By the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. None of the rest dared to join them, however the people honored them. More believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that as Peter came by, at the least his shadow might overshadow some of them. The multitude also came together from the cities around Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits: and they were all healed.
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She fell down immediately at his feet and died. The young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her by her husband. Great fear came on the whole assembly, and on all who heard these things. By the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. None of the rest dared to join them, however the people honored them. More believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that as Peter came by, at the least his shadow might overshadow some of them. The multitude also came together from the cities around Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits: and they were all healed.
Parallel Translations
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By the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
None of the rest dared to join them, however the people honored them.
More believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.
They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that as Peter came by, at the least his shadow might overshadow some of them.
The multitude also came together from the cities around Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits: and they were all healed.
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By the hondes of the Apostles were many signes and wondres shewed amonge the people. And they were all together with one acorde in Salomons porche.
And of other durst no man ioyne him selfe to them: neverthelater the people magnyfied them.
The noumbre of them that beleved in the Lorde bothe of men and wemen grewe moare and moare:
in so moche that they brought the sicke into the strettes and layde them on beddes and palettes that at the lest waye the shadowe of Peter when he came by myght shadowe some of them.
There came also a multitude out of the cities roud about vnto Ierusalem bringynge sicke folkes and them which were vexed with vnclene spretes. And they were healed every one.
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Thus by the hands of the Apostles were many signes and wonders shewed among the people (and they were all with one accorde in Salomons porche.
And of the other durst no man ioyne him selfe to them: neuerthelesse the people magnified them.
Also the number of them that beleeued in the Lord, both of men and women, grewe more and more)
In so much that they brought the sicke into the streetes, and layd them on beds and couches, that at the least way the shadowe of Peter, when he came by, might shadow some of them.
There came also a multitude out of the cities round about vnto Hierusalem, bringing sicke folkes, and them which were vexed with vncleane spirits, who were all healed.
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Cross-references (73)
- Acts 19:11 (v12) God worked special miracles by the hands of Paul,
- Matthew 14:36 (v15) and they begged him that they might just touch the fringe of his garment. As many as touched it were made whole.
- Acts 19:11-12 (v15) God worked special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and the…
- 2 Corinthians 12:12 (v12) Truly the signs of an apostle were worked among you in all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty works.
- Hebrews 2:4 (v12) God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders, by various works of power and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own…
Show all 69 cross-references
- John 14:12 (vv15–16) Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I…
- Acts 14:3 (v12) Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who testified to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to…
- Matthew 9:21 (v15) for she said within herself, “If I just touch his garment, I will be made well.”
- Romans 15:19 (v12) in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s Spirit; so that from Jerusalem, and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully…
- Acts 2:47 (vv13–14) praising God, and having favor with all the people. The Lord added to the assembly day by day those who were being saved.
- John 10:23 (v12) It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.
- Acts 2:42-43 (v12) They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer. Fear came on every soul, and…
- Acts 3:11 (v12) As the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch that is called Solomon’s,…
- Mark 16:17-18 (vv12, 16) These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new languages; they will take up…
- Acts 4:30 (vv12, 16) while you stretch out your hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy Servant Jesus.”
- Isaiah 55:11-13 (v14) so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in…
- Mark 16:20 (v12) They went out, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.
- Acts 3:6-7 (v12) But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have, that I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” He…
- Acts 4:4 (v14) But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.
- Acts 4:21 (v13) When they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people; for everyone glorified God…
- Ezra 10:1 (v14) Now while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before God’s house, there was gathered together to him out of…
- Mark 2:3-4 (v16) Four people came, carrying a paralytic to him. When they could not come near to him for the crowd, they removed the roof where he was. When…
- John 12:42 (v13) Nevertheless even many of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they didn’t confess it, so that they wouldn’t be put out…
- John 19:38 (v13) After these things, Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take…
- Acts 1:14 (v12) All these with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer and supplication, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with…
- Acts 2:41 (v14) Then those who gladly received his word were baptized. There were added that day about three thousand souls.
- Acts 4:32-33 (v12) The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was…
- Acts 6:7 (v14) The word of God increased and the number of the disciples greatly multiplied in Jerusalem. A great company of the priests were obedient to…
- Acts 9:31 (v14) So the assemblies throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, and were built up. They were multiplied, walking in the fear of the…
- Acts 9:33 (v12) There he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years, because he was paralyzed.
- Acts 9:35 (v14) All who lived at Lydda and in Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.
- Acts 9:40 (v12) Peter sent them all out, and knelt down and prayed. Turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes, and when she saw…
- Acts 9:42 (v14) This became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
- Acts 14:8-10 (v12) At Lystra a certain man sat, impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked. He was listening to Paul…
- Acts 16:18 (v12) She was doing this for many days. But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus…
- Acts 19:17 (v13) This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived at Ephesus. Fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
- Exodus 35:22 (v14) They came, both men and women, as many as were willing-hearted, and brought brooches, earrings, signet rings, and armlets, all jewels of…
- Numbers 17:12-13 (v13) The children of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, “Behold, we perish! We are undone! We are all undone! Everyone who keeps approaching…
- Numbers 24:8-10 (v13) God brings him out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox. He shall consume the nations his adversaries, shall break their…
- Deuteronomy 29:11-12 (v14) your little ones, your wives, and the foreigners who are in the middle of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws…
- Deuteronomy 31:11-12 (v14) when all Israel has come to appear before Yahweh your God in the place which he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in…
- 1 Samuel 16:4-5 (v13) Samuel did that which Yahweh spoke, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come…
- 2 Samuel 6:19 (v14) He gave to all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, both to men and women, to everyone a portion of bread, dates, and…
- 1 Kings 17:18 (v13) She said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, you man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to memory, and to kill my son!”
- Nehemiah 8:2 (v14) Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the…
- Isaiah 33:14 (v13) The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live…
- Isaiah 44:3-5 (v14) For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on…
- Isaiah 45:24 (v14) They will say of me, ‘There is righteousness and strength only in Yahweh.’ ” Even to him will men come. All those who raged against him…
- Matthew 4:24 (v16) The report about him went out into all Syria. They brought to him all who were sick, afflicted with various diseases and torments,…
- Matthew 8:16 (v16) When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick;
- Matthew 15:30-31 (v16) Great multitudes came to him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others, and they put them down at his feet. He…
- Mark 6:54-56 (v16) When they had come out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him, and ran around that whole region, and began to bring those who…
- Luke 5:17 (v16) On one of those days, he was teaching; and there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every village of…
- Luke 9:11 (v16) But the multitudes, perceiving it, followed him. He welcomed them, spoke to them of God’s Kingdom, and he cured those who needed healing.
- Luke 12:1-2 (v13) Meanwhile, when a multitude of many thousands had gathered together, so much so that they trampled on each other, he began to tell his…
- Luke 14:26-35 (v13) “If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he…
- Luke 19:37-38 (v13) As he was now getting near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God…
- Luke 19:48 (v13) They couldn’t find what they might do, for all the people hung on to every word that he said.
- John 9:22 (v13) His parents said these things because they feared the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if any man would confess him as Christ, he…
- Acts 2:46 (v12) Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and…
- Acts 5:5 (v13) Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and died. Great fear came on all who heard these things.
- Acts 8:3 (v14) But Saul ravaged the assembly, entering into every house and dragged both men and women off to prison.
- Acts 8:12 (v14) But when they believed Philip preaching good news concerning God’s Kingdom and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and…
- Acts 9:2 (v14) and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might…
- Acts 22:4 (v14) I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.
- Galatians 3:28 (v14) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
- James 5:16 (v16) Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is…
- 2 Peter 2:20-22 (v13) For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again…
- 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 (v14) Nevertheless, neither is the woman independent of the man, nor the man independent of the woman, in the Lord. For as woman came from man,…
69 distinct cross-references across this passage (73 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (27 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 15 12. He returneth to miracles of another sort, which…
12. He returneth to miracles of another sort, which are more proper to the gospel; to wit, whereby Christ doth not only declare his power, but also his goodness; to the end he may allure men unto himself with the sweetness of his grace. For he came to save the world, and not to condemn it. Therefore, whereas the sick are healed, and others are delivered from devils, these benefits done to the body do represent the spiritual grace of Christ; and therefore they agree with his natural office that I may so speak. That fearful sign which was showed in Ananias and Sapphira came to pass extraordinarily Luke saith that the Church was increased by miracles, because they serve for faith, (as we have said,) to prepare some, to confirm others. Whereby that is proved again, which I have said elsewhere that miracles must never be separated from the word. Luke showeth the multitude of miracles by this, in that the sick were brought forth everywhere, that they might be healed. For God meant thus to set forth the gospel of his Son, especially at the beginning; that he, might for a certainty testify to the Jews, that that restoring of all things was present, which was so often promised, and in which all their hope was reposed, as they themselves did pretend, (and make semblance.) It is well known that couches were certain little beds in which the men of old were wont to rest at noon. Because they might the more easily carry them out, they laid the sick in them.
And they were all with one accord. He signifieth unto us that they were wont to meet together at certain hours, not only for doctrine and prayers’ sake, but that they might win others unto the Lord, as occasion was given. For every man lived at home at his own house, but they had their meetings there, as assuredly no body of the Church can otherwise continue. For if every man will be his own teacher, and pray apart by himself, and if there be no meetings and assemblies, how excellently soever the Church be ordered and appointed, yet must it needs decay and come to nought. He saith that they were all of one mind, to the end we may know that they did all keep that order willingly, that no man was so disordered as to keep himself at home, neglecting the public assembly. Wherein they showed a token, not only of modesty, but also of constancy. For they could not do this without danger, seeing the place was so famous. For which cause, the agreement of them all to put themselves in hazard was so much the more worthy of commendation.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v13 Highly praised them.
Highly praised them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv12–16 12 And by the hands of the apostles were…
12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
Ver. 12. Were many signs and wonders] Which were as so many sermon bells to bring men to the Church; and as so many wings to carry the gospel abroad the world.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv12–16 By the hands of the apostles; by the apostles’…
By the hands of the apostles; by the apostles’ ministry: though they were holy and excellent men, they were but instruments; the power they acted by was God’s; which also they had prayed for and acknowledged, Act 4:30.
Among the people; generally among the meaner sort, according to that question, Have any of the rulers believed on him? Joh 7:48.
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Not many mighty, not many noble, are called, 1Co 1:26.
In Solomon’s porch; a large and capacious place, where they might with greatest convenience hear and see what was done and said.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v12 Three things are here observable:
Three things are here observable:
1. How that act of severity upon Ananias and Sapphira for their hypocrisy, is instantly succeeded with acts of clemency and mercy upon others: The former acts of severity in the apostles were necessary to prevent the intrusion of hypocrites into the Christian church: These subsequent acts of mercy were as necessary for the propagating of the gospel, and to invite people to the love of Christianity.
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Accordingly, the apostles, after the death of Ananias, are endued with power from on high to work signs and wonders, to heal diseases, to cast out devils; insomuch, that the people brought forth their sick into the streets, and laid them upon beds, and couches, hoping that the shadow of Peter, as he passed by, might reach and recover some of them.
The church of Rome makes a noise with this text, and produces it to prove St. Peter’s supremacy over the rest of the apostles, because his very shadow cured the diseased: But very groundlessly; for
1. By the same argument they may prove St. Peter to be superior to Christ himself; this being more than what Christ himself wrought, according to what he foretold, Greater works than these shall ye do &c. Joh 14:12.
2. The papists might observe, were they not wilfully blind, that the napkins and handkerchiefs, which were carried from St. Paul’s body, cured diseases also, and dispossessed devils, Act 19:12.
3. Besides all this, it is not here expressly said, that any sick were actually healed by St. Peter’s shadow, but that the diseased were brought, in hopes that his shadow might produce such effects; and, if it did so, Almighty God thereby put honour upon the gospel, and upon all the apostles, without any particular respect, or special regard to the person of St. Peter.
Observe, 2. The place where the apostles assembled to preach the gospel, and work miracles for the confirmation of the same, They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
Where note, 1. Their unity and unanimity: There were no persons among them guilty of schismatical separation in forsaking the public assembly; but with one mouth, as well as with one mind and heart, they glorified God.
2. Their prudential boldness and holy courage appeared in preaching to the people in Solomon’s porch; for the Sanhedrin, or great council, sat in, or very near that place, even that council, which in the former chapter imprisoned them, and in this beat them. Act 5:40.
Learn thence, That nothing better becomes the ministers and messengers of Jesus Christ, than an holy and humble, a wise and meek, a zealous and convincing boldness, in asserting the truths of the gospel, and in reproving sin, and denouncing judgments against impenitent sinners. Consider we, how bold and zealous our Lord and Master was in his ministry, We know thou teachest the way of God truly, and acceptest not the person of any. Luk 20:21
And the apostles learnt the same of their Master, Act 4:13. When the high priest saw the boldness of Peter and John, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.
Observe, 3. How God over ruled the judgment inflicted upon Ananias and Sapphira, and caused it to work for special good.
Thus, such of the apostles’ hearers, who were unsound and insincere, durst not join themselves to them, having seen a great instance of severity upon concealed hypocrisy! They were afraid to come among them anymore, or to make a shew of such piety and zeal as Ananias did, for fear of the same, or such like punishment as he had.
But however the people extolled and magnified, admired and applauded them, and multitudes were daily added to the church. This seems to be the sense of And of the rest durst no man join himself to them, but the people magnified them, and believers were added to the Lord multitudes both of men and women. Act 4:13 Nothing doth more affect and afflict unsound and drossy hypocrites, than the sight of God’s judgments inflicted upon others in this world, and the fear of the righteous judgment of God upon themselves in the world to come.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v12 We have here an account of the progress of…
We have here an account of the progress of the gospel, notwithstanding this terrible judgment inflicted upon two hypocrites.
