Acts Chapter 3 & 4: Love one another

The story of the healing of the man healed by Peter and John at the gate of the temple seems to echo somewhat the beautiful healing by Jesus of the man blind from birth in Chapter 9 of John’s Gospel.  I vividly remember having used this whole chapter as the Bible part of the readings for a Wednesday evening meeting.  I wonder what the topic might have been.  It is interesting that if I were to start with that chapter again no doubt the readings would take a different tack

Anyway, the man was blind and was healed, but the blind Pharisees couldn’t accept this astonishing demonstration of God’s power to heal.  They questioned the parents and the man.  I just realised that they didn’t take their objections to Jesus himself.  Wonderful chapter!

These chapters of Acts are so interesting!  We usually only hear of the healing of the lame man, and his “walking, and leaping and praising God”.  But there is so much more to the story.  The healing was a springboard for Peter and John to illustrate the works which Jesus had taught them to do as proof of his mission; and to assure the people that they were also heirs to these blessings.  And, in Chapter 4 we are told that about five thousand men “believed.”

Chapter 4, verse one says, “They spake unto the people.”  An interesting point.  The record by Luke has Peter doing all the preaching.  Was he Luke’s informant?  Was John more modest in his reporting?  I am reminded that John was reported to have been a man of few words in his latter days.  The story* goes that when he was very old his disciples repeatedly asked him to say something beside, “Little children, love one another.”  His reply was that that was enough for Christian practice.

Joyce Voysey

*I found the story on the Internet:  http://lightandsilence.org/2012/08/little_children_love_one_anoth.html

Little children, love one another

A story of John that fits his epistles well:

When the holy Evangelist John had lived to extreme old age in Ephesus, he could be carried only with difficulty by the hands of the disciples, and as he was not able to pronounce more words, he was accustomed to say at every assembly, "Little children, love one another."

At length the disciples and brethren who were present became tired of hearing always the same thing and said: "Master, why do you always say this?" Thereupon John gave an answer worthy of himself: "Because this is the commandment of the Lord, and if it is observed then is it enough."

-In Jerome's Commentary on Galatians, cited in Period I, § 3(b) of A Source Book for Ancient Church History, by Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr.

Posted by Simon St.Laurent on August 20, 2012 4:11 AM |