Acts: Healing (3:1-9)

This healing is similar in many ways to the healing of the blind man in John 9. The healing causes a commotion and the religious leaders investigate the occurrence and persecute those involved. In both instances the people questioned (the blind man in John and Peter here) use the opportunity to declare who Jesus is and what He has done. In both cases it appears as though many people believe in Jesus as a result.

 

It is amazing when God chooses to use supernatural events to get His work done. It appears as though generally, these things happen where a work is just beginning and in such a way as to spark a large movement. How does a person used by God in this way feel? How do they know that is what God desires? It must be like fishing, you wonder what a bite will feel like and think you get one every once in a while, but the real one is unmistakable.

 

Does God still use such methods? They certainly are not commonplace (miracles by definition are not) but supernatural and unexplainable things are still used to bring people to a knowledge of Christ.

Healings are not the only thing that would fall into this category. In the late nineties, North Irving Baptist Church prayed for the Muslims in their neighborhood after a study on what Islam teaches. The very next day, a Muslim woman approached the church wanting to know more about Jesus, after He had appeared to her in a dream telling her to seek Him! About one month later, she was baptized.