I. Here is a general account of the miracles which the apostles wrought (Act 5:12): By the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, many miracles of mercy for one of judgment. Now the gospel power returned to its proper channel, which is that of mercy and grace. God had come out of his place to punish, but now returns to his place, to his mercy-seat again. The miracles they wrought proved their divine mission. They were not a few, but many, of divers kinds and often repeated; they were signs and wonders, such wonders as were confessedly signs of a divine presence and power. They were not done in a corner, but among the people, who were at liberty to enquire into them, and, if there had been any fraud or collusion in them, would have discovered it.
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II. We are here told what were the effects of these miracles which the apostles wrought.
1. The church was hereby kept together, and confirmed in its adherence both to the apostles and to one another: They of the church were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. (1.) They met in the temple, in the open place that was called Solomon's porch. It was strange that the rulers of the temple suffered them to keep their meeting there. But God inclined their hearts to tolerate them there awhile, for the more convenient spreading of the gospel; and those who permitted buyers and sellers could not for shame prohibit such preachers and healers there. They all met in public worship; so early was the institution of religious assemblies observed in the church, which must by no means be forsaken or let fall, for in them a profession of religion is kept up. (2.) They were there with one accord, unanimous in their doctrine, worship, and discipline; and there was no discontent nor murmuring about the death of Ananias and Sapphira, as there was against Moses and Aaron about the death of Korah and his company: You have killed the people of the Lord, Num 16:41. The separation of hypocrites, by distinguishing judgments, should make the sincere cleave so much the closer to each other and to the gospel ministry.
2. It gained the apostles, who were the prime ministers in Christ's kingdom, very great respect. (1.) The other ministers kept their distance: Of the rest of their company durst no man join himself to them, as their equal or an associate with them; though others of them were endued with the Holy Ghost, and spoke with tongues, yet none of them at this time did such signs and wonders as the apostles did: and therefore they acknowledged their superiority, and in every thing yielded to them. (2.) All the people magnified them, and had them in great veneration, spoke of them with respect, and represented them as the favourites of Heaven, and unspeakable blessings to this earth. Though the chief priests vilified them, and did all they could to make them contemptible, this did not hinder the people from magnifying them, who saw the thing in a true light. Observe, The apostles were far from magnifying themselves; they transmitted the glory of all they did very carefully and faithfully to Christ, and yet the people magnified them; for those that humble themselves shall be exalted, and those honoured that honour God only.
3. The church increased in number (Act 5:14): Believers were the more added to the Lord, and no doubt joined themselves to the church, when they saw that God was in it of a truth, even multitudes both of men and women. They were so far from being deterred by the example that was made of Ananias and Sapphira that they were rather invited by it into a society that kept such a strict discipline. Observe, (1.) Believers are added to the Lord Jesus, joined to him, and so joined to his mystical body, from which nothing can separate us and cut us off, but that which separates us and cuts us off from Christ. Many have been brought to the Lord, and yet there is room for others to be added to him, added to the number of those that are united to him; and additions will still be making till the mystery of God shall be finished, and the number of the elect accomplished. (2.) Notice is taken of the conversion of women as well as men; more notice than generally was in the Jewish church, in which they neither received the sign of circumcision nor were obliged to attend the solemn feasts; and the court of the women was one of the outer courts of the temple. But, as among those that followed Christ while he was upon earth, so among those that believed on him after he went to heaven, great notice was taken of the good women.
4. The apostles had abundance of patients, and gained abundance of reputation both to themselves and their doctrine by the cure of them all, Act 5:15, Act 5:16. So many signs and wonders were wrought by the apostles that all manner of people put in for the benefit of them, both in city and country, and had it. (1.) In the city: They brought forth their sick into the streets; for it is probable that the priests would not suffer them to bring them into the temple to Solomon's porch, and the apostles had not leisure to go to the houses of them all. And they laid them on beds and couches (because they were so weak that they could neither go nor stand), that at the least the shadow of Peter, passing by, might overshadow some of them, though it could not reach them all; and, it should seem, it had the desired effect, as the woman's touch of the hem of Christ's garment had; and in this, among other things, that word of Christ was fulfilled, Greater works than these shall you do. God expresses his care of his people, by his being their shade on their right hand; and the benign influences of Christ as a king are compared to the shadow of a great rock. Peter comes between them and the sun, and so heals them, cuts them off from a dependence upon creature sufficiency as insufficient, that they may expect help only from that Spirit of grace with whom he was filled. And, if such miracles were wrought by Peter's shadow, we have reason to think they were so by the other apostles, as by the handkerchiefs from Paul's body (Act 19:12), no doubt both being with an actual intention in the minds of the apostles thus to heal; so that it is absurd to infer hence a healing virtue in the relics of saints that are dead and gone; we read not of any cured by the relics of Christ himself, after he was gone, as certainly we should if there had been any such thing. (2.) In the country towns: Multitudes came to Jerusalem from the cities round about, bringing sick folks that were afflicted in body, and those that were vexed with unclean spirits, that were troubled in mind, and they were healed every one; distempered bodies and distempered minds were set to rights. Thus opportunity was given to the apostles, both to convince people's judgments by these miracles of the heavenly origin of the doctrine they preached, and also to engage people's affections both to them and it, by giving them a specimen of its beneficial tendency to the welfare of this lower world.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv12–16 And by the hands of the apostles were many…
And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought,.... That is, by their means, or by them as instruments, or through the imposition of their hands on persons, many miraculous and wonderful cures, as well as other extraordinary actions, were performed:
among the people; the common people, who attended in great numbers on their ministry, when the chief men and rulers of the nation despised them.
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And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch; which is to be understood not of the whole church, nor of the hundred and twenty disciples, but of the twelve apostles, who met in this place to preach the Gospel to the people; and they were agreed in their doctrine and practice, and were united in their affections to one another. Of Solomon's porch; see Gill on Joh 10:23. These words, with what follow to the 15th verse, are to be read in a parenthesis.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv12–14 And they were all - All the believers.
And they were all - All the believers.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Verse 12. By the hands of the apostles] This…
Verse 12. By the hands of the apostles] This verse should be read with the 15th, to which it properly belongs. Ac 5:15
Solomon's porch.] See Clarke on Joh 10:23.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 15 Act 5:12. And by the hands of the apostles…
Act 5:12. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs, &c., wrought — Many miracles of mercy for one of judgment. Now the gospel power returned to its proper channel, which is that of grace and goodness. These miracles, which were not a few, but many, not of one kind merely, but of divers kinds, evidently proved the divine mission of the apostles, for they were signs and wonders, such wonders as were confessedly signs of the divine presence and power; they were not done in a corner, but among the people, who were at liberty to inquire into them, and if there had been any fraud or collusion in them, would have easily discovered it. And they were all — All the believers; with one accord in Solomon’s porch — Frequently meeting there, and conversing together with the most affectionate expressions of mutual endearment, being unanimous in their doctrine, worship, and discipline; and there was no discontent or murmuring about the death of Ananias or Sapphira, as there was against Moses and Aaron, about the death of Korah and his company, Num 16:31. The separation of hypocrites from the society of the faithful, should make those that are sincere cleave so much the closer to each other. It seems strange that the priests, and other rulers of the temple, should suffer the Christians to keep their meetings there; but it was, doubtless, through the providence and grace of God, who inclined the hearts of their enemies to tolerate them there a while, in order to the more convenient spreading of the gospel.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv12–16 And by the hands ... - By the apostles.…
And by the hands ... - By the apostles. This verse should be read in connection with the 15th, to which it belongs.
Signs and wonders - Miracles. See the notes on Act 2:43.
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With one accord - With one “mind,” or intention. See the notes on Act 1:14.
In Solomon’s porch - See the Mat 21:12 note; Joh 10:23 note. They were doubtless there for the purpose of worship. It does not mean that they were there constantly, but at the regular periods of worship. Probably they had two designs in this; one was, to join in the public worship of God in the usual manner with the people, for they did not design to leave the temple service; the other, that they might have opportunity to preach to the people assembled there. In the presence of the great multitudes who came up to worship, they had an opportunity of making known the doctrines of Jesus, and of confirming them by miracles, the reality of which could not be denied, and which could not be resisted, as proofs that Jesus was the Messiah.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 15 Solomon’s porch. This was outside the temple, open to…
Solomon’s porch. This was outside the temple, open to all, Jews and Gentiles, pure and impure. They assembled here, because it was a large place, where they could speak to many assembled. Had it been within the temple, the priests would have interrupted them, and not have wanted pretexts to silence them. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v12 B.—The Progress of the Church, Sustained by Miraculous Powers…
B.—The Progress of the Church, Sustained by Miraculous Powers of Healing Granted to the Apostles
Act_5:12-16
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12And [But] by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. 13And [But, δὲ] of the rest durst no man [ventured no one to] join himself to them: but [ἀλλ’] the people magnified [highly esteemed] them. 14And believers were the more added to the Lord [And there were more and more (μᾶλλον) added, who believed in the Lord], multitudes both of men and women;) [parenth. marks omitted] 15Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets6, and laid them on beds7 and couches, that at the least [if but, κἂν] the shadow of Peter passing by [when he came,] might overshadow some [some one, τινὶ] of them. 16There came also a [the, τὸ] multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem8, bringing sick folks, and them which [who] were vexed with [by] unclean spirits: and they were healed every one [were all healed, ἅπαντες].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Act_5:12-16. a. The narrative of the Pentecostal miracle, Act_2:43, and that of the first hostile movement against the church, Act_4:32, are succeeded by general statements respecting the peaceful progress of the latter during a certain period of time. The narrative of the penal miracle which God wrought for the protection of the holy character of the church, is followed by additional statements in the present passage. But the description does not, now, as in Act_4:32 ff., refer to the inner life of the church; its main purpose is to exhibit the influence exercised by the apostles and the church on those who were not yet united with them.
b. The statements in this passage are not logically arranged, systematically combined, or pragmatical. [“The pragmatical historian inserts reflections on the causes and the results of the events which he relates, and deduces useful lessons from them.” (Heyse).—Tr.]. Nearly the whole of this episode has, accordingly, been suspected by rigid critics like Beck, Ziegler, etc., to be an interpolation. But it is written simply in the same plain and artless style which characterizes other portions of this book.
c. By the hands of the apostles, etc.—Luke first mentions (Act_5:12) numerous miracles, i.e., miracles of healing, which the apostles wrought among the people; these were, therefore, miracles which conferred advantages and blessings, and were thus contradistinguished from the recent miraculous judgment of God which has just been described. The latter occurred in the bosom of the church; but these miracles of healing were performed for the benefit even of those who were not yet believers. This circumstance is more fully described in Act_5:15-16. The sick were brought out of the houses along the streets (κατὰ τὰς πλ.), and deposited on beds and couches of various kinds, in order that they might be healed by Peter, even if only his shadow should fall on the one or the other. It should be carefully noticed here, that when Luke uses this peculiar language, he only intends to give expression to the popular thought; the people, he implies, entertained such confidence in the apostle’s power, that they ascribed a healing influence even to his shadow, [comp. Act_19:12]. But he does not employ a single word which distinctly affirms that the mere shadow of Peter had healed any sick person. He simply testifies, particularly at the close of Act_5:16, that Peter performed many miracles of healing, but he does not describe the mode. The phrase: διὰ τῶν χειρῶν τ. ἀπ., undoubtedly expresses more than the simple preposition διὰ would have done; it authorizes us to infer that, in most cases, these miracles were wrought through the medium of the imposition of hands, or by touching the sick. It is, however, also possible, that in some instances, sick persons, whose faith prepared them to receive the gift of health, were restored without having been actually touched by Peter. Such faith or confidence in the power of the apostle to heal, was not confined to those who dwelt in the city; it influenced others also, and induced many who resided in the neighboring cities to bring their sick, as well as demoniacs, to Jerusalem; the relief which they sought, was invariably obtained.
d. They were all with one accord, etc.—Luke relates, in addition, that the union of the believers and their assemblings, were uninterruptedly maintained; they met in Solomon’s porch (mentioned above, Act_3:11), which was sufficiently spacious to admit them all, and was well suited for their meetings, although they now constituted a numerous body, and constantly received new accessions.—As their numbers had so greatly increased, it might have occurred, under ordinary circumstances, that individuals would enter with comparative ease, whose presence might create a disturbance, or impair the harmony and confidence which had originally characterized their intercourse. They escaped such a great affliction in consequence of the sentiments of esteem and reverence with which they were regarded by the people, insomuch that those who had not attached themselves to the church, respectfully refrained from approaching them when they were assembled (Act_5:13, “no man durst join himself to them”, [i.e., obtrude himself on them]). The interpretation of Baur, (who restricts αὐτοί to the apostles, and supposes that the Christians themselves are designated by the term οἱ λοιποί,) assumes that the profound reverence with which the members of the church regarded the apostles, kept them at a distance from the latter; but such a view is inconsistent with the whole character of the life of the church, as it is described in the Acts.—Finally, many persons of both sexes believed in Jesus, and became connected with the company of the disciples, Act_5:14 : it was precisely this steady growth of the church (ὥστε, Act_5:15) which, at the same time, strengthened the confidence of the people in the miraculous powers of the apostles.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The penal miracle did not fail to produce a deep impression both on the church itself, and also on those who stood without. It solemnly admonished the former to watch over its own spiritual state with the utmost diligence, and was a most impressive warning against the sin of grieving the Holy Ghost. But it also taught the people that those who attached themselves to the church, were required to subject their conscience and whole spirit to the control of the Holy Ghost, and that a mere external union with the church, in which the heart had no share, was of no advantage. The great object which the divine Head of the Church has in view, is not the accession of a mixed multitude of members, but the sanctification of his people.
2. The numerous miracles of healing which the apostles now perform, constitute the answer to the prayer recorded in Act_4:30; they also furnish the evidence that, however awful the manifestations of God’s displeasure with the wicked may be, he is always ready, in his infinite mercy, to help, to heal, and to save all those who seek his face.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Act_5:12. And by the hands, etc.—The wrath of God, who spoke by the mouth of the apostles, had consumed two hypocrites; but now, through the hands of the apostles, relief is afforded to a multitude of sufferers. Thus the Lord demonstrated that he had no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but preferred to do good to his creatures.—In wrath he remembers mercy [Hab_3:2], and even as he takes vengeance on the ungodly, so, too, he never turns away from the cry of the needy. (Apost. Past.).
