by Beth Moore
I love the image of the rowboat in the definition. Don't read more into the definition than you should. Certainly we want to keep our eyes on Jesus. The word picture is simply giving us food for thought. Some of us are so focused on our past, we're not rowing to our futures. Others are trying to turn their backs on their pasts with such denial that no matter how hard they row, they can't make any progress. If we're going to become the effective servants God desires us to be, we need a balance of dealing with our past and facing our future.
Still not convinced? Perhaps you're thinking, I d take Peter and John's Jewish heritage over mine any day! Wonderful! Because in addition to your own, you have their heritage, too! Behold what Galatians 3:29 says about you: "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." I love that Peter and John cherished their heritage.
2. Peter and John understood true religion. They were not so busy getting to prayer meeting that they missed the beggar at the gate. Don't miss the significance of the location at the gate called Beautiful. Leave it to God to appoint a bitter reality in our "beautiful" scene. Try as we may to avoid the misery, misfortune, and injustice around us, they will find us. My city is filled with gated and extravagant "planned communities" with walls around them to keep the niceties in and the unpleasantries out.
I don't have a single problem with great wealth as long as folks still have a clue about the rest of the world. God is too faithful to let us hide forever. We have to come out from behind those pristine walls sooner or later, and when we do, one of these days we're going to have a head-on collision with reality. The kind of reality that begs the question, "What are you going to do about this?"
Peter and John could have glanced at the nearest sundial and said, "Oops! We're almost late for prayer meeting. Beg on, brother!" Instead, Peter looked straight at the man as did John (Acts 3:4). Refreshing, isn't it? I'm not much for looking suffering and poverty straight in the face. I'll face it, all right. But I like to look slightly to one side or the other. Not Peter and John. They looked straight at him and likewise demanded that he look straight at them.
Peter may have had many reasons for telling the beggar to look at them, but several things occur to me. We are told the man was crippled from birth. Actually "from the womb" would be a more literal translation of the Greek. We also are told he was taken to the temple every day. Verse 3 tells us the beggar saw Peter and John, but the inference is clear he didn't really look at them. I think the man had begged so long, he saw himself as nothing more than a beggar. He had ceased to look "normal" people in the eye. He didn't want to look in the face of anything that made him feel more inferior than he already felt.
I'm also convinced that the man's begging had become tragically rote. Completely mechanical. Dear One, I want to say something that may seem harsh. Sometimes we decide God is mean because He won't give us what we're begging for, but we don't realize He has a higher mercy toward our crippled estate. We want a Holy Enabler. God wants to be our Healer. Have you ever begged for something that in retrospect you realize would have done nothing but help keep you in your crippled condition? I sure have!
3. Peter and John gave what they had. I love the words in the King James: "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk" (Acts 3:6). God never asks us to give what we don't have! Somehow I'm relieved by that assurance. Recently this verse came alive for me. Soon after the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, clergy and church leadership in New York City found themselves overwhelmed by the task of ministering to their flocks after such unprecedented disaster. The American Association of Christian Counselors was asked to come to the city to lead a training conference for dealing with grief specifically caused by trauma. The AACC quickly pulled together their most experienced Christian counselors and also asked a handful of Christian speakers to join them. I'm still mystified to have been among them.
On my way in the airplane, I poured out my heart to God and told Him I did not begin to know how to tell them to deal with such inexpressible tragedy. I kept saying, "Lord, I'm over my head here. I'm out of my league. I don't know what I'm talking about, and I have nothing in my catalogue of experience to draw from!"
The Holy Spirit reminded me of this Scripture. God seemed to say, "Beth, I'm not sending you to New York City as a Christian counselor. Don't try to be what you're not. Go and do what I've taught you to do. Teach My Word." Although I was still very intimidated by the task, God's reminder was profound to me. I began my message with Acts 3:6. I confessed my tremendous lack of experience and credentials but pledged that "such as I have give I thee." I was so relieved not to have to try to be something that I'm not, or do something that I don't.
4. Peter took him by the hand and helped him up. I love this part of the story. Peter and John knew better than anyone that the power to heal the man came solely from the Holy Spirit. The man wasn't healed because Peter took him by the hand and helped him up. To me, the tender representation here is that Peter offered the man a handful of faith to help him get to his feet. After all, this man had been crippled all his life. What reason did he have to believe he could be healed? All he thought he wanted was a little money. When the beggar grabbed on to Peter's hand, he felt the strength in his grip. The confidence of his faith. In one clasp, Peter offered a handful of faith, and that was all the man needed to come to his feet.
Oh, Beloved, can you see him? Close your eyes and watch! Watch the beggar jump to his feet, his tin cup tumbling down the temple steps and the few measly coins spinning in the afternoon sunshine. Look at the expression on his face! Watch him dance on legs thin from atrophy. Look! Look straight at him! That's him jumping and praising God through the temple courts. Laugh over the horrified expressions on pious faces. Look for the others in the crowd who are ecstatic with joy and decide to grab a handful of faith for themselves.
People recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Yep, it was his past that made his present so miraculous.
