:6.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 3:12-26 ‘The Restoration of All Things’: “A day or so after the events of chapter 2, Peter and John were walking up to the temple and encountered a beggar who had been lame from birth (verses 1-2). As the man was begging for alms, Peter said to him, ‘I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!’ (verse 6). In response to the amazement of the eyewitnesses to this miracle, Peter took the occasion to remind them again who Christ is: ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus’ (verse 13). Peter then added that the Jewish people had ‘disowned the Holy and Righteous One’ (verse 14) and ‘put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead’ (verse 15).
“Taking his audience back to the Old Testament, Peter paraphrased the prophets, saying that what ‘God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled’ (verse 18, cf. Psalm 22:11-18; Isaiah 53:4-8). Alexander comments that to the Jews, Peter said, “The death of Christ, although a crime on your part, was the execution of a divine purpose as predicted by the ancient prophets. …  The obvious meaning is that the point, to which the whole drift of prophetic revelation tended, was the death of Christ’ (Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, pp. 112-13).
“Peter spoke much as John the Baptist had, telling the Jews that if they repented, their sins would be ‘wiped away [Greek, aleipho, ‘washed away’] in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you’ (Acts 3:19-20). This is a reference to the promised messianic kingdom. When the Jews repent, the kingdom will arrive. However, as Scripture tells us, they will not repent until the end of the Tribulation.”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

Acts 3:15 ‘Peter speaks plainly’: “See how plainspoken Peter is—how boldly he presses home upon the crowd around him the murder of Christ, the rejection of the Messiah? It took no small amount of courage and faith to speak like that, especially to persons who were full of admiration of him before and who would soon be filled with indignation against him. A man can speak boldly against those who are his enemies, but when people begin to flatter you and admire you, a softness steals over the bravest heart, and he is inclined to be gentle. I admire Peter that he puts it thus so plainly.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Acts 3:15 ‘killed … God raised … we are witnesses’: “Peter’s confident and forceful declaration (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-7) was a clear defense of and provided further evidence for Christ’s Resurrection. Peter’s claim was undeniable; the Jews never showed any evidence, such as Jesus’ corpse, to disprove it. Prince of life. The Greek word for ‘prince’ means originator, pioneer, or beginner of something. Both Hebrews 2:10 and 12:2 translate it ‘author.’ It describes Jesus as the divine originator of life (cf. Ps. 36:9; Heb. 2:10; 12:2; 1 John 5:11, 20).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 3:18 ‘Jesus started His journey to Calvary’: “Jesus died … on purpose. No surprise. No hesitation. No faltering.
“You can tell a lot about a person by the way he dies. And the way Jesus marched to his death leaves no doubt: he had come to earth for this moment. Read the words of Peter. ‘Jesus was given to you, and with the help of those who don’t know the law, you put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But this was God’s plan which he had made long ago; he knew all this would happen’ (Acts 2:23).
“No, the journey to the Cross didn’t begin in Jericho. It didn’t begin in Galilee. It didn’t begin in Nazareth. It didn’t even begin in Bethlehem.
“The journey to the Cross began long before. As the echo of the crunching of the fruit was still sounding in the garden, Jesus was leaving for Calvary.“

• Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent

Acts 3:19 ‘Repent … be converted’: “… Matthew 3:2. ‘Converted’ is a frequent NT word that relates to sinners turning to God (9:35; 14:15; 26:18, 20; Luke 1:16, 17; 2 Cor. 3:16; 1 Pet. 2:25). your sins … blotted out. Cf. Psalm 51:9; Isaiah 43:25; 44:22. ‘Blotted out’ compares forgiveness to the complete wiping away of ink from the surface of a document (Col. 2:14).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 3:19 ‘Repentance’: “After the notable miracle of healing the lame man, when the wondering people clustered around Peter and John, Peter began at once to preach the gospel to them without a single second’s hesitation. Peter came at once to the essence and heart of his message. He did not beat around the bush. He preached Christ, the person of Christ—Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ glorified by his Father. The strength of the Christian witness is when it is saturated with the name and person and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Notice how often Peter said ‘you’: ‘You’ handed him over; ‘you’ denied him; ‘you’ killed him; ‘you’ preferred a murderer. Peter is not afraid of being personal; he rather makes them feel their sins. Nor did Peter, after he had enunciated the gospel, neglect to make the personal application by prescribing its peculiar commands-‘Repent’ and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out.’ ‘Repent’ signifies, in its literal meaning, to change one’s mind. But although that is the meaning of the root, the word has come in scriptural use to mean a great deal more. Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, mourning over the fact that one has committed it, and a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a deep and practical character that makes a person love what once he hated and hate what once he loved. ‘Turn back’ refers to conversion, a turning round, a turning from and a turning to—a turning from sin, a turning to holiness—a turning from carelessness to thought, from the world to heaven, from self to Jesus-a complete turning—with the result that ‘your sins may be wiped out.’”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Acts 3:24 ‘prophets, from Samuel’: “Samuel was called a prophet in the OT (1 Sam. 3:20). Although he did not directly prophesy about Christ, he did anoint David as king and speak of his kingdom (1 Sam. 13:14; 15:28; 16:13; 28:17), and the promises David received were and will be fulfilled in Christ (cf. 2 Sam. 7:10-16).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 3:25 ‘in your seed’: “Quoted from Genesis 22:18; 26:4. Jesus Christ was the ultimate fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant and its blessings (Gal. 3:16), which are still available to the Jews.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

 

My Thoughts

Acts 3 starts with John and Peter going to the temple to pray.  They pass through the gate called Beautiful.  On the way a beggar asks for money, but neither Peter nor John has any money.  Instead, in the name of Jesus Christ they told the man to walk, and he did, with a little help of Peter holding him until he knew he was healed.

The people were astonished that the man was healed.

Then Peter gave a sermon, identifying Jesus as the Messiah, the Promised One that Moses spoke of, that Moses said the people should listen to, but then Peter accuses the crowd specifically of killing Jesus, disowning Jesus, preferring a known murderer, and killing the author of life itself.

Peter then claimed that God healed the man.  He spoke of how the prophets said the Messiah must suffer.  He also said that the prophets from Samuel through the rest spoke of Jesus.  As noted above, Samuel spoke of the lineage of King David, which culminates in Christ’s reign.

And Peter speaks of the need to repent.  He had just told them of their sins, but with repentance, they can be cleansed of their wicked ways.

It was not a long sermon, but it was efficient.  Make the points and get to the point, with an economy of words.  This formula can be very effective, but only with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Then again, the longer sermon with detailed information about the three main points needs the help of the Holy Spirit to be effective also.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

Acts 3:1-10 Peter Heals the Crippled Beggar 1. How is Jesus healing some crippled area of your life?
“2. Would you do the same thing as Peter did, or would you ask John for a dime? Why? What might increase your trust in God to work through you?
Acts 3:11-26 Peter Speaks to the Onlookers 1. Of all the truths about Jesus which Peter emphasizes here, which one strikes you the hardest? Why?
“2. When is it proper to come on strong against a person’s sin, like Peter did in verses 13-15? In coming to Christ, did you need to be hit over the head with your sin first? How did it happen?
“3. If you had to explain the meaning of Jesus using only the OT, what passages would you use? What does Peter’s use of the OT indicate about its benefits to your faith in Christ? How will you start to increase your knowledge of it?
“4. How has repentance and turning to God brought ‘times of refreshing’ (v.19) to you? How can that be used as a means of encouraging others to come to Christ?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Acts 3 is divided into two sets of questions as noted above.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.