Act_5:13. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them.—It may be noticed even in our own day, that disingenuous men, who reject the word, do not readily approach an upright servant of Christ, but rather avoid all intercourse with him. (Apost. Past.).—The judgment which visited Ananias and Sapphira, was a public testimony that the Lord does not primarily desire to gather a mixed multitude into the church. Hence it was one of the first results produced by that judgment, that no one ventured to form a merely outward connection with the believers; the power of the Spirit and of the truth, which was revealed in the latter, deterred others from making any professions which were not sustained by the movements of their hearts. (K. H. Rieger).
Act_5:14. And believers were the more added, even after that awful illustration of divine justice had been given! It seems then, that the apprehensions of a spurious wisdom are unfounded; that wisdom objects to the maintenance of a consistent and rigid church-discipline, fearing that others will thus be deterred from approaching. No! Let good order be strictly maintained, and an improvement will soon become visible. (Starke).—Pruning is also one of the means which God employs for promoting the vigorous growth of the church. (Quesn.).
Act_5:15. The shadow of Peter.—A pastor who is aware of his own insufficiency, sometimes becomes discouraged, and asks: “How can I accomplish any good work, when I myself am sitting in the shade, and am more like a shadow than a living man?” But God can accomplish a great work by employing even the weakest things of the world [1Co_1:27], such as the shadow of Peter, if only the instrument humbly yields to his control. (Apost. Past.).—“The Lord is thy shade,” (Psa_121:5), was Peter’s answer. It was not his shadow that healed; the apostle, who tried the spirits [1Jn_4:1], would have rebuked the man who expected help from the shadow of a human being; the sick sought for aid from the power of God which wrought through Peter. (Besser).
Act_5:16. There came also a multitude … unto Jerusalem.—Happy is he, whose distress has taught him to lift up his heart to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to look in that direction for the power that shall heal him. 2Co_5:1-2. (Quesn.).—Them which were vexed with unclean spirits.—We ought not, as pastors, to abandon hope in a single case, even if the individual before us is possessed by the most unclean of the spirits, and by legions of them! (Ap. Past.).—The blessed results which follow, when God sifts the Church: I. The chaff is removed; (a) either expelled, (Ananias and Sapphira), (b) or kept afar off (the people who durst not join thomselves to the believers, Act_5:13); II. The wheat remains; (a) purified by faith; (b) united by love, Act_5:12.—The mysterious power exercised by a believer who is filled with the Spirit: I. It repels the evil, Act_5:13, but attracts the good, Act_5:14; II. It subdues unclean spirits, Act_5:16, but gives rest to them that labor, and are heavy laden, Act_5:15; III. It is a savour of death unto death [2Co_2:16] to the enemies of the truth (Ananias and Sapphira; the priests and elders), but a savour of life unto life to them that seek salvation (the sick who were brought to Peter; believers who were added to the church).—The human instrumentality employed in conducting a soul to heaven, proceeds itself from the divine and only source of salvation.—The transition from the shadow of Peter into the light of Christ: I. Salvation is not obtained through Peter’s shadow, although the weakness and folly of men are often prompted to assign an undue value to the personal characteristics, the peculiarities, or even the infirmities of chosen instruments (the idolatrous attentions paid to preachers, pastors, heads of sects; the worship of relics); it proceeds solely from Christ, who was the light and life of Peter (Act_3:6); II. Salvation is not obtained through Peter himself, but through Him whose strength was made perfect in Peter’s weakness [2Co_12:9]—through Christ, Act_3:12. And thus Peter’s shadow directs attention to Christ, the light of the world, the sun of righteousness.—If Peter himself cannot save, much less can his shadow—the Pope—save a single soul!—What is the remedy that can heal a diseased soul? I. Not the shadow of Peter, nor the garment of Christ (Luk_8:44), that is to say, no outward object, no outward act; II. It is the light which shone on Peter, the power of Christ, that is to say, the life of God, revealed in Christ and his witnesses, received in faith, and infused into the soul.—The Gospel of Christ, the true Bethesda [Joh_5:2] Act_5:16.—Sickness and misery enlarge the borders of the church of Christ. If the sick are to be healed, they must be brought to Jerusalem, Act_5:16, that is, to Jerusalem which is above, and which is the mother of us all [Gal_4:26]. (Gossner).
Footnotes:
[6]Act_5:15. a. κατὰ τὰς πλατείας [of text. rec. With D (original)., and adopted by Alford]. The readings vary considerably: ἐν ταῖς πλ. [E.]; εἰς τὰς πλ. [in A. B. D (corrected)., and Cod. Sin., and adopted by Lach. and Tisch.], etc. They are all corrections, intended to furnish an easier construction than the original text presents.
[7]Act_5:15. b. κλιναρίων; in place of this word, some present the simple and more usual form: κλινῶν—[The latter, of the text. rec. is found in E. Alford, with A. B. D. Cod Sin., and recent editors, reads κλιναρίων—Tr.]
[8]Act_5:16. εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ; the preposition εἰς was omitted in some MSS., as the name of the city was supposed to be connected with πἐριξ, but εἰς should be retained. [It is omitted in A. B. Cod. Sin. Vulg., etc., and by Lach., and Tisch., but found in D. E., and retained by Alf., with whom de Wette and Meyer agree.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 15 THE PROGRESS OF THE NEW CAUSE LEADS TO THE…
THE PROGRESS OF THE NEW CAUSE LEADS TO THE ARREST OF THE APOSTLES--THEY ARE MIRACULOUSLY DELIVERED FROM PRISON, RESUME THEIR TEACHING, BUT ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE CONDUCTED BEFORE THE SAMHEDRIM. (Act 5:12-26)
Solomon's Porch--(See on Joh 10:23).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv12–15 12. All—Luke now proceeds to give an illustration of…
12. All—Luke now proceeds to give an illustration of the awe of the public toward the apostles. When Peter and John addressed the people on a former occasion in Solomon’s Porch some of the class of opposers present in their assembly went and informed the authorities and brought on a persecution. Since that they had held their meetings in their own room. (Note Act_5:2.) But now the apostles, not two but all, had again met with one accord in the Porch with the following result. The all here refers to the apostles just mentioned; but we need not deny that a company of attendant Christians is implied as present with them.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv12–16 12–16. Miraculous powers of the Apostles. Continued growth of…
12–16. Miraculous powers of the Apostles. Continued growth of the Church
12. And by the hands of the apostles, &c.] By the hands may here only be the Hebrew mode of expressing by. Cp. (Jos_14:2) “By lot was their inheritance as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses.” But as in the description of our Lord’s miracles we very often read “he laid his hands upon a few sick folk” (Mar_6:5, &c.), and as it is said of the Apostles (Mar_16:18) “they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover,” it seems better to understand the words here of such acts of imposition of hands, though we presently find (Act_5:15) that the multitudes believed that a cure could be wrought without such an act.
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and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch] This must refer to such assemblies as were held by the Apostles for conference and instruction when they went up at the usual times of prayer. Thus all will signify the whole company assembled on some such occasions, and not embrace every person who had joined the new teaching. They came to Solomon’s porch, both teachers and hearers, with one common purpose, to tell and know more of the religion of Jesus. But it is not necessary to interpret the sentence to signify that they took a regular possession of this cloister as their place for worship (see Act_3:11).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv12–16 (12) Many signs and wonders. . . .—See Note…
(12) Many signs and wonders. . . .—See Note on Act_2:22.
They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.—See Notes on Act_3:2; Joh_10:23. It was, we have seen, at all times a favourite place of resort for teachers. The chronology of this period of the history is still, as before, left somewhat indefinite; but assuming some months to have passed since the Day of Pentecost, what is now related would be in the winter, when, as in Joh_10:23, that portico, as facing the east and catching the morning sunlight, was more than usually frequented. On “with one accord,” see Note on Act_4:24.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv12–16 By the hands of the apostles, etc. Two things…
By the hands of the apostles, etc. Two things are here remarkable. The one that Christianity at its beginnings was mightily helped and advanced by miracles done in the Name of Jesus Christ. The other that the authority of the apostles as the rulers of the Church was greatly strengthened by these miracles being wrought exclusively by their hands. We cannot understand either the external relations of the Church to the world, or the internal relations of the people to their spiritual rulers, unless we duly take count of these two things. With one accord. (see Act_4:24, note) In Solomon"s porch. (see Act_3:11, note) It is quite true to nature that Solomon"s porch, having been the scene of the miracle, became the place of frequent concourse. There is a difference of opinion among commentators as to whether the all refers to the whole Christian laity as in Act_2:1, or to the apostles only. Alford thinks the latter, Meyer the former. The opinion that the whole body of Christians is meant seems most probable, both from the use of the words in Ac 2. I and from the phrase oJmoqumadon (especially in connection with apamtev), which seems more applicable to a mixed multitude than to twelve colleagues like the apostles. You could hardly say that all the queen"s ministers met in a Cabinet Council with one accord. There is no need for the parenthesis as in the A.V.
Vers. 12-42. The advancing tide.
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The gospel of God"s grace in Jesus Christ crucified and risen again had issued from Jerusalem at the bidding of the Lord. Would it ever stop? would it ever cease to advance? would it ever meet with obstacles sufficiently strong to turn back its current and to arrest its progress? When the flowing tide is hurrying towards the shore, some particular wave is checked by an opposing rock, and is shivered into spray before it can reach the shore. But wait a little and the rock is sunken beneath the waters, and the waves roll on unchecked to their goal. Sometimes a temporary lull seems to have fallen upon the languid waves, and three or four in succession do not reach the bounds which their predecessors had attained. But yet a moment and the tide advances in its unbroken strength, and never fails to fulfill its destined course. It is just so with the gospel of Christ. Its advance is sure. Its strength is in the unchanging will of God. It has a course to run; it will run it. It has an end to fulfil; it will fulfill it. Hindrances, obstacles, defiance, it will meet with from man in a thousand varying forms. The opposition of hard unbelief in those who boast that they have intellect and philosophy on their side; the opposition of adverse creeds seeking to supplant the true faith; the fierce persecutions of ungodly power hoping to stop by force the progress of a hated truth; the divisions and dissensions of Christians among themselves; the abounding of iniquity and the chilling of Christian love; the sudden rise of some heresy or apostasy; these and such like hindrances may occasionally seem to check the onward flow of the waters of life, and at times to threaten its further advance. But, like the irresistible tide of the mighty ocean, God"s purpose is pressing surely on; and by the time decreed by his eternal wisdom the whole "earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea". (Isa_11:9) The chapter now before us gives a most striking view of this irresistible advance as well as of the obstacles opposed to it. One hundred and twenty men and a few poor, weak women are, as it were, the seed which the hand of the Lord has sown in an uncongenial soil. Immediately around them was all the bigotry of Pharisaic Judaism, clinging with desperate and impassioned obstinacy to the traditions of their fathers, and ready to kill and be killed on behalf of the Law of Moses, on the one hand; and the hard, cold skepticism of the Sadducees on the other, denying with agnostic incredulity the existence of anything beyond the ken of their eyes or the grasp of their hands. In the wider circle of the outside world there was the iron heathenism of Rome. Imperial tyranny and Caesarean power; military force and the despotism of the sword; sensuality of the deepest dye; idolatry of the most aggressive and all-engrossing kind; philosophies the most adverse to the cress of Christ. How and where could the gospel make its way? Would it not die in the upper room where it was born? But what do we read? "There were added to the Church about three thousand souls;" "Many believed, and the number of the men was about five thousand;" "Believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women;" "The number of the disciples was multiplied;" and so on, marking the constant advance of the Church of God. And yet all the while every effort was being made to check this advance. There were already "prisons oft." There were the fierce threatenings of those who had power to execute them; there were stripes inflicted; there was the majesty of the law and the authority of rulers arrayed against them. But it was all in vain. The preachers could not be silenced; the preaching could not be stopped; the miracles could not be hid; men"s hearts would turn to Christ when they heard of his grace; multitudes would leave the side of the persecutors and join themselves to the persecuted. The tide would flow on. It rushed over the heads of the opposing rocks. And then worldly wisdom came in with its prudent counsel, "Leave these men alone." And so for a time the work of God went quietly on, gathering strength and acquiring solidity from day to day, in preparation for future hostility from the world without, and future hindrances from corruption within. But these first fortunes of Christianity have left to the Church in all ages a model of the conflicts that await her, and of the only method of obtaining victory. They show us that through opposition and contradiction, in sunshine and in storm, amidst encouragements and under depression, the servants of God have to persevere steadily in proclaiming the grace of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, have to go forward in an unswerving obedience to the commandment of Christ and an unfaltering confidence in his almighty power, and that success is sure. "On this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Vers. 12-16. The healing personality of Christ"s servants.
I THEY ARE VEHICLES OF DIVINE POWER. The lips and the hands are consecrated to the service of doing good. Here especially the hands. It is a beautiful organ, the human hand, and may stand in Christian thought as the very symbol of beneficence. Signs and wonders are wrought, betokening that God is in immediate connection with the agency of man, that his presence is loving and healing, that Christianity brings in an era of deliverance from pain and sickness.
II THE REPELLENT FORCE OF HOLY PERSONALITY. False souls are scared by the presence of a true man. They are in polar antagonism to him. They cannot bear his direct glance, his clear tones, his indefinable influence. There are those whose presence silences the ribald jest and scoff. The holy man awakens dread and love wherever he goes. Society seems to divide into its elements as he approaches. He is magnetic. Hence the slander of some is an equal testimony to moral greatness with the admiration and love of others.
III ITS ATTRACTIVE FORCE. The multitude love goodness and revere it in their inmost heart. And not for long can the sympathies of the multitude be held except by goodness. In this case Divine power set its seal too plainly upon the character and work of the apostles to be resisted. In the vast concourse of sick and suffering in the streets and open places of Jerusalem we have the picture of the effects of Christianity. It is and ever has been the religion of the poor and the suffering. It remains the Divine will that the Christian minister should be the healer, the comforter. His pattern is to be found in the description Christ gave of his own mission in the synagogue at Nazareth, (Lu 4) and it is surely a sign of weakness somewhere when the public organs of Christianity fail to command the attention and to supply the heart-wants of the lowly and the suffering. By the ordinary laws of mind to work for the spiritual help of such is better than all the power to work signs and wonders. Let every Christian minister be like "Peter"s shadow," a refreshment and a rest by his spirit and teaching to weary souls. J.
