Acts 3 - IVP New Testament Commentaries

A Healing Miracle and Its Consequences

Crammed into first-story rooms of an undistinguished building in a suburb of Seoul are pews, a pulpit and other sanctuary furniture suitable for an auditorium seating five hundred to a thousand people, not the fifty to seventy-five who meet there for an organizing service. The overabundant furniture is a sign of their hope of what God will do through the preaching of the gospel in that place.

How is he going to do it? What is the divinely ordained pattern for the church's advance? Luke tells us in four episodes clustered around Peter and John's healing of a lame beggar. The church ministers via apostolic sign (3:1-10) and proclaims its saving significance (3:11-26). Religious leaders' opposition surfaces but is finally frustrated (4:1-22) as the church, in answer to prayer, continues in bold, Spirit-filled witness (4:23-31).