This post by christinecoltman was originally published at GRACE PLACE
Back in January, we looked at the first part of chapter 9 – Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and how his eyes were opened – physically and spiritually. This evening we’re still in chapter 9 but we’ve said goodbye to Saul / Paul for a while – he’s been sent away to Tarsus, his hometown, by the believers in Jerusalem to escape persecution himself – oh, the irony; Ananias has disappeared into obscurity, having fulfilled the purpose to which God called him, and the church is enjoying a time of peace and growth.
Back onto the stage comes Peter. And Peter remains the main character right through until the end of chapter 12. Then, he too, fades into the background with only one further mention of him in Acts (ch.15) and a couple of mentions in Galatians ch 2 and, of course, the two letters he wrote.
In preparing this study, to get the context of the passage right, I asked myself a couple of questions: Where do these two stories sit in Acts – what happened before the events in this passage? What happened immediately after these events?
So, a quick overview: in the first 8 chapters we saw the New Testament church being established in Jerusalem, the Spirit has been given, the apostles have begun to be persecuted, Stephen is seized and martyred, persecution of the fledgling church begins driven by Saul, and as a result believers flee throughout Judea and Samaria. Then we arrive at chapter 9 – and the hunter (Saul) becomes the hunted. Jesus meets him in a dramatic encounter, blinds him physically but opens his eyes spiritually. These next few verses that we’re looking at this evening are part of the story of the church spreading and taking root. What happens next in chapter 10 is truly earth shattering, and life-changing for people at the time and in every generation since, including for you and me two thousand years later. So far, God has gradually been teaching the apostles that the Gospel is not just for Jews, it’s for Samaritans (those of mixed Jewish/Gentile heritage) and for full blown Gentiles. All are welcome, no-one is beyond His grace or excluded from His invitation. These two miracles are shoe-horned in between two earth-shattering events with hardly any detail except the bare facts. I wonder why? Why these two miracles?
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s read the passage. Read 9: 32-43.
Peter is on the road visiting Christians outside of Jerusalem. Ch. 8: 1 tells us that during Saul’s great persecution all the believers in Jerusalem, except the apostles, fled the city and settled elsewhere, throughout Judea and Samaria. The apostles themselves hunker down in Jerusalem. But now that Saul has become a Christian, the danger seems to have passed and it’s safe for Peter to travel again. Firstly, he goes to Lydda, which is a town about 22 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Today it’s called Lod and is not far from Tel Aviv airport. Why did he go? V32: Peter has gone to visit the saints – the Christians – in that town, perhaps to encourage them, to do a little preaching and discipleship. He probably wants to know how they are doing in their faith after all the persecution. Are they persevering? Have they fallen away? He’s doing some great member care out of concern and love for the believers – no doubt many of whom he would have known when they lived in Jerusalem. In the town he finds a man called Aeneas. We assume he was already a believer as Peter says nothing about his need to come to faith. It’s probably a reasonable assumption that the believers whom Peter has come to visit have told him about their friend Aeneas.
What do we know about Aeneas? Very little. We don’t know how old he was, whether he had a wife and family, or what his livelihood was. All we know is that this poor man was paralysed and had been bedridden for 8 years – can you imagine what that would have been like for him? I did a little research on the effects of being bedridden, just to give you a picture of the utterly
miserable condition that Aeneas was in:
In the first 24 hours:
● Muscle strength is reduced by 5%
● Circulating blood volume is reduced by 5%
In the first week:
● Muscle strength is reduced by 20%, as is circulating blood volume
● Maximum oxygenation of the lungs is reduced by 15-30%
● Being bedridden can lead to the development of pressure ulcers.
● Other possible complications include pneumonia, structural changes to joints, bone loss, constipation, blood clots, disturbed sleep patterns and skin damage.
● Studies have shown that prolonged bed rest detrimentally affects almost every organ system.