Vers. 12-16. Clear shining after rain.
The blessed effects of what at first is not fully understood. The outpouring of judgment may be a preparation for the outpouring of mercy. The Church has to be made and kept pure; then the deeper the work of grace among God"s people becomes the larger the work of the gospel in the world. Notice
I An increase in the manifestation of THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT.
1. In the working of miracles, which bad their special value in rousing attention and proving the nearness of God"s kingdom.
2. In the separation, and magnifying in the eyes of the people, of the true Church. The rest durst not join them; the people magnified them.
3. In the solidifying of the Church as a society. Solomon"s porch; one accord.
4. In the work of conversion. Multitudes men and women; notwithstanding the awful deaths.
5. In the diffusion of the glad tidings in the surrounding neighborhood, not as mere idle rumor, but as a practical appeal which brought the needy and suffering to the feet of Christ.
II THE UNFOLDING GRACE OF GOD to mankind. Solomon"s porch the place of meeting still. The center of new life in the midst of the old corruption. Invitation to both Jews and Gentiles. Public place, yet connected with the temple. The Divine society inviting all to new life a life that healed, that cared for the sick and dying, that drew the multitudes, the miracles giving confidence and pointing out the way. The manifest testimony of the world to the Church, speaking of man"s preparation for the gospel, The marvelous progress of the truth in the growth of the Church a sign that the grace was being abundantly bestowed. A time of great awakening and many conversions is a time of tremendous responsibility. At least the shadow of the messenger falls upon us, as he passes by. It is not said that the shadow healed, but it may help to the faith which is a prerequisite. The people magnify the work, though they may not receive the blessing. God works generally from the lower to the upper strata of society. All great moral changes have begun among the people. The rich will resist, for it is hard to them to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The Church must look well to itself if it is to be the power of God in the world. The circle of grace will widen if only the force keeps going out from the center. We must avoid the fatal mistake of enlarging that circle by mere human methods. Let God do it in his way. What we want is not large Churches as, communities, or wealthy societies, or great signs and wonders wrought in our cities, but "believers added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women;" and they will be the more added" because the rest dare not join themselves unto them because the Spirit of God is manifestly among them. Our great danger is impatience and unbelief. Resorting to our own expedients, because we think God"s methods fail. Out of the dark cloud of Ananias"s and. Sapphira"s sin broke forth a new baptism of zeal, devotion, and spirituality. R.
HOMILIES BY P.C. BARKER Vers. 12-16. Jerusalem"s second summer.
While we read these fewest verses of what was going on in Jerusalem, and of how "multitudes from the cities round about Jerusalem" thronged that mother of them all," to seek, not in vain, healing virtue, we seem to be removed by a world"s diameter from the Jerusalem that was stricken to the heart and its very sky darkened by the Crucifixion. And we also seem removed by centuries from the time when certain lips (which could not open but to speak truth whether simplest or deepest) had said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, behold, your house is left unto you desolate!" and when Jesus "wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." On the contrary, we are in fact separated only by weeks from the dread solemnities of the Crucifixion, and scarcely by months from the lamentations of Jesus over Jerusalem. Yet the sun is shining again; storm, darkness, and nothing less than the chill of severest winter are passed over; and summer days, with striking similarity to the best of those of Jesus himself, burst on Jerusalem. Surely it is second summer with Jerusalem. Reminiscences of bright days, indeed, these were, and they were bright in their own brightness; yet, alas! to linger but for a while. Meantime what a touching evidence they were, for Jerusalem, of the unrevengefulness of Jesus, of his forgivingness, of the very wistfulness of his loving-kindness! Let us notice the distinguishing features of these days.
I THEY ARE A GLORIOUS REPRODUCTION OF SOME OF THE GRANDEST OF THE DAYS OF CHRIST"S OWN MINISTRY. That such a thing could be said with literal truth was part
(1) of the condescension of Jesus; again, it came
(2) of the genuine reality contained in the profession that he wore human nature; and
(3) of the one absorbed interest of his heart in the work of man"s salvation. The point is surely worthy of attention, so beautiful in its own moral bearings; so significant of the intention of Jesus to share his ultimate triumph and glory with his own people, and their captains and princes not last; and so great a contrast to the methods and the "inward thoughts" of the "world" and "the kings of the earth." Jesus is not of those who would cut off from the followers in his train those who might be successful imitators of his career, sharers of his renown. He is exactly the opposite of this. He calls, invites, incites us all to seek to be in every best sense imitators of him, and promises that so we shall not fail of a just share of his renown. The likeness between these days and days in the ministry of Jesus Christ is patent in respect of:
1. The miracles which found a place in them.
2. The beneficent character of those same miracles.
3. The abundance and the variety of them ranging from the healing of" the sick" to the healing of those "vexed with unclean spirits.
4. The very methods by which the friends of the afflicted compassed the bringing of them within the reach of the "virtue" which in some way "came out" of the apostles. The "touch of the hem of the garment" must be allowed to be equaled by the device of securing the chance for some impotent man of the "shadow of Peter overshadowing him.
5. The eager, longing, thirsting appropriation of such blessings on the part of the masses of the people. Crushed by want, by suffering, by sin; hope, light, nay, almost the mind crushed out of them; with what irresistible, unceremonious tide do these ever press forward, and sweep round or over every obstacle, when genuine help, precious, precious, precious salvation proffers itself! What care they for Sanhedrim and Sadducee? They are the rulers, and the others are cowed and cower before them.
6. The widespread practical success of the miracles they were healed every one.
7. The moral triumph which "the people" accord to the authors, or those who appear as the authors, of their blessings. They repudiate sophistication, and "render honor to whom honor is due." Indeed, there are not wanting very satisfactory and sufficient indications now that "the people," on the one hand, rendered to the apostles the distinction justly due to them as the trusted servants of their vanished Master, and, on the other, recognized the fact that "the power was of God." Infidelity was not altogether either the prevalent or the hardened fact in some directions then that in some directions it is now. "The people" had a great idea of the impregnability of the position of the man who did "works such as none other could do," and "such as no man could do save God were with him.
II THEY GIVE NOW WITH UNCHALLENGEABLE AUTHORITY THEIR PROPER DIGNITY AND STATUS TO THE COMPANY OF THE APOSTLES. Peter and John are the two apostles whose names and whose work had hitherto received prominence. Of these Peter has been with evident and with just design by far the more prominent. Till Paul shall come upon the scene he will also remain similarly conspicuous. But during these days the whole college of the apostles seem to receive the baptism of their work, as on the day of Pentecost they had received the baptism of the Spirit for it. They are "all with one accord in Solomon"s porch." And the chief evidence of the dignity and status, not artificial but real, which were now given to them, may perhaps be best expressed in a somewhat antithetical mode of statement, viz. that
(1) while "the people magnified them" with hearty acclamation for instant and grateful acknowledgment,
(2) "no man of the rest" (i.e. presumably of those who would not care to be classified altogether among "the people," and who would have been quite prepared to snatch at any possible dignity at which they could "dare" to snatch) "durst join himself" to those apostles. They did not dare this, because their abilities could be immediately put to the proof. They did not dare it, because of the warning, so fresh, of the end of Ananias, when he had tampered with the sacredness of the society organized by the apostles. And likely enough, in many cases, they did not dare it from a sincere awe and an intelligent, respectful reverence for men who were doing the things that the apostles were now doing. Any way, the result was obtained that round these apostles was drawn the cordon of a moral regard and a moral support, which would be a strong comfort to the believers and a strong condemnation to the unbelievers. A very few hours were to find the use of this. And a very few hours would show that it inferred no danger of the access of superficial vanity or the incursion of deeper pride.
III THEY GO BEYOND OTHER MOST SACRED DAYS OF MIRACLE IN THE DIRECT SPIRITUAL RESULTS WHICH THEY RECORD. (Ver. 14.) It is quite possible that, among the "multitudes both of men and women" who now were "added to the Lord," some may have proved apostates as time went on. On the other hand, the supposition would be most gratuitous that any disproportionate number turned thus away. The fair inference from what is said here and from the tenor of the history that follows would be, if anything, in a contrary direction. Assuming this or contenting ourselves readily with the other and lower estimate, in either case we are justified in noting the kind of use to which at this time miracle was ordained to be subservient. It is not to be disputed that the fervent attachment which bound not a few to the person, yes, and to the character and truth, of Jesus during the days of his flesh was wakened and fixed by some miracle that he had wrought for them or theirs. Nor need it be denied that that attachment answered to a genuine spiritual change, a change of heart, evidencing itself in a change of life. Nevertheless, it can scarcely be said that this was the clear rule in the operation of the miracles of Jesus, or that this was their aim. Neither, perhaps, now was this the primary object of the miracles and "the many signs and wonders wrought by the hands of the apostles." But the miracles were distinctly the pioneers of those spiritual results. In the track of miracle went a most efficacious working of the convincing and converting Spirit! The miracle drew many together; it wakened and held the attention; it undoubtedly did have this practical and so far forth moral effect, viz. the effect of compelling many to say, Lo, God is here!" and to feel it. To deny the possibility of a miracle-falls nothing-short Of denying a personal God. To allow the fact of any individual miracle is to allow that God is offering to the help of a poor memory, to the help of a struggle always arduous enough against sense and the numbing sway of habit, to the help-of conviction itself, the enlivening touch of his personal presence. Sophistry has a vanity in weaving its web to snare miracle, but vainly weaves. The faith that inheres in the world"s great heart is too strong for it, and sweeps away that vanity with equal ease and contempt. In the track, then, of miracle viewed for a moment thus, it is quite optional what follows. The miracle, like all other mercy, may be to condemnation, as Jesus said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. (Joh_15:22, Joh_15:26) The miracle may be what it so often was in the very dearest specimens of it, those of Jesus himself, to the great gratification of curiosity that of people, of priest, and of ruler, and after a while to their deeper sleep and their more reckless disbelief. But it may also be all the blessed contrary. In the track of what or of whom would the quickening, enlightening. convincing, converting Spirit himself rather follow? And this is what was seen nosy. When Jesus himself wrought his own mightiest works, the Spirit"s course seemed restrained. But, wonderful grace! when his disciples and apostles are facing the world and encountering the inevitable dangers involved in doing so, mighty miracles are brought home by the mightier Spirit, and spiritual results follow such as may be described in terms unknown to the lifetime of Jesus himself. "Believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." Nevertheless, then were plainly fulfilled the words of Jesus to his disciples, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do: because I go unto my Father". (Joh_14:12) B.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v15 Inasmuch that they brought forth the sick.
Act_5:15
Inasmuch that they brought forth the sick.
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., that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow them.
The shadow of Peter
The miracles of Christ and His apostles were mainly miracles of healing--a fact to be well noted. The power to work these has been withdrawn; but the same object is still accomplished by the prayerful use of natural means. Still the heart of the believer is alive to the tender offices of compassion; still, in the shadow of the Christian, the sorrows of the unfortunate obtain relief. Charity may be not unaptly denominated the Christians shadow. A shadow is the reflection of a substance: charity is a habit of conduct, reflected from a Christian disposition. A shadow represents, in some degree, the form and aspect of the substance; charity pourtrays, in outline, the figure of the child of God. A shadow moves with the substance it represents, attends and imitates it in every step and posture: charity accommodates itself, in equal vigour, to every change of capacity and circumstance;--in prosperity, is liberal; in adversity, considerate; humble in joy, cheerful in affliction. But a shadow can only be reflected by a stronger light than that in which the substance stands or moves. And what is that light?
I. Shall we find that ray within? In the tenderness and fervency of our own affections? Many are the deeds of kindness prompted by instinctive feeling: but are not deeds of very different hue as often prompted by the same emotions? Are not evil thoughts, adulteries, etc., things which defile a man, the offspring also of the heart? And shall we think to derive our light from such a source? Shall we follow, in security, a guide so blind and treacherous? Nay, we are assured that the heart, with all its flexibility of control, is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. So far from directing our judgment, it must itself be brought perpetually to justice; instead of holding a light unto our path, it ever needs a lantern to its own.
II. Shall we look around us for that ray? And shall we find it in the selfishness and ambition of the world, the blandishments of mans admiration? It has become a practice somewhat too prevalent to urge the contributions of the wealthy, without regard to rectitude of principle or motive, on the pretext that, so long as charitable institutions are upheld, no matter with what design of their supporters, the object of such application is substantially realised. But there is a case of the giver to be taken into consideration; and the effect on his mind is decidedly injurious. He is taught to repose a merit upon actions which, under existing circumstances, assume a character entirely the reverse of meritorious. He is taught to attach an undue value to wealth, as a vital source, and not an accidental garb, of beneficence: to allow to charity its plenary importance in the rank of virtues, but to limit the scope of charity to the bare performance of alms-giving. And lastly, he is taught to look to man, and not to God, for his reward. Why else are we reminded of the generosity of those who have thought to make their peace with heaven fur the defects of an unprofitable life by bequeathing their possessions to the poor, when the near approach of death withdraws the further prospect of gratifications which have constituted the chief endearment of their lives? The poor enjoy their pittance, it is true; but at whose and at what expense? to those who give, the probability of that mortifying reproof hereafter, Who hath required this at thy hand? To those who urged the gift, the sure and certain recompense of the ceremonious Pharisee, who preached sacrifice and not mercy, and put other burdens on the souls of men than the covenant of their Lord and Master.
