AP

Acts Studies, no.13                                                                                                                             

The church grows in the coastal regions (Acts 9:32-43)

As we saw in verse 31, the church in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria experienced a period of peace, although it would not last long (cf. Acts 12:1-4). It introduced a time when the church was built up by means of the encouragement and admonitions of the Holy Spirit, increasing in both breadth and depth. Those who had just been converted lived more and more heartily and powerfully in the “fear of the Lord” by means of cultivating loving respect for him and being afraid of causing him sorrow. This lifestyle made the churches attractive to outsiders as well, so that many joined them. Through the Holy Spirit, they grew and flourished in faith and obedience, as well as in number.

Aeneas

Peter went to visit the saints in Lydda. Saints are believers who are sanctified i.e., set apart from the world and consecrated to God by Christ’s blood and Spirit and therefore obligated to lead a holy life. There must have been some believers there already. Lydda is Northeast from Azotus, where Phillip preached after he had met the Ethiopian eunuch and continued “preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.”

While in Lydda, Peter found a paralytic who had been bedridden for eight years! Peter was full of confidence in the healing power of Jesus Christ. The healing was instantaneous and the whole region saw the healed man and turned to the Lord. Note that Peter attributes the healing power to the Lord, not to himself. The healing was a sign, confirming the Word of the Lord (Mark 16:20). In Christ’s kingdom, “the lame man [will] leap like a deer” (Isaiah 35:6). What no rheumatologist or neurologist can do—eliminate every disease of the nerves and muscles—Jesus will do when he comes. This expectation depends on promises that he validated through, among other things, Aeneas’ healing.

So we must pay careful attention to the sign character of this miracle. Otherwise, today’s saints who are confined to wheelchairs could legitimately ask: Why did he heal Aeneas but not us? For despite all their prayers, they were not delivered from their paralysis. If we are reading this story as a sign, then every believing paralytic may know: When Jesus comes, then I will be able to walk again!

Dorcas

From Lydda, Peter went north to Joppa on the coast (modern day Jaffa), at the request of the Joppa disciples, for one of them had died. Did they know that Dorcas would be raised? Or did they desire Peter’s presence to comfort them? We do not know, but perhaps it is telling that they did not immediately proceed to bury her (as was the case with Ananias and Sapphira, in Acts 5:6 and 10). ‘Tabitha’ in Aramaic and ‘Dorcas’ in Greek both mean ‘gazelle.’ She was a very practical saint: “always doing good and helping the poor.” Now she was dead, her body had already been washed and she was laid in an upstairs room. When Peter arrived, he was shown to the upstairs room, where the widows stood around, crying. They showed him the garments she had made for them. Peter sent them out of the room, got down on his knees and prayed. Then he turned towards Tabitha and simply gave a command consisting of two (presumably Aramaic) words: “Tabitha [her Aramaic name], arise!” That was it. Only one letter different from what he had heard the Master say when he raised the daughter of Jairus: “Talitha, arise!” (Matthew 5:41).

Peter did not direct this command to the “material remains” of Dorcas, but to her dead body—that is to say: to Dorcas herself. For the dead person lying there was still really Dorcas. Jacob talked the same way about his deceased wife: “There I buried Leah.”

The news of Dorcas being restored to life spread like a wildfire through Joppa: “Among the followers of Jesus a woman died and came to life again! Really!” This miracle brought many to believe that Jesus is the Lord and Saviour of the world. And those conversions were in a certain sense “resurrections from the dead” (cf. Ephesians 2:1–6).

Afterwards, Peter remained for a period in Joppa, perhaps to further instruct the many new converts. He lodged with Simon, a leather worker, who lived by the sea (10:6). Not very prestigious circumstances, since for Jewish tastes this was a rather degrading profession. Cadavers rendered their handlers unclean (Leviticus 11:39) and caused unbearable stench. In any case, Peter would soon be learning that God had suspended the distinction between clean and unclean (Acts 10).

From this episode we learn the same lesson as from that of Aeneas: it did not centre on Dorcas, although she remains an inspiring example for compassionate service. Nor does it centre on Peter, although he was esteemed very highly. The main person here too is our Lord Jesus Christ, through whose power Peter was enabled to raise Dorcas. His apostles had received an immense assignment from him (1:8).

Since the ascension, about ten years had gone by. During that time, they had established Christian churches throughout the entire lands of Judea and Samaria. And now, through the healing of Aeneas and the raising of Dorcas, the Lord had powerfully promoted the spread of the gospel in the semi-pagan coastal region. With that, the first part of the apostolic mandate—bearing witness to the Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles—had reached a certain point of completion. Soon, the church doors would open widely to call more Gentiles in. Twenty years later, and the gospel had penetrated all the way to Rome, the centre of the world of that day.

This explosive church growth was due to the empowerment that the Lord Jesus granted his apostles from heaven (cf. Matthew 16:19–20). It came through miraculous signs like the healing of Aeneas and the raising of Dorcas. These were the proofs of their being genuine apostles (2 Corinthians 12:12), whereby the Lord strengthened their authority and lent heavenly power to their preaching, so that during their lifetime that gospel bore fruit “in the whole world” (Colossians 1:6). At the same time, he also helped his still small church make it through its challenging time of birth.

The Lord had left behind immense promises, like: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40). The Lord Jesus demonstrated his power and authority for that purpose by raising three people from the dead during his life on earth. In this way he validated the gospel already at that time, and three times he furnished the proof that he could fulfill his promises. Christ worked through Peter, and later Paul, to raise someone from the dead, to validate his gospel even more strongly than he had already done. At the same time, he compensated the first Christians for their lack of a complete Bible. For as long as that Bible had not yet been completed, they were unable to comfort each other at the graveside with 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, and Revelation 21–22. The Lord raised Dorcas, therefore, not simply to comfort and to increase the church in Joppa, but for the sake of the Christian churches throughout every century. The Lord promises the blessed resurrection of believers who have died. Dorcas’ resurrection can strengthen our trust in what Jesus promised to do at the last day. That is, do on a worldwide scale what he did in the sickroom of Aeneas and in the death chamber of Dorcas: “Away, disease! Away, death!” Banned at the command of the One who has received from God all power and authority.

Questions:

Why do Christians still get sick?

Why do Christians suffer death?

How much stronger is the church now that we have a New Testament?

– Alida Sewell