Poor Aeneas – he’s not lying on a pressure-relieving mattress that we have these days – he’s on a mat on the floor. Can you imagine how desperate a condition he was in after being paralysed and bedridden for 8 years? Unable to do anything for himself, clean himself, change himself. But, you know what? He wasn’t alone – he had friends who knew about him and wanted to help him.
And one day his Christian friends bring Peter to see him. Oh, how wonderful to have friends who love us and are concerned for us, who don’t give up caring even after 8 years of ill health with no change in sight. Faithful friends.
Look at v34: presumably there were introductions, some polite chat, maybe tea and cake offered. But all Luke tells us is that Peter gets right to the point and says to Aeneas, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and tidy up your mat.” The verb being used here is called the aoristic present – and the meaning is more like “this instant Jesus Christ is healing you.” An immediate, instant miracle was performed and Aeneas immediately got up off his mat! This was medically impossible! Can you imagine the shock, the disbelief, the jaws that dropped to the floor – and then the celebrations! How wonderful for Aeneas – 8 years of torment, frustration, soreness, weakness, shame, helplessness – gone in an instant. He was fully healed in that moment! From that day forward he was living a new life, totally changed, healed and restored!
Notice that Peter is clear about who is the agent of healing here. “Jesus Christ heals you.” Yes, Peter said the words but it was Jesus who did the healing. And what is the outcome? Look at verse 35. Again, Luke gets right to the point – “All those who lived
in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.” Isn’t that amazing?! A revival breaks out in the town because of this miracle! People saw the change in Aeneas and believed! Praise the Lord! Let’s not get hung up on the word ‘all’. It probably wasn’t every single person in the area. The footnote in my NIV suggests that while Sharon is indeed a region, it could also have been the name of a village near Lydda. And John Calvin comments that “when Scripture mentions ‘all’, it is not embracing to a man the whole of whatever it is describing, but uses ‘all’ for many, for the majority, or for a crowd of people.” Nonetheless, it’s probably a lot of people who became Christians because of that miracle of physical healing.
Something amazing had been happening among the people that they possibly weren’t aware of – the Holy Spirit isn’t mentioned in this passage but He wasn’t absent. He had been preparing their hearts and minds to believe in Jesus – quietly, secretly but irresistibly. Aeneas’s physical healing was the catalyst for their spiritual healing. Aeneas experienced a bodily transformation – the one who had been physically helpless and desperate was now whole. Likewise, those who believed experienced a total spiritual transformation – they were spiritually helpless and in a desperate situation, even if they didn’t realise it, yet now they were spiritually healed.
So, let’s not give up on praying for friends and loved ones who don’t yet know Christ. Aeneas had faithful friends who cared for him. Let’s be faithful friends to those who are spiritually paralysed. Who knows but that the Spirit is quietly doing a work of spiritual healing within them that even they aren’t aware of. What will be the catalyst for their salvation? Perhaps not a great miracle but possibly something you say or do. Perhaps you’re wondering if miracles of healing happen today. Have you personally heard of people being healed in a miraculous way?
Let me give you an example that I heard about just a few weeks ago. David Harper is an antiques expert and appears on programmes like Antiques Roadtrip and Bargain Hunt. He became a Christian because of the healing of his daughter’s mental health. She was healed because she found faith in Jesus. That was the catalyst for David’s own journey to faith. And here’s an account from Simon Guillebaud from 2023. In Burundi, teams of evangelists were sent out from 88 churches for two weeks all around Burundi. In the small village of Bwambarangwe, 41-year-old Diomede had lain paralysed from the waist down and in increasing despair for three years. The team visited him and shared the gospel, which he accepted as he was desperately in need
of hope! Interestingly, they didn’t pray for his healing initially. But as they parted ways and stepped out of the compound, he felt the urge to call them back to pray for him to be completely healed. Once they’d said ‘Amen!’, he took his crutches and stood up. He then let them go and carried on walking! He burst into tears and shouted for joy. Hearing his cries, people rushed to see what was happening. Just like in Mark 2:12, they were ‘all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!” Thirteen people responded to the miracle by surrendering their lives to Christ.