III. If we find it neither within us, nor around us, it remains only that we lift our eyes above us, even to that Sun of Righteousness, who rose, the offering for our redemption, and the example of our duty, with healing in His wings. From Him have we this commandment, that he who loveth God, should love his brother also. The love of Christ constraineth us. It is only under the influence of this prevailing motive that our principles and habits can be warmed into a generous concern for the whole household of Christ; it is only under the brightness of His presence that the Christians shadow can be reflected. The frame of mind required for such an exercise of benevolence is the repose inspired by a firm and humble trust in the providence of the Almighty, and the efficacy of His Sons atonement; a calm and holy peace, which leaves the mind at liberty to toil, for righteousness sake, amid the sneers and censures of the ungodly, and, like the pattern of its daily practice, to go about doing good. And what other influence can be named, capable of producing this blessedness of tone and spirit, but the constraint of the love of God? Will you say that inducements, at least of equal weight, are given us, in the dread of future punishment. But fear is, after all, but a flickering and inconstant meteor, totally incapable of reflecting that steady shadow we are now employed in contemplating. Think not I would deny the efficacy of an arrangement which converts even the fears and apprehensions of the sinner into occasions and instruments of good, and thus not seldom penetrates his soul through the only avenue unchoked by the brambles of worldly-windedness. I merely argue that the sensations of fear and terror are incompetent of themselves to generate that steadiness of principle and habit, that abandonment of selfish and carnal interests, that devotion of the heart and life to the will and purposes of the Creator, which manifests itself in a regard and concern for all the creatures of His hands. I say that an intermediate process must take place; that the inner man must be purified as well as roused; must first learn to love God, and then, and not till then, will love his brother also. There is not a star that twinkles in the firmament on high but has its appointed sphere of service and occupation: but from the sun alone we behold our fair proportions represented. There is not a motive, a feeling, in the constitution of a human being but may be made conducive, by Gods blessing, towards the great end of his probation; but it is only beneath the love of God that the Christians shadow lies unfolded. (P. Hall, M. A.)
Casting shadows
We all cast shadows, i.e., exert unconscious influences. Some men are always, without seeming effort or thought, making other people happy. But there are others whose presence depresses and saddens us. This is so in the secular sphere; but our unconscious influence spreads into wider areas. God works out His grandest purposes by undemonstrative agents. The earthquake and lightning are as nothing compared with attraction and heat. And so with human influences.
1. Because our voluntary efforts are only occasional and interrupted, while our unconscious energy is everywhere operative and constant.
2. Our constant and silent energy is most expressive of our real character. Consider a few practical applications.
I. It should impress us with a sense of the importance of human life.
II. We are responsible for our unconscious influence. We may think to evade this on the ground that the evil we do is unintentional. But apply this to physical evil; to the case of Solomons lunatic who said, I am in sport; or to the man who, exerting no positive influence, lets a blind man fall over a precipice. Just to do nothing is to do terrible evil; but in such a world no man can do nothing. Our whole mortal life is embodied force.
III. Death does not destroy this unconscious influence. The Greeks used to term the disembodied spirit a shadow, an invisible presence, haunting the scenes of its former life, and though not in this sense yet, as abiding influences, the dead are still with us. On the one hand, Lord Byron, Bonaparte, Voltaire, etc., yet stalk the earth and gibber their influence; on the other, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Chalmers, still live. This truth is a warning to all workers of iniquity, but an encouragement to every true child of God. (C. Wadsworth, D. D.)
Casting shadows in life
Our text shows--
I. The power there may be in comparative trifles. As a metaphor few figures are more frequently used in the Scriptures than that of the shadow. Sometimes it is suggestive of blessing, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, or the shadow of the Almighty; sometimes the opposite, as the shadow of death. A shadow! What is more insignificant? Intangible and unsubstantial, is it not the veriest trifle? Yet how solemnly impressive it is.
1. The most irresistible forces of the world in nature are those that we can neither see nor hear. The earthquakes tread makes us tremble, and so does the roar of the hurricane. How appalling the thunder and lightning; but how far inferior are they in either benign or blasting influence to the quieter, subtler force of electricity, gravitation, heat, or light.
2. In science and civilisation the quieter forces have counted most. The grandest discoveries have usually emerged from some by-way of accident. The most thrilling pages of history are but chronicles of events that have nearly all turned on the pivot of some trivial circumstance. Mohammedanism was the product of a spiders web woven behind the fleeing prophet and deceiving his pursuers. The battle of Waterloo was suspended upon the co-operation of Blucher, whose life escaped the enemys sword by the simple circumstance of wearing the cap of a common soldier, and for the reason that the clasp of his own helmet had broken.
3. Just so it is in religion. Are we not astonished often to find that the little things we say and do tell more radically and widely than some of our most demonstrative actions? Then, too, the very constancy of those trifles tells. Repeated blows of a little hammer may be more effective than the single downfall of the ponderous sledge. The clock strikes at intervals, the ticking is momentary; we hear the one, we do not notice the other; yet the hour stroke comes not if the ticking fails.
II. As no shadow can be cast without light, our text illustrates the essential place Christ holds in all true religion, in the world and in the soul. If the sun be clouded, or the atmosphere hazy, no distinct shadows can be east. The sun must shine out to make shadows. So the distinctness of shadows of grace indicate the strong or feeble shining of the Sun of Righteousness.
1. Nationalities like Italy and Russia and South America tell us of the cloudy and dark day. England and America, on the other hand, bourgeoned with beauty, tell of the sun shining warmly and clearly from a gospel sky.
2. As in the world, so in the soul. Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, stands in striking contrast with Paul, the singing pilgrim in the dungeon of Philippi, and the same man near martyrdom exclaiming, I am now ready to be offered up, etc. Whence came the difference? Ah! Christ commenced shining upon him near that Damascene gate, and the light grew brighter and sweeter and clearer every day, so that he shouted, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Peter and James and Jn exclaimed on a glory-lit summit, It is good to be here! because Jesus in the midst was the centre of the glory. Shadows of noble action and happy feeling can come from those only who are wont to bask in the light of One above the brightness of the sun.
III. Every one exerts an influence, quiet but real, unconscious but a fact. Every one casts a shadow. The ghost of Banquo no more persistently refuses to down at the bidding of Macbeth than the ghostly shadow of the person or thing on which the sun is falling refuses to disappear. A man may simply stand still in a thoroughfare, he will soon find all eyes upon him, and all excitement about him. Every act, word, look, attitude, is a moral dynamic upon those around us. They are forces with which we are building or destroying. A whisper has often been clothed with the attribute of thunder. Unconsciousness of it is no argument against the fact. Peter was not thinking of the shadow he threw; much less how eagerly the sick sought it. So lasting is the influence that it lingers behind when the living have passed away. He being dead yet speaketh. No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. How startling the warning to the worker of wickedness, while the good may take its lessons of perpetual encouragement. The evil that men do, and the good, too, lives after them. This is true of great lives; it is equally true of the humblest. The intoning of Niagara can be heard farther away, but the rippling of the rill is just as real and sweeter. Mont Blanc witnesses to Divine power, but not more effectually than the violet tells us of the Divine skill and goodness by its beauty and fragrance. The eagle may soar higher, but the little canary has a sweeter song. As I mark the trivial act of the poor widow dropping her two mites, unconscious that any eye was watching, and then remember what a sermon that lowly act has been preaching to the world from that day to this; then am I ready to express the deep conviction that a shadow of influence beyond conception clings to the most obscure person; and often the humblest act. How this fact shows the dignity and importance of human life, and with what tremendous responsibility it invests it!
IV. The sombre and empty character of some kinds of religion; only a shadow. The shadow is dark and intangible; alas if our religion be only that and nothing more! Pity that any should get but a gloomy, and so a false, impression of religion from the representation we give them. It has been said that every one lives for a funeral; but can we not wait for the funeral till life is over? Must we see it every day? We meet such people, says a writer, every day, and they have always some new distress for us. Their sweetest smile is suggestive of the neuralgia, and their most cordial greeting depresses like an east wind. They go home at night like an undertaker to a funeral, and children cease singing, and wives refrain from smiles. They go abroad in the morning like a Scotch mist from the Highlands, to drizzle discontent in the street and market-place. They enter the house of God to render its songs of praise requiems, and its oil of joy ice water; and their religious light shines before men as heavens sunshine through stained glass, and the priest at the shrine looks like a variegated ghost, and the reverend worshippers like brindled hobgoblins. A croaking raven is the device on their shields--a coffin with cross-bones the blazon on their banner. Surely such a religious spirit and demeanour argue a wrong idea altogether of God and of truth. Peevish, morose, severe, fault-finding and censorious Christians are guilty, though they may not mean it, of dishonouring their Lord arid defaming the Church by the cheat of a shadow. True religion is sweet as the light, joyous as childhood, and benevolent as love. So the Scriptures represent it, and true hearts have ever felt it.
V. The real benevolence and cheer there is, or ought to be, in genuine religion. Peters shadow was eagerly sought by the sick ones or their friends, not because it was a shadow, but because to them it was the symbol of healing and cheer. So on whatever threshold the shadow of a Christian falls, in whatever company he moves, his coming should start a smile of pleasure; a manifest benison should beam in his face. Good-will to men was the cradle song over the Saviour, and it should be perpetuated as an echo in the life of every child of God. Heaven, as represented to us, is all joy, and earth should resemble heaven as far as sin and suffering will allow, by the prevalence of an atmosphere of cheerfulness over it. There are those whose presence is like the ripple of water by the wayside, or the shadow of groves on a hot day like an oasis in a vast sandy desert, or the singing of the nightingale in the darkness. (J. M. McNulty, D. D.)
The healing shadow
Who ever heard of the shadow of a person acting the part of a physician? They had no right to suppose that any good would come of such an extraordinary plan, And they had certainly no right to make Peter cure their friends in their own way, by a device of their own, without consulting him first as to whether it would be agreeable or not. Now the remarkable thing is, though these people were thus ignorant and superstitious, neither God nor Peter found fault with them. They used Peters shadow as a charm, and God made it to them what they wished it to be. Now, why was this? Because of the simplicity of their belief. And does not God often throw His power into the means which we ourselves devise, if we have only childlike faith? Little children come to church with their parents, and they are not always able to understand the meaning of the service. But their attendance is not useless on that account. If they place themselves in their simple faith under the shadow of Gods house, the blessing will assuredly not be wanting. It is not an intellectual knowledge of deep mysteries that God values, but a simple faith in Himself. The shadow of a tree or rock is a very delightful and refreshing thing on a burning summer day. It cools the heated frame, and imparts vigour and strength to the languid body. And if an inanimate thing can do so much good by its shadow, you would expect that the shadow of a human being would be more effectual still. I do not know that the shadow of our bodies would help much to keep off the too hot sun from a friend, but most certainly the shadow or influence of a good character can help others a great deal. We read in the fairy tale of a Peter Schlemihl, the man without a shadow, who frightened everybody else, and was miserable himself. But in real life there is no such thing as a person without a shadow. We have all a shadow to our natures as we have a shadow to our bodies. They say that it was from the shadow thrown by the figure of a girl on a wall, on a sunny day, that the art of drawing a picture was first found out. And so from the shadows which people cast as they pass by on the way of life, we can draw their portraits in our own mind; and these portraits are wonderfully like--much more true to life than the old silhouettes that used to be cut out of black paper. If peoples tempers should cast shadows, what would they be? said a little boy once, as he walked beside a companion, and saw his shadow on the road. Jns shadow would be a fist doubled up, for he is always quarrelling; and Andrews would be that of a dove, for he is always amiable and pleasant; and Janes would be that of a letter X, for she is as cross as two sticks; and my own shadow, what would it be? He stopped short. He was afraid of what kind of shadow his own temper would cast. Now supposing you follow out the little boys idea, and believe what is actually true, that you are throwing off impressions of what you really are all around you, and in fact can no more help doing so than you can prevent your bodies from casting real shadows on the road as you walk along; and each of you should ask himself or herself, What kind of shadow is my temper casting? It might perhaps surprise you to see yourselves as others see you. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Healing and hurting shadows
This record is the indication of a belief that stirred some human souls in old times, and ought to stir them still--a belief that there is something in a shadow cast from one over another, of a deep and potent power; a deed done sometimes the hand has no part in; a word said the tongue never utters; a virtue going out of me, or a vice, apart from my determination; a shadow of my spirit and life cast for good or evil, as certain and inseparable as my shadow on the wall. For instance, there is some mysterious force by which men, the first time we meet them, cast a shadow of light or darkness we cannot account for, and cannot overcome. What these subtle influences are no man has ever told us.
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell;
The reason why I cannot tell;
But--I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,
is the inner and instinctive verdict we pass on some men; probably, also, that some men pass on us. Their shadows hurt us: our shadows hurt them. Foremost of all shadows is the shadow of the home; where, four times in a century, God makes a new earth, and out of which he peoples a new heaven. I have sat bareheaded in the noblest Gothic cathedral on the earth. And for years I sat, in my youth, in a simple country church, joining in the old liturgies that, in one form or another, had been said or sung ever since the Saxon embraced the Christian faith. And once, I remember, I rose in the grey light, and stood alone by Niagara, while the sound of its mighty thunder rose up fresh and pure, unbroken as yet and undefiled by the clamour of those many changers who deserve a whip of not very small cords for profaning that place in which, of all places, the soul longs to be alone with her God. These were sacred places. But the holiest of all, the place whose shadow stretches over forty-five hundred miles of earth and sea, and forty years of time, and is still a shadow of healing, is a little place built of gray stone. There, bending over the picture in the great Bible, or listening to psalm or song or story, the child lived in the shadow of that home; and it became to him as the very gate of heaven, so dear and good, that no great cathedral, no grand scene in nature, no place for worship anywhere, can be what that grey-stone cottage was. I wonder whether we have any deep consciousness of the shadows we are weaving about our children in the home; whether we ever ask ourselves if, in the far future, when we are dead and gone, the shadow our home casts now will stretch over them for bane or blessing. It is possible we are full of anxiety to do our best, and to make our homes sacred to the children. We want them to come up right, to turn out good men and women, to be an honour and praise to the home out of which they sprang. But this is the pity and the danger, that while we may not come short in any real duty of father and mother, we may yet cast no healing and sacramental shadow over the child. I look back with wonder on that old time, and ask myself how it is that most of the things I suppose my father and mother built on especially to mould me to a right manhood are forgotten and lost out of my life. But the tender, unspoken love; the sacrifices made, and never thought of, it was so natural to make them; ten thousand little things, so simple as to attract no notice, and yet so sublime as I look back at them--they fill my heart still and always with tenderness when I remember them, and my eyes with tears. All these things, and all that belong to them, still come over me, and cast the shadow that forty years, many of them lived in a new world, cannot destroy. To make this question clear, if we can, let me open to you a glimpse of some shadows that are being cast in some homes every day, not over children alone, but over men and women also.
