If you have 5 minutes!
Read Acts 5:12-16 & Gen. 50:15-21
12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.
15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. 18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. 19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
On these verses in Acts Beverly Gaventa notes:
Ironically, Satan’s intrusion increases the stature of the believing community. The residents of Jerusalem, perceiving the awesome power of God in these deaths, rightly understand that the community is God’s and that Peter and the other apostles act by means of God’s power.[1]
In other words, following Satan’s attempts through Ananias and Sapphira to disrupt God’s work, the early church is seemingly stronger and more effective than ever! This resonates with a number of other occasions in Scripture when even evil deeds and intentions are used by God to fulfill his purposes (Joseph’s conclusion in Gen. 50:20 being just one such example.)
- What do you think about this? Does it impact on your view of God in any way?
If you have a bit longer :-)
About the healings performed by the apostles, Tom Wright observes:
One of the peculiar things about both Jesus’ healings and those of the apostles is the way in which, at certain times and places, things seem to happen which don’t happen anywhere else. I have no idea why it might be that in Jerusalem, at that time, Peter’s shadow falling on people might cause them to be healed, and why we don’t hear any more about that kind of thing; just as I have no idea why it should be that in Ephesus…, hankerchiefs were taken from Paul’s body and laid on the sick to make them well, which again doesn’t seem to have happened anywhere else. There is always a strange unknown quality about God’s healing. In our “democratic” age we tend to suppose that if God is going to do anything at all it would only be fair that he would do it all the same for everybody, but things just don’t seem to work like that. I have no idea (if it comes to that) why, in a few chapters’ time, James is killed and Peter escapes. All of that is part of the mystery of living at the overlap between the present age, with its griefs and sorrows and decay and death, and the age to come, with its new life and energy and restorative power.[2]
- Are there areas/times in your life when you have felt God has been unfair – either to you or someone you know? How has this felt? What is the best way to deal with this perceived sense of injustice on God’s part?
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