So these things do happen today. Yet, I’m aware that there are many people who are suffering from ill health and disability and they aren’t healed. Even Jesus didn’t heal everybody when he was on earth. Why is that? The simple answer is that it was not His will. This is something that Joni Erickson Tada struggled with for a long time. She fully believed she was going to be healed and yet, 60 years after her accident, she is still in a wheelchair. She said back in 2013, “God may remove your suffering, and that will be great cause for praise. But if not, He will use it, He will use anything and everything that stands in the way of His fellowship with you. So let God mold you and make you, transform you from glory to glory. That’s the deeper healing.”
Let’s move on and look at what happened in Joppa. Here we meet Tabitha, aka Dorcas. She was a Jewish believer whose special gift and ministry lay in doing good deeds and she was notable for her generosity to the poor. It seems that she was quite the seamstress who made clothes and other useful items for the poor and needy. Kent Hughes says in his commentary on this passage, “Her busy hands carried out the plans of a loving heart.” But, alas, she became ill and died. Her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room, awaiting burial, as was the custom. And then the believers messaged Peter to come at once. He was only about 12 miles away in Lydda and could do the journey in a day. They wanted this church leader to come – but I wonder why? Were they going to ask him to perform the funeral service, or just to be there to console them? Or were they thinking of a miracle? We just don’t know. But Peter came straight over and was taken upstairs to where Tabitha was lying. As he ascended the stairs, no doubt he heard the crying and wailing first, and then he saw the women grieving for Tabitha. Luke is quite spare in his details of what happens next. He’s not a flowery writer. I guess, being a doctor, he’s more concerned with facts and getting to the point, than writing flowing descriptions of the scene and the emotions. V40. Peter sends everyone out of the room, he kneels down and prays. Then he simply says to Tabitha, ‘Get up’ – and guess what, she did! Her cold body was flooded with warmth and life, she
opened her eyes and, seeing Peter, she sat up. I wonder what her first thoughts were: where am I? Who are you? What’s happening? Peter helps her up and calls in the believers and the widows – and to their astonishment they see their dear friend walking and talking! What a scene! Imagine what it was like to see someone who was dead come to life! It’s no wonder that the news spread all over Joppa and, again, many people believed in the Lord. Another revival – the Spirit at work, opening blind eyes, taking away the scales, turning people from mere religion to Jesus! And note again – who did the healing? Certainly Jesus – Luke is careful to record that Peter prayed first before commanding Tabitha to get up. As John Stott says in his commentary on Acts: “Peter knew he could not overcome disease and death by his own power or authority, so he didn’t attempt to do so. He knew that the power to heal and to save lay only in one person, the Lord Jesus.”
Like Aeneas, Tabitha was completely unable to help herself, to rescue herself, to turn death into life. In the same way, those who are spiritually dead are unable to rescue themselves or turn spiritual death into spiritual life. Throughout the New Testament, miracles of healing serve as illustrations of the power of the gospel and the authority of Jesus:
● The blind being enabled to see illustrates us having our spiritual eyes opened to spiritual truth.
● The sick being healed illustrates God healing us of our spiritual sickness—the sickness of sin.
● And of course the dead being raised to life illustrates God raising the spiritually dead to spiritual life.
These physical ailments serve as vivid metaphors in Scripture for our spiritual brokenness before receiving the gospel. They are recorded in the Bible, not just as acts of compassion, but to illustrate the greater healing that is available to all – spiritual healing.
What is our greatest need? Our greatest need isn’t deliverance from physical problems – although those who suffer no doubt long
to be healed. Our greatest need is for deliverance from our sin.
Aeneas was very much aware of his desperate physical condition and no doubt he longed to be well again. Think of those you know who are unbelievers. Are they aware of their desperate spiritual condition and their need of healing? The majority of people aren’t. They carry on with their lives, ignorant of their spiritual sickness – until the Spirit gets to work. The Holy Spirit isn’t mentioned in this passage but He is certainly present and at work, doing what only He can do – drawing people to the
Father through Jesus.