1. Here is a man who has been down town all day, in the full tide of care, that from morning till night floods the markets, offices, and streets of all our great cities. Tired, nervous, irritable, possibly a little disheartened, he starts for his home. If it is winter, when he enters there is a bit of bright fire, that makes a bad temper seem like a sin in the contrast; a noise of children that is not dissonant; and an evident care for his comfort, telling, plainer than any words, how constantly he has been in the mind of the house-mother, while breasting the stress and strife of the day; while a low, sweet voice, that excellent thing in woman, greets him with words that ripple over the fevered spirit like cool water. And the man who can nurse a bad temper after that deserves to smart for it. There is no place on the earth, into which a man can go with such perfect assurance that he will feel the shadow of healing, as into such a home as that. It is the very gate of heaven.
2. But I will open another door. Here is a home into which the man goes with the same burden on him. When he enters querulous questions meet him as to whether he has forgotten what he ought never to have been required to remember. Plaintive bewailings are made to him of the sad seventy-seventh disobedience of the children, or the radical depravity of the servants; and a whole platoon-fire of little things is shot at him, so sharp and ill-timed, that they touch the nerve like so many small needles. It is in such things as these that the shadows are cast, that hurt, but never heal: that drive thousands of men out of their homes into any place that will offer a prospect of comfort and peace, even for an hour.
3. But let me not be unfair. The evil shadow may just as certainly come from the man. Here is another man in the mood I have tried to touch. All day long he has fretted at the bit; but society has held him in. He goes home too, but it is to spume out his temper. The very sound of his foot casts a shadow that can hurt, but can never heal. If his wife is silent, he calls her sulky: if she speaks, he snaps her. If his children tome to him with innocent teasings he would give a year of his life some day to bring back again, they are pushed aside, or sent out of the room, or even--God forgive him--are smitten. He eats a moody dinner: takes a cigar; bitter, I hope, and serves him right; takes a book, too--not Charles Lamb or Charles Dickens, I warrant you--and, in one evening, that man has cast a shadow he may pray, some day, in a great agony, may be removed, and not be heard.
4. Then again, what shadows of healing fall, in their turn, from the children! No affliction that can ever come through children ever equals that which comes with their utter absence; while the heaviest affliction to most, the death of the little one, often casts a shadow of healing that could come in no other way. I went one day to see a poor German woman, whose children had all been down with scarlet fever. Four were getting well again; one was dead. And it was very touching to see how the shadow of that dead child had come over the mother, and sent its blessing of healing through all the springs of her life. These are beautiful children, I said.
Oh, yes! but I should have seen the one that died. While he was with her, he was like the rest. But now, when he was gone, he cast the shadow. The little shroud was turned into a white robe, that glistened and shone in the sun of Paradise, so that she was blinded; the broken prattle had filled out into an angel-song; the face shone as the face of an angel; and, all unknown to herself, God had laid her where the shadow of the little one up in heaven could touch her with its healing. And no shadow is so full of healing as that shadow of the child that is always a child in heaven. The most gentle and patient will sometimes feel a touch of irritation at the waywardness of the one that is with us; but no father or mother in this world ever did bring back any sense of such a feeling toward the one Chat is gone. The shadow of healing destroys it for ever. (R. Collyer, D. D.)
Unconscious influence
All things are engaged in writing their history. The plant, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf, their model epitaph in the coal. The falling drop makes its sculpture in the sand or stone. Not a foot steps into the snow or along the ground but prints, in characters more or less lasting, a map of its march. Every act of man inscribes itself on the memory of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures, and every object covered with hints which speak to the intelligent.
Unconscious influence
Here was the apostle who had gone forth purposed to heal men; and one by one as they were brought up he commanded them to stand; and they stood whole. Thus he exerted a conscious and voluntary power. But as he passed along the streets, his shadow fell upon many, and they sprang up behind him, he knowing little or nothing of it; so that his shadow or unconscious influence, also, was working at the same time. Now, all of us have both kinds of influence or power--that which we understand and mean, and that which falls like a shadow, the existence of which we do not understand or recognise.
I. Unconscious influence in a bad sphere. Men may act unconsciously in the production of trouble, far more than they themselves suspect; for their unconscious influence works according to the quality of that which is in them. When men pursue voluntary courses, they often hide the reality, and put forth that which is not real but simulated. Thus, perhaps, one makes himself friendly to a person whom he does not like, for purposes of business. Sometimes men suppress anger because good-nature will carry their purposes better. So that a mans overt and open conduct may not be in the line of nature. But there is an influence derived from that which you actually are.
1. A proud man may carry himself intentionally in such a way that every one he meets is made to feel his inferiority. But a man may tarry himself in such a way that without the slightest intention he shall insult his fellow-men, and make a perpetual aggression upon them. Your pride does not always exert itself according to your will. It has a magnetism of its own. A man may carry in his hand, if he please, a mignonette, and he may carry it because it is sweet. He may also put fetid odours in his clothes. He may hide them, not wishing that others shall know that they are there. But they will make themselves known, whether he wants them to or not. So a man may carry himself in the strong qualities of his nature, wishing well; but if those qualities are harmful in their tendency he will produce mischief in spite of his good intentions.
2. A mans selfishness may act as good conductors of heat do. If you put your hand upon wood it seems relatively warm; and if you put it on iron it seems excessively cold. They are of the same temperature, as measured by the thermometer, only the iron, being a good conductor, has the power of drawing heat rapidly from your hand, while the wood, being a poor conductor, draws it but sparingly. So it is with men. Some men exhaust you, they suck you dry, and you know not what is the matter. A man may have a nature such that when you are in his presence you are perpetually conscious that your sympathy is drawn upon and exhausted. He is a good conductor. His effect upon you is to chill you. And he does not intend any harm. Unconscious selfishness always works in that way. A man may be consciously selfish and not half so offensive as a man whose selfishness is never positively aggressive, but who carries an inward nature that all the while and everywhere draws upon men, making the whole room and house uncomfortable.
3. So combativeness may take on forms which will detract from the happiness of every one. The more obvious forms, bad as they are, probably, if measured by the mischief which they work, would not be found to produce one-half the discomfort of society which arises from the latent forms--what we call ill-nature. It hovers in the air. It is in silence as much as in the short, sharp reply. So men oftentimes fill the circles in which they live with malign influences. They poison the air with suspicion, with envy, with jealousy. A look, a hint, a shrug, may convey the wretched insinuation; or the unconscious atmosphere of jealousy make itself felt.
4. I may mention, also the unconscious wrong which sorrow commits upon those who are about it. Sorrow is not a thing to be controlled altogether; and yet we must exhort men to beware of the extremely selfish tendencies and qualities of sorrow. You have a right, as far as you can, to lean on sympathising friends, and so relieve your sorrow: and men should help the sorrowful; but, after all one has no right to distribute his sorrow. This is true, too, in the matter of ill-health. Invalids are privileged persons; but they should not privilege themselves. Because one is sick he has no right to set aside all laws of love, and disinterestedness, and honour.
5. Mens good qualities even may act unfavourably upon other men. For example, a man may be perfectly upright, and yet carry his conscience in such a way that it is perpetually condemning men. There is a kind of arrogance of goodness. Deliver me from a person who never does wrong--and knows it; from one whose tongue never makes any mistakes--and keeps account of that fact. If there be anything that is provoking to a poor sinner--and most of us are poor sinners--it is one of these perfect people who move about without much temptation--a perpetual rebuke to us all the time--a kind of stinging censure to our infelicities and inferiorities.
II. Unconscious influence in a good sphere. If the predominant faculties are sweet and gracious, then you will carry with you a sweet and gracious atmosphere, so that while you are doing good on purpose, you will be doing more good without purpose. There be men whom we might almost wish to have walk up and down in the street, in order to shed abroad their disposition--unconscious to themselves. There is goodness that means to be good; and there is a great deal of goodness which is better, that comes out from the eye, from the lips, or from the pores--I had almost said from the skin--and that is not conscious of being good. And when one dwells in such a royal bounty of kindness and goodness in himself that his very shadow, falling on men, makes them happy, that unconscious kindness and goodness is wealth indeed. When the train is stopped, the engineer springs from the locomotive and oils the machinery at every point, so that the oil runs in at all the joints. We look at him and at the engine, and admire them. But we never say a word to the oil, or about it. And yet the engine, and what it does, are largely dependant upon the lubrication which the oil brings. Now there are lubricators among men who keep the machinery of society oiled, so as to prevent its joints from wearing, and its journals from heating.
1. Such a man is one who is thoroughly good-natured. Men are as much perceived that carry good-nature in society as spicewood is that carries sweet odours. There is no danger of there being too many men who are not easily irritated, who look on the bright side of things, and who tend to solace--men that you can cushion on, and not touch the hard angles of an exacting, conscientious spirit. It is a great comfort just to look at a man who is good-natured. I remember once riding on a cold night. I was so cold that I almost feared that I should freeze. After awhile I came across a blacksmiths shop. I saw a bright light on the forge. I wanted to get off and warm myself, but I was afraid that I should be so numb that I could not get on again. So I sat and looked at the fire a moment; and then I said: Well, I feel better just for looking at you, and rode on. I have seen persons whose very presence, when the night was dark, and the way was difficult, and all things were freezing, filled you with comfort. There are thousands of times when men want to be thawed out. Men have power enough, but it is frozen; they need sympathy. And there are men who are supplying this element without knowing what they are doing. Many men are shot along the way of encouragement, and made to triumph, by some man who never dreams that he is doing anything for them. It is a good investment to have good-nature, and so much of it that you exhale it, as flowers do their odours; for you do not know who will take the comfort of it.
2. So, too, there is great inspiration in humour and in wit. Among the gifts which have been made to humanity, none in the lower sphere of virtues should call forth our thankfulness more than these. They civilise life. They carry with them a perpetual Blessing.
3. Still more are trust, devotion, humility. We think more of what Christ was, than of what He said or did. He always seems as one with a shining face. None go near Him without feeling the sanctity of His presence. None go near Him without feeling inspired toward good.
4. And so while we do and teach, our best work is that which we perform without knowing it. Silence under provocation is better than doctrine to many and many a man. Fortitude under trouble is a testimony to religion which is far better than a thousand proof-texts. In your boyhood, as you will very well remember, you used to write with invisible ink; and there was nothing for the recipient to do but to take the paper and hold it to the fire, and straightway out came the message. You are writing with invisible letters on thousands of childrens hearts; on the hearts of passers-by; on the hearts of those whom you meet in every circle where you move. (H. W. Beecher.)
Personal influence
I. We all exert some kind of influence. The law of influence every atom has to obey. A bird can neither scatter its songful notes in the air, nor soar in the heavens, without setting in motion pulsations which vibrate through all space. So man is so closely united to his fellows by various ties that he cannot live unto himself. In our social gatherings we meet with some persons around whom there is a kind of atmosphere charged with enkindling and attractive elements; and we meet with others who have a something about them which is dampening and rapelling. As leaven influences the meal, so we in some way affect those with whom we come into contact. Now this influence is--
1. Voluntary. Our Lord declared that the apostles should heal all manner of diseases. In this chapter we have a fulfilment of this prediction. The apostles voluntarily touched the sick and healed them. So, whenever we do anything with an aim, we exert voluntary and conscious influence.
2. Involuntary. The shadow which Peter cast upon the diseased restored them. Unintentionally and unconsciously a curative virtue went out from him. It is this influence which we all possess, an influence which flows from us, and floats about us insensibly
(1) Like our shadow, this involuntary influence is noiseless in its working as the darkness of night, or as the moonbeams which transfigure the sea. But we do not imagine that its power is less because it operates so quietly. The shadow of Peter was heard not, yet it cured the suffering ones by the wayside. Time and sunshine are ever soundless, but are there any forces more omnipotent?
(2) As our shadow is the similitude of our form, so our involuntary influence is the type of our actual self. Good words and deeds do not always spring from a good disposition. Young, in his Night Thoughts, writes scornfully of worldly glory, and yet no man sought for it more eagerly than he did. Voluntary influence does not always indicate what a man really is, but involuntary influence does. How many there are who try to pass for what they are not. But in spite of their mask we feel when in contact with them that they are playing a false part. Our involuntary influence is as much the outcome of our real nature as the scent is the outcome of the plant,s life. It is a something which we cannot imprison--a something that will out. Our unintended influence, then, is the key to the quality of our being.
(3) Our involuntary influence, like our shadow, is ever with us. It is not a mere appendage--a robe of which we can divest ourselves. Voluntary influence is necessarily intermittent, but involuntary influence is incessant. It is co-extensive with our existence. As a pebble when flung into a lake causes ripples to extend over its surface, so as soon as we enter the world we influence it in some degree.
II. The secret of beneficial influence. Christian character. A man may have but little of this worlds goods, and may occupy a lowly sphere; but if he has the Christ-like disposition, his influence, as was the shadow of Peter, will be rife with benediction. On the other hand, a man may possess extensive knowledge, immense wealth, and may move in the highest circles; but unless he has the Christ-like spirit, his treasures and status may fill him with pride; he may use them as instruments in the service of the god of this world, and render his influence as deadly as a pestilence. Or, prompted by some selfish motives, he may devote them very largely to benevolent purposes; but, lacking the true spirit, he produces in our minds a feeling of his hollowness and insincerity. If such an one would really benefit his fellows his heart must be renewed. Spirituality of character alone will give weight and value to riches, learning and position, when used in the service of Christ. If our voluntary influence is to be good, our involuntary influence must be good, and if our involuntary influence is to be good we must be right at the core. We must be quickened ere we can quicken. We must be recipients of the Divine ere we can be its distributors. Lord Peter-borough said of Fenelon: He is a delicious creature; I was forced to get away from him as fast as I could, else he would have made me pious. Thus our influence will be a wondrous force for good in proportion to the holiness of our life.