5. Peter and John took no credit for the miracle. After all, if man can do it, it really isn't a miracle, now is it? Miracles are from God ... for the likes of crippled man. Someone reading today has been begging God for trivial things like silver and gold when God wants to raise her to her feet to jump, dance, and praise Him. Why do we want God to help us stay like we are? Grab a handful of faith and be changed!
Part 4
BEYOND
THE LIMITS
As I first walked the journey you are presently taking through God's Word, I had never given any significant thought to John's place in the early church. Neither had I considered the tremendous impact the benchmark events had on his individual life. The Word of God never gets old to me because no matter how often I've studied a scene, fresh insight can always be gained from a new perspective. The Bible is like a priceless gem held up to a light. If you tilt it and look from a different angle, you see all sorts of new colors. May God grant each of us a new depth of understanding into the Spirit of God piercing the soul of man.
Chapter 16
A NEW FIRE
Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. (Acts 8:17)
With the unfolding of the fourth division of our study comes the dramatic start of a new chapter in the lives of Christ's first followers. We just witnessed the New Testament church gathering often for prayer in the temple courts. They savored their Jewish heritage and viewed their faith in Christ as an extension and perpetual fulfillment of their former practices. However, the disciples soon faced a virtual end to their freedom to practice their faith unafraid on temple grounds. Acts 4:13-20 tells how the religious leaders felt threatened by the power of Peter's words. They threatened Peter and John "not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus" (v. 18).
Over the next s
everal chapters in the Book of Acts, persecution increased like stones pummeled from the fists of a crazed mob. The reality of the religious establishment's intentions rose frighteningly to the surface as Stephen fell to his knees. I am convinced he was bloodied and bruised by a gnawing and growing paranoia in their souls: What if they were wrong about Jesus of Nazereth? What if they did crucify the Son of glory? They would do everything they could to silence the mouths of those who made them question their own actions.
The Sanhedrin underestimated the tenacity of Christ's unschooled and ordinary followers, who in effect inverted their muzzles and made them megaphones. Acts 8:1-4 tells of God's unusual method of spreading the gospel. Saul embarked on a project to persecute the followers of Jesus and to bring them in chains to Jerusalem. I can't wait for you to read a fitting quote out of a book that's over a century old. In The Two St. Johns of the New Testament, James Stalker wrote, "Not infrequently it was by persecution that the new faith was driven out of one place into another, where, but for this reason, it might never have been heard of; so that the opposition which threatened to extinguish the fire of the Gospel only scattered its embers far and wide; and wherever they fell a new fire was kindled."
What amazing providence! When Christ told His disciples that they would receive power and become witnesses not only in Jerusalem but to the uttermost parts of the earth, they never expected His means! No, His ways are not our ways. Our ways would always be comfortable. Convenient. Certainly without hurt or harm. We would always ask that God use the favor of man to increase our harvests. Not the fervor of opposition.
If you've walked with God very long, I have little doubt He has used what you perceived as a very negative means to achieve a positive result. I suspect that God has allowed you to experience a fence pushed down painfully in your life to expand His horizon for you. God is faithful, isn't He? Even when He turns the ignition on a holy bulldozer to plow down a confining fence.
Next in the Acts account, God used Philip to start a revival in Samaria. When the Jerusalem church leadership heard about it, they sent our dynamic duo of Peter and John to find out what was going on.
If we were studying the Book of Acts, I would explore the disciples' encounter with Simon the Sorcerer with you; but since our goal is to study the life, heart, and spirit of the apostle John, something else seizes my attention in this scene. Does the location of Samaria and its relationship to John ring a bell of any kind to you?
The first bell this reference probably rings is the word Christ spoke over the eleven disciples in Acts 1:8 before His ascension. I'd like to suggest that when Christ made the proposal that His disciples would be witnesses in Samaria, He raised a few eyebrows. Jerusalem? No problem. Judea? Absolutely. Ends of the earth? We're Your men, Jesus. But Samaria? Jews despised the Samaritans! If Gentiles were the target of the Jews' prejudices, then the Samaritans were the bull's-eye. And the feelings were mutual.
Samaritans were considered by most Jews to be a mongrel breed. They were border people who lived in the strip of land between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews didn't associate with the Samaritans (John 4:9).
The idealists among us might be thinking, But surely since they followed Christ, the disciples didn't have those kinds of prejudices toward people. After all they were Christians.
Luke 9:51-56 gives a far more realistic picture. Our friends James and John wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village because of a small slight. Don't assume they were being overdramatic and didn't really mean what they were saying. That Jesus took great offense to their suggestion is clear as He turned on His heels and gave them a swift rebuke.
Had Jesus granted their request, all of those Samaritans of age would have perished in their sins. Believers often charge the lost with not taking hell seriously enough, but I'm not sure we take it very seriously ourselves. To hope someone "burns in hell" is profoundly offensive to God and proves we lack His heart (Ezek. 33:11; 2 Pet. 3:9). James and John didn't volunteer to call fire down from heaven to save Jesus the trouble. They wanted the head-trip of wielding that kind of power. They wanted to be hosts of a firework spectacular.