The tragic fact is that we’re all born into this world spiritually blind because of the Fall. Back in Genesis 3, we read of Adam and Eve succumbing to temptation and eating the fruit that was forbidden to them – and what happened? Ch 3 v 7: their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. Matthew Henry writes that, “…the eyes of their consciences were opened, their hearts
smote them for what they had done. Now, when it was too late, they saw the folly of eating forbidden fruit. They saw the happiness they had fallen from, and the misery they had fallen into. They saw a loving God provoked, His grace and favour forfeited…They saw their natures corrupted and depraved.”
These were the consequences that befell our first parents and every generation since them. That one act of disobedience resulted in spiritual separation from God. But God demonstrated His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5: 8). It is only through Jesus that our spiritual disease can be healed, our spiritual death reversed and new
life breathed into us. Praise God!
So, coming back to our passage, whose eyes were opened? Tabitha’s literal eyes were opened as she came back to life. But, spiritually-speaking, unknown numbers of people who lived in and around Lydda and Joppa. Because of the miracles, they saw the
evidence and believed in the Lord. But also, I think, Peter’s eyes were opened – at least partially. Don’t forget what is to come in chapter 10, when Peter is told clearly through a vision that the Gospel is for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. In his book on Teaching Acts, David Cook writes, “God is bringing Peter from being a man of his culture, to being a man of the Kingdom.” What he means is that it was Jewish culture not to associate with Gentiles, or Samaritans for that matter. But, as you discovered with your study buddy, that wasn’t God’s plan or intention. Look at v43 – Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon. A simple statement. But behind it is a startling fact. In those days tanners were considered to be unclean by Jews because they were constantly in contact with the skins of dead animals. Tanners’ homes were smelly; tanners were ostracized and had to live at least 50 cubits outside of town. Rabbinical law stated that if a young woman discovered that her fiancé was a tanner, she could break the engagement (Kent Hughes, Acts [Crossway Books], p. 143). But here is Peter overcoming his Jewish scruples by staying for quite a while with a tanner. So, there is a real sense in which Peter’s eyes are being opened too. It’s been 6 years since the cross at this point, and the church is still distinctly Jewish in character. But God is shaking things up. Jesus clearly told the disciples to make disciples of all nations. Not to make them Jewish, but to make them Christ’s followers. And this wasn’t just a NT instruction, but it stretches all the way back to the first chapters of Genesis where God clearly tells Abraham that God’s kingdom is for the Gentiles as well:
“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you will be cursed, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Gen. 12: 1-3
The barriers are already coming down by the conversion of Samaritans to the Christian faith. Samaritans were detested by Jews and Jews would not associate with them. But in Acts ch 8 we read of Philip preaching the gospel to a city in Samaria and people believing it and being baptised. In fact, when the apostles heard of this, they sent Peter and John to check it out. Peter, a devout
law-keeping Jew, is having his boundaries stretched and accepting that half-Jews, as the Samaritans were, could also receive the Gospel. And now here he is staying with a tanner. His prejudices are being worn away. But what about Peter’s attitude toward the Gentiles? How will his eyes be opened there?
John Stott writes in his commentary, “It is difficult for us to grasp the impossible gulf which yawned in those days between Jews on the one hand and the Gentiles on the other. This, then, was the entrenched prejudice which had to be overcome before Gentiles could be admitted into the Christian community on equal terms with Jews.”
It was going to be a massive step forward for Peter and the other apostles to realise that God intended the Gentiles to hear and receive the gospel and be saved – that they weren’t unclean, but would be part of His kingdom. We’re going on a journey through Acts, and the church at that time was also on a journey. Literally, as the church spread geographically, but also in its identity as Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles had their spiritual eyes opened to Jesus and became part of His body. All are welcome, no-one is beyond His grace or excluded from His invitation. And that includes you and me! Amen!