III. A few reasons which should urge us to exert a beneficial influence.
1. Because of our responsibility. We are as responsible for the influence which our character pours out apart from our own will, as we are for the influence of the words we intentionally utter, and the deeds we intentionally perform. Surely, then, it should be our supreme effort to model our character according to the Divine plans. We should see to it that our foundation and materials are such as shall endure the fire-tests of the Judgment.
2. Because we owe so much to such influence. The good that men do is not interred with their bones. What would have been the character of our laws, literature, art, commerce, and morals, apart from the influence of those whose footfalls are no longer heard on earth! Do not sceptics and infidels owe their best privileges to the influence of those who were animated by the faith which they reject!
3. Because it will be a source of infinite joy. It will cause joy to well up in the heart now--a joy which springs from the sense of duty done, from a quiet conscience, from making others happy and noble. But who can depict the joy to which it will give rise in the future?
4. Because it is the will of Christ. Let your light so shine, etc. (E. H. Palmer.)
The mysterious power of a man filled with the Holy Ghost
1. He repels the wicked (verse 13), and attracts the good.
2. He is the torment of unclean spirits (verse 16), but gives rest to the weary and heavy-laden (verse 18).
3. To the enemies of truth He is as the savour of death unto death--Ananias and Sapphira; the priests and elders--and to souls desiring salvation, a savour of life unto life--the sick, and those who were added to the Church. (K. Gerok.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv12–15 12–14. By the hands of the apostles were many…
12–14. By the hands of the apostles were many signs. Note that no one thus far has miraculous power but the apostles. The gift of miracles was not general. When it was imparted to others, we learn how it was imparted. All with one accord in Solomon's porch. The apostles, in order to preach. See 3:11. The brethren also with them.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v12 Act_5:12-13. Among the people.—I.e., the population of Jerusalem. All.—Either…
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act_5:12-13. Among the people.—I.e., the population of Jerusalem. All.—Either all the apostles, the rest being believers and unbelievers (Alford, Olshausen, Hackett), or more likely all the believers, the rest being the people, or those not believing (Bengel, De Wette, Meyer, Holtzmann, Zöckler, Spence, and others).
Read full note →
Act_5:15. Into the streets.—So the best MSS. (א, A, B, D2). Codex D reads κατὰ, along or down, as if whole streets were occupied with sick people. That couches were cheap articles (Kuinoel) used by the common people, whereas the rich employed beds, is an unfounded distinction. The shadow of Peter, etc., should read, that, Peter coming along, at least his shadow, etc. Compare the miracles wrought by Paul’s handkerchiefs (Act_19:12). It is not expressly said that Peter’s shadow worked cures, but this is thought by some (Zeller, Holtzmann, Besser) to be implied by the narrator in the statement of.
Act_5:16. And they were healed every one.—Yet the clause does not say they were healed by Peter’s shadow. “If however this really took place with respect to some of them, it was, done through faith” (Stier). (See further in “Hints.”)
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_5:12-16
A Page from the Church’s Life; or, the Calm before a Storm
I. The miraculous activity of the apostles.—I. Its scene.
(1) Solomon’s porch, in the Temple (see on Act_3:11). In spite of the Sanhedrim’s prohibitory menaces the apostles had returned to their accustomed post, thus carrying out their own intimation (Act_4:19-20), and exhibiting praiseworthy faith and fortitude.
(2) The streets. Wherever the apostles were expected to come the sick were by friends carried out in couches and laid in the way, that at least Peter’s shadow might fall upon them.
2. Its form.
(1) Generally, signs and wonders (see Act_2:22).
(2) Particularly, works of healing, wonders of mercy as distinguished from miracles of judgment like those performed on Ananias and Sapphira. This special activity in healing shown by the apostles was a manifest answer to the Church’s prayer (Act_4:30).
3. Its subjects. The people—the outside public as opposed to the inside brethren. The miracle of judgment took place within the Church; the deeds of mercy were performed among the unbelievers.
4. Its result. It impressed the people towards the new cause, and gained accessions from their ranks to the Church community.
II. The rapid growth of the Church.—
1. Multitudes were added to the Lord. This was not what the Sanhedrists expected. Doubtless Annas and his colleagues supposed the apostles, with their followers, would be overawed by the display or authority which had been made. Little knew they that the apostles had on their sides, at their backs, and within their souls a higher authority and stronger power than that of the Sanhedrim (Rom_8:31). Nor were the Church’s accessions flowing in in smaller, but larger numbers than before; and these composed not of women merely, who might be regarded as sentimental and impulsive, but of men also, who were less easily moved by feeling than by judgment. “Men and women to make amends for Ananias and Sapphira,” writes Stier, who likewise adds, “it must, of course, be understood that when married couples were among these believers, their children were included in the bond of union and were looked upon as hallowed.”
2. Through the preaching of the word. It cannot be inferred that the apostles only worked miracles, and did not teach. Nor is it reasonable to hold that what attracted the multitudes was the exhibition of supernatural power rather than the unfolding of Christian wisdom. It is not the sign that converts, but the thing signified. The Holy Ghost applies not miracles but truth to the heart and conscience (see Joh_16:13-14).
3. In spite of the judgment pronounced on Ananias and Sapphira. At first this appeared to exercise a deterrent influence upon the crowds. Ultimately the word of God prevailed, and drew them over to the apostles and to the Lord in large companies.
Learn.—
1. That no opposition will hinder a true minister from his sacred calling.
2. That nothing should be allowed to break the unity of a Christian congregation.
3. That faithful ministers and united Churches will always command the respect of outside beholders.
4. That so long as a Church is alive with the life of the Holy Spirit it will grow.
5. That it is a mistake to fancy Christian discipline will frighten people from joining a Church.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act_5:12-14. The Palmy Days of the Primitive Church.—Then the Christian disciples were—
I. United among themselves, which they have never been since.
II. Magnified by the people.—Whereas, alas! now they are too often despised.
III. Increased from without—Instead of which there has often been a falling away from within.
Act_5:14. Four Causes of Joy in a Christian Church.
I. When the preaching of the gospel results in making believers.—That shows the truth is being preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
II. When those who believe do not stand aloof in isolation from their Christian brethren, but connect themselves with the fellowship of the saints. This is what is meant by being added to the Lord.
III. When the number of the Church’s converts is large.—No doubt one soul is infinitely valuable; but special gladness attends the ingathering of multitudes.
IV. When the Church’s converts include persons of both sexes.—Within the Church there is a place for both men and women. Each has services to render which the other cannot perform. A cause of regret it is when either of them stand aloof in hostility or indifference towards Christianity.
Act_5:15. Peter’s Shadow.
I. It is not affirmed in the narrative that Peter’s shadow wrought miracles, though Paul’s handkerchiefs and aprons did (Act_19:12).—That Peter’s shadow could effect cures may have been only a notion of the people, not of Peter or of Luke.
II. If Peter’s shadow wrought miracles, it was only instrumentally, as was the case with the hem of Christ’s garment (Mat_20:21) and the handkerchiefs and aprons of Paul.—Any instrument will do to work a miracle with when it is used by Him who can work equally well with or without an instrument.
III. If Peter’s shadow wrought miracles, the credit was due neither to the shadow nor to Peter, but to God, “who alone doeth great wonders” (Psa_136:4), and to Christ, from whom the healing virtue proceeded.
IV. If Peter’s shadow wrought miracles, how much more could Peter’s Master, the Risen Christ, do the same!
Note on Peter’s Shadow.—“We need find no stumbling-block in the fact of Peter’s shadow having been believed to be (or, as is surely implied, having been) the medium of working miracles. Cannot the ‘Creator Spirit’ work with any instruments or with none, as pleases Him? And what is a hand or a voice more than a shadow, except that the analogy of the ordinary instrument is a greater help to faith in the recipient? Where faith, as apparently here, did not need this help, the less likely medium was adopted” (Alford). “Those who take offence at the healing virtue of Peter’s shadow and of Paul’s sweat band (Act_19:12) understand not the humane and condescending gentleness of God, who deals with all who seek His help according to each one’s understanding. The shadow, indeed, wrought not the healing, and had any one trusted in the overshadowing of a mere man he would assuredly have been punished by the spirit-trying apostle; but the healing was wrought by the power of God, which the sick sought in Peter, who looked upon them as he did upon the lame man (Act_3:4), and gave them what he had, according to their faith” (Besser).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv13, 15 13. “And no one of the rest dared to…
APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION SPIRITUAL AND NOT OFFICIAL
13. “And no one of the rest dared to identify himself with them, but the people magnified them.” The popular mind has found a contradiction between this and the following verse, which states that “believers continued to be the more added unto the Lord.” There is no contradiction, but perfect harmony. While the conviction on the multitude was wonderfully augmented and intensified by the sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira, and consequently the revival took new impetus, spreading more rapidly than ever yet, as certified in Act 5:13, they all recognized superhuman power in the apostles, peculiar to themselves alone, which did not appertain to the disciples. Hence the long-agitated controversy and the boasted ecclesiastical dogmata of apostolical succession are utterly without foundation, as the apostles never had any official succession in the sense claimed by the churches. In Eph 4:10, Paul mentions apostles in the catalogue of God’s ministers, along with evangelists, pastors and prophets throughout the gospel dispensation. But we must bear in mind that all these ministerial offices belong to the Holy Ghost alone, as it says He gives them. Hence official succession in an ecclesiastical sense is precluded. God made Bishop Taylor an apostle to Africa, and Hudson Taylor to interior China. And many others are leading forth the embattled host at the present day, as apostle simply means “one sent” as a pioneer. While all of these officers are still efficient on the earth, perpetuating the ministry of the church in her primitive beauty, spirituality and glory, yet they are given by the sovereign, discriminating power of the Holy Ghost alone, never having been transmitted to any ecclesiasticism. The Holy Ghost became incarnate on the day of Pentecost, and has so remained ever since, taking some to heaven, and filling and using others, thus perpetuating His church upon the earth. In contradisctinction to the human ecclesiasticisms, really Satan’s counterfeits and constituting spiritual Babylon, Rome, the old harlot mother, and the fallen Protestant churches, her daughters, constituting the counterfeit Bride, contrastive with the true, simple, humble, meek and lowly Bride of Christ, the sympathetic companion of the suffering Savior, left on the earth to represent Him and prepare the world for His coming kingdom. The Apostolic Church remained pure through bloody centuries of Pagan persecution, till by Constantine promoted from the lion’s mouth and the burning stake to Caesar’s palace, precipitating the great apostasy into Roman Catholicism. From the fatal epoch of the great Constantinian apostasy, God had a true people perpetuated in the novations, A. D. 250. During the middle ages they were denominated the Waldenses, and afterwards the Moravians, who became instrumental in the conversion and sanctification of John Wesley after he had preached ten years in the Episcopal Church, perfectly honest, exceedingly zealous, and awfully persecuted for having too much religion, while he did not have any; thus illustrating the blindness with which Satan beclouds human ecclesiasticisms. When carnal men appropriate the church, the Holy Ghost leaves it and lets the devil have it. Meanwhile, the Holy Ghost moves right on perpetuating His work, independently of human officers and institutions. While all these ministerial officers are still in the church, and always have been, they are the creations of the Holy Ghost, dispensed in different ages and nations, pursuant to His infallible wisdom, superabounding grace, and discriminating providence.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v12 Subdivision 6. (Act 5:12-42; Act 6:1-7.)
Subdivision 6. (Act 5:12-42; Act 6:1-7.)
Triumph within and without.
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The inspired historian does not detain us long with this now, but passes on to speak of the Church’s triumph over this double evil, within and without.
1. There is the constant display of divine power at the hands of the apostles; so the crowds follow, and the people magnify them; while the fear of what has taken place deters those from joining them who are not joined to the Lord in living faith. But multitudes are thus added to Him, both of men and of women. Consciences are brought into serious exercise, with the sure result of many believing. The place which is habitually frequented, and in which we have found them before, is Solomon’s porch; the testimony of their ruin under the old covenant, whatever may have been the pains to cover it up since, and even to decorate that which covered it. Jerusalem thus becomes a centre to which men flock from all the districts round, bringing the sick and those oppressed by demons, -two classes always carefully distinguished in the word of God; and the very shadow of Peter is sought to for its power to heal; nor do we read of disappointment even in this. The masses all are healed. So fully is the prayer of true and devoted hearts for the glory of Jesus answered of God.
2. Persecution arises again, and from the same quarter as before; the high priest being foremost, with the sect of the Sadducees, to which he belonged. But when the apostles are once more shut up in prison, an angel of the Lord (that is, of Jehovah) opens the doors by night, and bids them enter again into the temple, to preach there unto the people "all the words of this life." In the morning, therefore, the prison being securely shut, they are found in the temple at their blessed work. The council is perplexed, and wonder what will be the end of it; but the issue raised is become so serious for them, that they will dispute it with God Himself. So they command them to be brought once more, though it has to be done quietly, lest the excited people should stone the officers; and for the second time the council of the nation, in answer to their charge of violating the prohibition they had given, have to listen to the statement of their crime. The rulers had made obedience to them impossible by their own vain conflict with the God of their fathers. Him, whom they had put to death with the greatest indignity, God had raised up, and with His right hand exalted Him to be Founder* and Saviour, to begin that new temple to God’s praise, of which they had before proclaimed Him the Foundation-Stone. But for this it was necessary that every one who should form part in it -for the temple was to be, as Peter explains from his own name, a building of "living stones" (1Pe 2:4-5) -should be cleansed and sanctified. The Founder must therefore be a Saviour, and give repentance and remission of sins. The apostles say, "to Israel," and this He will yet do. It was the nation that was at present before them, and to whom their message was. The Church had not emerged into distinct thought, although it was in existence in fact, but as a babe that had not yet learned to know itself. But Christ, -Christ was their absorbing occupation and delight; no higher could be, though they were to learn much more of their own relationship to Him. "And we are witnesses of these things; and the Holy Spirit also, which God hath given to them who obey Him."