Scripture tells us Jesus looks upon the heart. I wonder if Jesus saw something in young John's heart that was even more lethal than his big brother's. You see, instead of threatening His childish followers with a dose of their own medicine, Jesus chose a far more effective route. In Acts 8:14 Jesus arranged to assign John to be an ambassador of life to the very people he volunteered to destroy. Don't think for an instant John's assignment was coincidental. Even as the words fell from Jesus' lips in Acts 1:8, He may very likely have looked straight at John when He said, ". . . and Samaria."
Earlier I mentioned our naiveté to think followers of Christ are automatically void of prejudices. Whether our preferred prejudices are toward denominations, people of other world religions, colors, or economics, they are usually so deeply ingrained in us that we see them far more readily as the way we are rather than as sin. Prejudice is sin. The prejudgment and stereotype of a grouping of people is sin. James and John used a key word in Luke 9:54: "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" Prejudice destroys. Entire world wars have been fought and multiplied millions slain over nothing more than what many would term "harmless" prejudice.
One of God's most redemptive tools for dealing with prejudice is appointing His guilty child to get to know a person from the group she or he has judged. I was reared in one denomination and had very few if any relationships in my young life with anyone outside that denomination. Much prejudice evolves from pure ignorance, and I grew up judging some groups of people that I simply didn't understand. God wasn't about to let me stay in my bubble because He intended to develop in me a heart for the entire body of Christ. His redemptive way of accomplishing His goal was to place me in the position of getting to know others who practiced their Christian faith in ways that differed from mine.
The most obvious work God did in my life involved a woman from one of those churches that my old church would have considered maniacal and unsound. We didn't make our judgment from firsthand knowledge, of course. The church simply got dumped into one huge category.
I was in my twenties and "accidentally" developed a friendship with her before I knew where she went to church. I fell in love with her heart for God. She had such a love for His Word, and we boasted in Him often and developed a deep friendship. When I found out her denomination, I was stunned. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't a maniac. She wasn't unsound. When my other friends would make fun of people from that church, I couldn't bring myself to join in anymore. The jokes weren't funny. I learned a very important lesson I hope never to forget. Do we even know the people personally whom we stereotype and judge? Perhaps the better question is, Would we be willing to get to know someone and take the chance of God changing our prejudicial minds?
I don't think for a second John missed the point when the apostles sent him and Peter to the Samaritans. He came face-to-face with them. They, too, were created in the image of God. They, too, loved their children and worried over their welfare. They, too, bruised when they were hit and wept when they were sad. They seemed so different from a distance. Somehow, up close and personal, they didn't seem nearly so ... weird.
Mind you, these were the same people upon whom John was so anxious to call down destruction. Have you ever noticed it's much easier to hate from a distance?
Acts 8:15 tells us Peter and John prayed for the Samaritans. Persistent prayer is a prejudice-buster every time if we'll let it be. Then something really amazing happened. "Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:17).
Well, well, well. They got their wish after all. They did call down fire on the Samaritans. The kind of fire that destroys things like hate. Meanness. Prejudice. For those who let this Holy Fire consume them. The kind of fire that destroys the old and births the new. Our God is a consuming fire, and that day He lit the hearts of Sam
aritans at the hands of Jews.
I want to say something that sounds simple, but it is so profound to me right at this moment: How I praise God that we-sinful, selfish, ignorant mortals-can change. John wasn't stuck with his old prejudices. God neither gave up on Him nor overlooked the transgression. God was gracious enough to push the envelope until change happened. Acts 8:25 concludes the segment with the words, "Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages." How like Jesus. He turned John's prejudice into a fiery passion.
If one keeps walking with Christ, he can't stay the same. We can cease cooperating, but we'll have to cease walking close to Jesus to do it. We can fake the walk but only for so long. If we truly pursue intimacy with Christ, change will happen. Praise God, it will happen. Beloved, I want to ask you a question as I ask myself the same. What is a way God has dramatically changed your attitude toward a target of your own personal prejudice? If you don't have an answer to that, I'd encourage you to seriously consider your heart.
I'd like to conclude with a look at a fascinating account in Mark 8:22-26. This account is one of the only times in Scripture we see an incomplete healing that necessitated a second work of Christ. Jesus encountered a blind man. First he spat on and touched the man's eyes. The man then said he could see but that people looked to him like trees walking around. When Jesus again touched the man's eyes, the healing was completed, and the man saw clearly.
Since Jesus knew just what He was doing, He obviously had a point to make to the blind man or perhaps His observers. I like the King James Version of Mark 8:24. When asked if he saw anything, the man looked up and answered, "I see men as trees, walking." I am convinced that no matter how many Bible studies we attend and no matter how we serve our churches, we have not known the deep healing of Christ and the restoration of our souls until the way we view others has dramatically changed. Until we see everything clearly (v. 25). Just as Christ sees them. Christ didn't see men as trees, walking. The blind man wasn't healed until he saw men the way Christ saw them. We need to imitate Paul who said, "From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer" (2 Cor. 5:16).