Read Acts 9:32-35
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“’Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!’ And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, ‘We’ve never seen anything like this before!’” (Mark 2:11-12, NLT)
When we think of God’s people, we tend to think one of two things. We might think of the Israelites who were God’s “chosen people”, or we might think of specific characters in the Bible. Either way, we tend to idealize the people we are thinking about. For instance, we may think that God’s people are super faithful, holy, perform miracles and live wholly devout and righteous lives. Unfortunately, this idealism enables us to distance ourselves from being God’s people, because we feel that we fall short of those ideals. As such, I have decided to write a devotion series on specific characters in the Bible in order to show you how much these Biblical people are truly like us, and how much we are truly called to be God’s people.
Part 245: Aeneas. Here again we come across a person who was named, but not much else is known about him. In the Bible there are three basic categories for people. First, there are the main characters where chapters, books, or multiple books are dedicated to describing who they were, what they taught or did, and why they are noteworthy. The second category are those who are merely mentioned by name, but not much else is said about them. The third category are those who remain nameless. There are plenty of those people, for instance, “the man born blind”, “the Samaritan woman at the well”, etc.).
With Aeneas, we have the second category.He is named; however, all that we really know about him is that hey had been a paralytic for eight years prior to being brought to Peter. With that said, that tidbit of information helps us enough to figure out what was going on in the passage. Once, we have a deeper understanding of the passage we can the see how it fits into the bigger picture.
So, let us look at the passage itself. Peter had been traveling place to place and decided, along the way, to visit the believers in Lydda. Today, that city is known by it’s Hebrew name, Lod; however, Lydda was the Greco-Roman name for it. It is located a little over 9 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. It was there, in Lydda, that Peter ran into a paralytic man who had been bedridden for eight years.
Peter told the man, upon meeting him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you! Get up and roll up your sleeping mat.” Following those words, Aeneas was instantly healed! What an amazing miracle for him and others to witness! One can imagine the kind of amazement that must have been filling those witnessing that miracle. In fact, Luke tells us that the entire city, upon seeing Aeneas walking around, turned to the Lord.
From this account we see a couple of things happening. First, we’ve seen this miracle before. This miracle parallels Jesus’ healing of the paralytic man. Instead of forgiving this man’s sins, however, Peter simply points the man to Jesus who, clearly, forgives his sins. “Jesus Christ heals you,” Peter proclaimed.
The second thing to note is this, we see the beginning of the fulfillment that the disciples would not only do what Jesus had done in the past, but they would surpass him. In this account, Peter not only did what Christ did in healing the paralytic man; however, he pointed people to Jesus and watched them believe en masse! Wow!
Finally, we see exactly the model for discipleship. We are called to follow Jesus, to learn from him, to imitate him and to allow the power of the Holy Spirit to work through us! When we do, when we genuinely put our faith in Christ to work through us, it is amazing the sorts of miracles that come about. With that said, let’s pause here. What’s the point of a miracle? That question is answered in this passage as well. Miracles lead people to recognize and turn to the Lord. They are not magic tricks, they’re not brought about by our own power or will; rather, they signal to those who witness them that God is near and real!
This should challenge us. We should not set out looking to be miracles workers, otherwise, we will fall into the trap of Simon magus. Rather, we should set out looking to be faithful in our service to Christ. Once we seek out faithfulness, we will find ourselves stepping up and out in ways we never knew possible. That alone, my friends, is miraculous! Just imagine what God can do in and through your faithfulness! Let us be challenged to be like Peter who was faithful to Christ and never saw someone as being too insignificant for his time and presence.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
“Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.” – Augustine of HippoPRAYER
Lord, work through me in a way that witnesses to others your glory and your coming Kingdom. Amen.