But it is not proof which they were wanting, -these leaders of the people; just the reverse; and to be reminded of the proof which was all too demonstrative only throws them into a passionate rage that would quench itself in the blood of those who so fearlessly maintain this testimony. Had they not quenched this light once? Could they not again do so? Had they not put out of their way the Master? Could they not deal with the disciples?
{*The word here is the same as that in the first answer of the apostles, and there translated "Author," -"Author of life." It does not seem practicable to give a uniform rendering, except, with the common version, we use the very meagre word, "Prince." The meaning is, "one who begins, or originates;" thus, leader and author in one. "Founder," which is also given by the lexicons, unites these thoughts, and seems the best adapted to the sense in this place.}
So impossible is it for His enemies to understand the patience of God, which is oftentimes so great a trial to His people even. If He has indeed this power, how is it that, as the Psalmist puts it, He does not "pluck His hand out of His bosom," and deal more openly with His adversaries? Will He use it in healings and raising up crippled beggars, and let His people lie so defenceless in the hands of their persecutors? Can this gentle zephyr ever grow into a tornado blast? They cannot believe it, however great at times the evidences may seem to be. Did not the prison doors unaccountably open? Yes; but that did not deliver out of their hands after all! Balance this against that: even their Master did not come down from the cross; and the cross seems ordained for His disciples also. Yes; the Cross! and how little yet do we understand its glory!
3. Thus, even if He interferes for His own, there is generally a veil over His Face: "Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known!" Still, for all that, "Thou leddest Thy people like a flock" (Psa 77:19-20).
Christ’s witnesses are now to prove this; they are to be sheltered, yet by no apparent intervention of the divine Hand. One of the councilors themselves, a Pharisee and not a believer, though brought by all he has seen and heard into the neutral position which his advice indicates, is the instrument which God uses at this time to shelter the witnesses of His grace to men. Gamaliel, a man of great weight among the Jews, and grandson of the celebrated Hillel, having caused the apostles to be put forth for a little while, remonstrates against any violence. The case before them, he urges, was no solitary one; and the examples they had had of impostors who had arisen showed how surely these pretensions of men came to nought. He mentions two of these: one well-known, -"Judas of Galilee, in the days of the census, -the other a Theudas,* only conjecturally taken to be either a Judas, in the reign of Archelaus, as Archbp. Ussher thought, or else a Matthias, about the close of that of Herod. Both attempts ended disastrously, as Gamaliel reminds his hearers, and so would this, if it were not of God. The possibility of this he warns them of, and the result in that case of being found fighting against God. A tremendous possibility, indeed!
{*There having been another Theudas, resembling this one of Luke, but some fifty years too late, mentioned by Josephus, this has naturally been used by infidelity to discredit the Scripture narrative. But, as the name was common, so the insurrections of the time were many; "the Theudas, whose defeat by Fadus he places a dozen years later" than Gamaliel’s speech, "seems to have had a far larger following than the four hundred men of whom our Evangelist writes." (W. Kelly on the Acts) Ussher speaks of Theudas as only the Syriac form of Judas; while Koehler (in Herzog’s Real Encyclop.) makes it the Greek translation of Matthias, the "gift of Jehovah" or of God.}
His advice is conformable to such a suspense of judgment: "Refrain from these men, and let them alone." To which they agree, with a strange modification of their own; for while they acknowledge they may be fighting against God, and so give up their murderous intent, they contradict themselves, and show the malice of their hearts, by beating these possible witnesses for God, before they let them go! and again forbidding them to speak what they cannot venture to say may not be truth! Such a being is man!
But Gamaliel himself, though impressed, and right in his refusal to act in the dark as if in the light, is otherwise wrong in his principles, and untrue to the truth. His judgment by the issue leaves him a doubter till that issue; and when, and what, may that issue be? If one could look far enough, no doubt the end would be seen to be in accordance with the righteousness of God who governs. But who will undertake to trace this with any infallibility through those ways which the Psalmist confesses are in the sea, and His footsteps are not known? Who will pierce the clouds and darkness that are about Him, and give a trustworthy account of all His doings? The Psalmist complained of the prosperity of the wicked, and had to pursue them to the other side of death, in order to find satisfaction (Psa 73:1-28.). The friends of Job argue like Gamaliel here, and are rebuked by the sufferer as speaking deceitfully for God (Job 13:7); for he also has seen the wicked spend their days in prosperity (Job 21:13). The Preacher too sees it as among the vanities of earthly things, "that there be righteous men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; and again there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous" (Ecc 8:14). While Habakkuk complains to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity that yet He looketh upon them that deal treacherously, and holdeth His peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man, that is more righteous than himself (Hab 1:13). And Jehovah answers him that "the just shall live by faith" (Hab 2:4).
And this is what Gamaliel with his temporizing policy has left out. He would wait and watch, and go down to the grave perhaps unconvinced; and so there is reason to believe he did; while a bolder and more hasty spirit might catch more quickly his conclusion, and decide, -but decide wholly wrong. For it would be hard upon his principles to accept in his way as the witnesses for God men "as it were, appointed unto death, a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men; -hungry and athirst. and naked, and buffeted"! Must not those who laid their stripes upon the apostles now have fancied they were helping to disprove these fanatical teachings with every stroke of their lash? The meaning of the Cross would be, for them and for their teacher both, an impossibility to comprehend.
But God none the less had sheltered His people; and, as for the rest, they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Name! And still, every day, in the temple and in the house, they ceased not to teach and tell the glad tidings that Jesus was the Christ.
4. Another trial was at hand; and now again from within: a difficulty had to be met, which the very growth in numbers tended to produce, the natural selfishness of man’s heart showing itself amid all the power and joy of the work of the Spirit constantly progressing. "There arose a murmuring of the Grecian Jews," or Hellenists, "against the Hebrews," (the native Jews,) "because their widows were neglected in the daily ministrations." It does not say, they were neglected, but that this was affirmed. In fact, although grace was here dominant above it, there was always a certain jealousy existing between these two classes. The Jews born in foreign countries tended to more liberal views than those of Judea, and indeed to a liberality as far from the truth on one side as the Pharisaism of the Rabbinistic teachers was upon the other. It was upon the side of the Hebrews, however, that jealousy was rather to be expected. Here it was on that of the Hellenists; but perhaps a reaction resulting from the knowledge of such a spirit generally existing, which would give rise to suspicions such as we find actually manifested now. But there is grace to meet them effectually, as has been often pointed out; for the names of those chosen on account of the complaints, to take charge of the whole matter of the ministry of the common fund are Greek, every one; and thus, presumably Hellenistic. Those who murmured should have the distribution in their own hands; and those who cannot trust their brethren shall find that nevertheless their brethren can trust them. How lovely is divine grace! and how effectual is such a settlement! The thought that some have had, that there had been already men appointed to this charge, but who were all Hebrews, and that the seven now chosen were only an addition to the previous number to satisfy the foreign element by giving them representation which hitherto they had not had, is as totally without foundation in Scripture, as it destroys all the beauty of the act itself. In this case, it was but a mere act of tardy justice, or at least the reparation of an actual oversight, which might have given some apparent ground for the complaint. But there is no truth in it; for it is the apostles who have hitherto been in charge of that which we have seen laid at their feet for that purpose and who now take occasion to relieve themselves of what was become a burden, distracting them from their own proper work. The disciples are now to choose those in whom they can have confidence for the management of that which they had themselves contributed; the apostles, however, giving them appointment, as being the divinely constituted leaders, and representatives of the absent Lord.
The word of God is that which we see they recognize as their true sphere of service, and that to which they desire wholly to devote themselves; joining with this prayer, which they put first, as the necessary prerequisite. Without that link of conscious dependence, what gift, -even the greatest, -could at all avail? But here we realize the exceeding importance attaching to it in their minds: "We will give ourselves up to prayer and to the ministry of the word." Is it not here, in fact, that we fail so much, and the ministry of the word fails correspondingly?
Even for such work as serving tables men are to be sought full of the Holy Spirit, and of wisdom; and the first two that are among the number of those appointed are to be owned and honored of God afterwards in very different ways. One of them also is a proselyte, -of a class thoroughly despised by the Hebrews in general; even while they would do much to gain them. But the grace of God was removing already these unspiritual estimates, -merging all human distinctions in the consciousness of a common relationship to Christ and to God. They are set apart, not without prayer, and by the imposition of hands, as a token, doubtless, of the fellowship with them in their new office. Thus the brief trouble ended; and all was overruled for blessing and the display of the new spirit which animated the new company of believers. The power of it was felt in the increased power of the word of God. The number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly; and even of the priests a great company became obedient to the faith. The expression made use of in their case lays stress upon the greater difficulty, speaking humanly, to be surmounted by those whose office it would set aside; and of this, although the full light of Christianity had not yet dawned, there were already many intimations.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv12–16 12, 13. Increased activity of the apostles followed, and…
12, 13. Increased activity of the apostles followed, and their office was still further magnified. (12) " And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all, with one accord, in Solomon's Portico, (13) and of the rest no man dare join himself to them, but all people magnified them. " It was the apostles alone who were in Solomon's Portico, as is evident from the fact that the term apostles, in the first clause of the 12th verse , furnishes the only antecedent to the pronoun they, in the statement, "they were all, with one accord," etc. This being so, "the rest," who dared not join themselves to them, must include other disciples, as well as the unbelieving multitude. It need not be concluded, from this, that the disciples stood off at the same fearful distance with unbelievers; but that they were so filled with awe by the exhibition connected with the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, that they dare not approach the apostles with the familiarity which had marked their former intercourse with them. Such a feeling was at first experienced by the apostles themselves in the presence of Jesus, and was well expressed by Peter, when he and his companions made the first miraculous draught of fishes: falling down at the knees of Jesus, he exclaimed, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." That such a feeling was also experienced by the whole Church, at this time, has just been stated by the historian, in verse 11 , where he says, "Great fear came upon all the Church."
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v12 The Prosperity of the Church. Act 5:12-16
The Prosperity of the Church. Act 5:12-16
v. 12. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch.
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v. 13. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them; but the people magnified them.
v. 14. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women,)
v. 15. insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
v. 16. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed, every one.
The activity of the apostles, and of the congregation with them, manifested itself in two ways, by the preaching of the Word and by the performing of miracles. The prestige of the apostles was naturally increased greatly by the obvious fact that the Lord was with them in all their doing. The congregation, therefore, at least for some time, was unhindered in its public assemblies which were held in the beautiful portico on the east side of the Temple, known as Solomon’s Porch. In these public meetings the main object was to give testimony of the Gospel, to gain new adherents for the Lord. There was great unanimity both in meeting and in testifying at these regular assemblies. Incidentally, the authority of the apostles was now so great that no one ventured upon familiar intercourse with them. All the people that in any way came into contact with the congregation kept a respectful distance from the men in whom the Spirit of God lived with such manifestations of power; and they all esteemed them very highly. The veneration which they felt for God was in a measure transferred to these His servants and instruments and to the whole congregation. The natural result was that believers were added to the Lord, joined the ranks of those that put their trust in Jesus as their Savior, a multitude of both men and women; there was a steady growth in membership. Note the reference to woman disciples, which is characteristic of Luke’s writings; See Luk 8:2-3. It was God that wrought faith in all their hearts, and thus added them to the congregation. The apostles’ activity in preaching was supplemented by their activity in performing miracles, according to the measure of the power given to them in those days for the sake of magnifying the omnipotence of God. By their hands there were many signs and wonders performed, acts against the course of nature that incidentally expressed and emphasized God’s power. So great did the fame of the apostles become in this respect that the people even carried out their sick people to the open streets, all along the way on both sides, placing them on couches and beds, on pallets and litters. If but the shadow of Peter, as he came by, might fall upon them, they trusted that the sick would be made whole. So eager were the people that the apostles, who generally addressed the sick, prayed, and used imposition of hands, could not reach all those that were brought to them, as fast as the anxiety of their friends might wish. And the number was not confined to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but a multitude of people came from the towns nearby, bringing both such as were afflicted with ordinary diseases, and such as were vexed with unclean spirits; and they all were healed, no matter whether their illness had the one form or the other. God gave such an exhibition of His power and glory in the work of the disciples as never before in the history of the world, since His object was the firm establishment of His Church. Note: If transgressions occur in a Christian congregation, it may harm the good name and hinder the growth of the Church. But here the sudden punishment of the Lord and the behavior of the disciples in burying the guilty ones without lamentation and funeral ceremony combined to produce the opposite effect. If the Christians in this way at all times check offenses and put out of their midst those whose open transgressions are causing offense, then the congregation will not be harmed. The judgment of the congregation upon incorrigible open sinners makes a good impression upon those that are without, and may tend to influence some of them in favor of the Church and the Word of the Lord.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12, 14 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Luke continues to tell what happens in the early days of the church.
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General Information:
Here the words "They" and "they" refer to the believers.
Many signs and wonders were taking place among the people through the hands of the apostles
or "Many signs and wonders took place among the people through the hands of the apostles." This can be stated in active form. AT: "The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people" (See: Active or Passive)
signs and wonders
"supernatural events and miraculous deeds." See how you translated these terms in Acts 2:22
through the hands of the apostles
Here the word "hands" refers to the apostles. AT: "through the apostles" (See: Synecdoche)
Solomon's Porch
This was a covered walkway that consisted of rows of pillars that supported a roof, and which people named after king Solomon. See how you translated "the porch that is called Solomon's" in Acts 3:11.
they were held in high esteem by the people
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the people held the believers in high esteem" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
miracle
hand
apostle
Solomon
courage
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12–13 5:12-16 As in Jesus’ ministry, the apostles’ preaching was…
5:12-16 As in Jesus’ ministry, the apostles’ preaching was accompanied by many miraculous signs and wonders, including convincing works of healing and exorcism (see also 6:8; cp. Matt 4:24; 9:35; Mark 1:32-34; Luke 4:40-41).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.