Today’s Passage: Acts 3
Peter and John go up to the temple at the afternoon hour of prayer, and at the gate called Beautiful they meet a man who has been lame from birth, carried there every day to beg. He asks them for coins, but what they give him is something no coin could buy. In the name of Jesus he is made strong, and he goes into the temple courts walking and leaping and praising God. A wondering crowd gathers around them in Solomon’s Colonnade, and Peter, refusing every scrap of credit for himself, turns their eyes to the One they had handed over to death, the glorified Servant whom God has raised. Then he calls them to repent and turn back, so that their sins may be wiped away and times of refreshing may come. The healing is not a second sermon set beside the first. It is the open door through which the sermon walks.
As you read, hold this: In the name of Jesus the lame man walks, and Peter calls Israel to repent.
Context The world of Acts 3
The ninth hour falls at about three in the afternoon, one of the set times of prayer, and it is worth noticing that the apostles are still keeping it. Even as they proclaim the Messiah the leaders had rejected, they remain tethered to the temple and its hours of prayer.
The gate called Beautiful was a prominent entrance where those who begged could meet the streams of people coming in to worship. This man was carried there every day, a face the whole city knew, and that is part of what makes the healing so undeniable: it is instant, it is public, and it is complete. Chapter 4 will add that he had been lame for more than forty years.
Solomon’s Colonnade, where the crowd runs together, was a covered walkway along the eastern side of the outer court, a place roomy enough for large gatherings and teaching (John 10:23; Acts 5:12).
Peter will grant that the people and their leaders acted in ignorance (3:17), and yet in the same breath he says that God’s own plan, that the Christ would suffer, was being fulfilled through their hands. Grace makes room for them to turn without ever pretending they were guiltless.
Acts 3:1–10 (BSB)
¹ One afternoon Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. ² And a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those entering the temple courts. ³ When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. ⁴ Peter looked directly at him, as did John. “Look at us!” said Peter. ⁵ So the man gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. ⁶ But Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” ⁷ Taking him by the right hand, Peter helped him up, and at once the man’s feet and ankles were made strong. ⁸ He sprang to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and leaping and praising God. ⁹ When all the people saw him walking and praising God, ¹⁰ they recognized him as the man who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
An ordinary act of obedience, simply going up to pray, walks straight into an extraordinary need. The man is looking for coins, and Peter offers him Christ instead. Hand takes hold of hand, and strength floods into feet and ankles that had never once carried him. He springs up and goes in leaping, and the leaping is the very picture Isaiah had painted of the age to come. All the praise runs to God, and the crowd’s recognition of the old beggar seals the sign beyond dispute. Peter heals by no technique of his own. He simply speaks the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and the name does the rest.
Acts 3:11–16 (BSB)
¹¹ While the man clung to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and ran to them in the walkway called Solomon’s Colonnade. ¹² And when Peter saw this, he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why are you surprised by this? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over and rejected Him before Pilate, even though he had decided to release Him. ¹⁴ You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. ¹⁵ You killed the Author of life, but God raised Him from the dead, and we are witnesses of this fact. ¹⁶ By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know has been made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given him this complete healing in your presence.
Peter turns the glory away from himself as fast as it comes. It is the God of the fathers who has glorified His Servant, and the word for Servant here is pais, the very word that rings out over the Servant songs of Isaiah. The crowd’s guilt is named plainly, but never cruelly. They rejected the Holy and Righteous One, they asked for a murderer in His place, they killed the archēgos, pronounced ar-kay-GOSS. Strong's G747, leader, pioneer, originator, author. The word means the leader, the pioneer, the one who goes first and opens the way, the originator of a thing. It is the word Peter sets against what they had done, for they had killed the very Author of life itself. The irony is the whole sermon: the source of life was put to death, and God raised Him. The same title will come back for Jesus as the pioneer of salvation, the one who blazes the trail His people follow (Hebrews 2:10; 12:2). , and God raised Him from the dead, and of this the apostles are witnesses. Peter explains the healing as a work of God and not a piece of magic, tracing it to the name of Jesus and to the faith that comes through Him.
Acts 3:17–21 (BSB)
¹⁷ And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. ¹⁸ But in this way God has fulfilled what He foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer. ¹⁹ Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away, ²⁰ that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus, the Christ, who has been appointed for you. ²¹ Heaven must take Him in until the time comes for the restoration of all things, which God announced long ago through His holy prophets.
Peter grants their ignorance, and then he stands them before what God had been doing all along, for through all the prophets God had foretold that His Christ would suffer. On that ground the call comes as a command: repent, and turn back. Then he holds out what such a turning brings. Their sins are wiped away, times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord, and at the last God sends Jesus again, whom heaven must keep until the restoration of all things. Forgiveness is offered now, while the last things still lie ahead. On this passage we do not fix a calendar to verse 21. He is coming again, and that is certain, but the timing of it, and which scheme of the end best fits, we leave open.
Acts 3:22–26 (BSB)
²² For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to Him in everything He tells you. ²³ Everyone who does not listen to Him will be completely cut off from among his people.’ ²⁴ Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have proclaimed these days. ²⁵ And you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers when He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.’ ²⁶ When God raised up His Servant, He sent Him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”
Moses, Samuel, and all the prophets after them come together and point to these very days. The privilege of the covenant is real, and so, Peter warns, is the danger of refusing the Prophet like Moses when at last He comes. The Servant’s first errand is to Israel, and the blessing He brings is named without flattery: it is the turning of each one from his wicked ways. Mercy here is a turning, not a soothing word. And already the old promise that Abraham’s offspring would bless all the families of the earth is reaching out past a single border, and the rest of Acts will follow that line to the ends of the earth.
Study notes Going deeper
The miracle is the servant of the message. Peter will not let the crowd stand there staring at two apostles, and so the healed man himself becomes a living text for the sermon. It was not silver that raised him, and it was not any power or holiness of the apostles’ own. It was the name of Jesus, and the faith that comes through Him.
"Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the mute tongue will shout for joy." Isaiah 35:6 (BSB)
The leaping man is a sign that the promised age of the Messiah is breaking in.
"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him." Deuteronomy 18:15 (BSB)
Peter names Jesus as that very Prophet, and to refuse Him, he warns, is a matter of life and death (3:22–23).
"And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." Genesis 22:18 (BSB)
The Servant is sent first to Israel to turn them from their sins, and that turning is the first step on a road that leads out to bless all the families of the earth.