Read Acts 3:1-5
1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
Contemporary Christianity now looks so different from Judaism that it’s easy to forget that the first Christians saw Christianity not as a new or separate religion but as Judaism in its most fulfilled form! Peter and John have not, therefore, abandoned the temple or Jewish forms of worship – as evidenced here in 3:1. However their worship does now has a new expression too (see 2:46, which describes believers meeting together both in the temple and in homes; on the combo of which, John Stott notes, “There is no need to polarize between the structured and the unstructured, the traditional and the spontaneous. The church needs both.”[1]).
- The whole issue of continuity versus discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments is a matter of much theological debate! Where would you place yourself on the scale below?
- Does it make any practical difference where we place ourselves on this scale? If so, can you think of any examples?
About these verses, Tom Wright notes:
…Luke emphasizes that Peter and John looked hard at the man. They stared intently at him. What were they looking for? A sincere spirit, ready to receive more than he’d asked for? A heart full of pain and sorrow, ready to be touched by God’s healing love? Somehow there is something important about that deep, face-to-face contact: not only did Peter and John stare at him, but they told him to look hard at them, too. No good turning your face away in embarrassment, as often happens with beggars who are ashamed to catch your eye, and of passers-by who are equally ashamed to look at beggars. What is about to happen involves a deep human contact as well as a deep work of God.[2]
- This partnership between God and people in displaying God’s power and bringing about his purposes is one of the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith as well as one of the greatest privileges. In what ways can you partner with God today to see other people’s lives touched by his love and grace?
If you have a bit longer :-)
From what follows (i.e. the man being healed!), it is clear that the man’s expectations of what he needs, and can receive, are incomplete!!! He asks for money but needs, and receives, a new life.
- Have you been in situations where you’ve expected one thing from God but received something quite different? How did this feel?
- Maybe it’s worth asking God if there are currently any areas in your life, or situations that you face, where your expectations are similarly incomplete? Ask God to shape your expectations so they’re more inline with his!
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