Peter & John

In the last chapter you may have noticed the change in Peter. It’s just as illegal as ever to be claiming that Jesus is the Messiah and yet here Peter is, boldly announcing Jesus is Messiah that to a crowd of thousands.

The man who followed Jesus at a distance and denied knowing Him only a few months ago, has now been “clothed with power from on high,” and he goes walking into the Temple in broad daylight.

But first, a lesson to get our gates straightened out.

The encounter with the lame man happened at The Gate called “Beautiful”:

The Temple faces east. The gate you see in the outermost wall was the Shoshan/Shushan Gate. It had a carved depiction of the city of Susa where Esther had been queen. It was ceremonial and used primarily when the High Priest led out the Scapegoat or the Red Heifer. It was not used for daily traffic. (Most people came in by the south gates).

The next gate facing east was the East Gate which led from the sprawling Court of the Gentiles into the Court of the Women where Jewish men, women, and children could go.

A lot of people think that THIS is “The Eastern Gate.”

It’s not. This is called “The Gate of Mercy.” It was built during either the late Byzantine or early Islamic period (7th cent.), but probably was built on top of the ruins of the original Shushan Gate. It was bricked up by Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1541 AD.

By far, the most “beautiful gate” in the temple was the next one, also called the Nicanor Gate after the wealthy Jewish man from Alexandria Egypt who donated the expensive gate plated with shining Corinthian Bronze. (This gate was also sometimes called “The Corinthian Gate.”) Josephus, who actually saw the gate, said it surpassed even the gates overlaid in silver or gold because of its exquisite craftsmanship. And it’s fine bronze/brass shone like gold.

The 15 semi-circular steps leading up to the gate were called the “steps of degrees.” The Levitical choir would stand on these steps and sing the 15 “songs of degrees” from Psalms.

🤓 Like built-in choir risers!

Yes. Exactly. But also convenient places to sit and rest. Or beg.

The little doors on the left and right of the bottom steps led to an underground chamber where the Levitical “worship team” kept their instruments and held practices.

It took 20 men to open the massive bronze-covered gates, so they were opened only on Sabbaths, festivals, and if the king was present. The rest of the time, Jewish men (only) could go through the smaller doors on the left and right to access The Court of Israel.

The bronze gates came with their own miracle. This is the story about them I found on the Jewish resource website Chabad.org.

As these doors were being sent by ship from Egypt to Judea, a storm broke out. The crew was forced to cast one of the two brass doors into the sea. When the danger continued, the crew decided to toss the second gate out as well. Hearing their plans, Nikanor declared that if they throw out the door, they should throw him out as well. His self-sacrifice called for a miracle and the storm subsided. When the ship docked, the door cast overboard was miraculously found floating in the harbor.

🤔 So, the lame man sitting at the miracle gate gets a miracle too…

Yes. And it’s a miracle just as impossible as a floating bronze-covered door.

Here’s something else to consider. Acts 3:2 says that the lame man was carried to this gate every day. Acts 4:22 tells us that he was “above 40 years old.” Every day for most of 40 years.

Now think about this…

How many times did Jesus walk past this man and not heal him?

😳😯🤔 Do you suppose every time Jesus went by and saw him there, that He thought, “I’ll leave him for Peter and John…”

We can’t know that, but I do wonder. And it makes me think differently about unanswered prayer – like maybe some prayers are meant to be answered in a different story.

Peter and John stopped at the lame man’s request for money. But Peter has to say “Look at us!” So I wonder if the man was already looking for the next potential handout.

And I wondered if sometimes we do that too. We ask the Lord for help but in the next moment we’re already looking for the next bit of good fortune that might come along in hopes that it will fix the situation.

I kinda envision the lame man with his hand out, calling “alms,” but he’s so in the habit of scanning for the next coin that he won’t even look at the men who have stopped to help. And I’m sure they don’t look like the answer he’s looking for. They’re obviously not rich.

And do we do that too? I don’t think answered prayers always look like how we expect them to. An answered prayer for better finances might look like a second job, cancelling the tv subscriptions, and getting on a budget. It probably won’t look like fantasies of a winning lottery ticket.

When the man is healed, he jumps up the steps he has only looked at his entire life. He’s probably never seen the other side of that shiny Nicanor gate. Now he goes dancing and bounding into the Court of Israel like a frisky calf.

And boy does it get attention!

When they left the Court of Israel and went back down the steps, I’m sure they were surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.

You might want to scroll back up and look at those steps again, because I bet that’s where Peter and John stood and proclaimed the news about Jesus to the people. And the healed man was standing right there as evidence of the power of Christ.

When they go out to Solomon’s Colonnade, nearly everybody in the temple must have been in tow because about 5000 men (not counting women and children) heard the Gospel and believed that day, (Acts 4:4).

Peter and John were arrested and kept in jail all night and questioned the next day by the same group who had tried Jesus. Their reaction to Peter and John should be a #lifegoals for all followers of Jesus:

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭4‬:‭13‬ ‭ESV‬‬

If you and I spend time with Jesus… I mean really spend time with Him, in His Word and in prayer and worship – people will notice.

We’re just a few weeks into the New Covenant and the Church has already exploded to well over 8000 people.

🤓 That’s a Megachurch.

Well….Not exactly. At first it was more like a 1960s Hippie Commune.

Some people try to make the argument that the early church practiced Socialism. They didn’t. They shared resources voluntarily. In Socialism, the government takes the resources by force and throws you in a gulag if you don’t “volunteer” or “share.” Then it skims a generous amount off the top for all the corrupt bureaucrats to live lavishly, uses some to bribe judges and other officials, then redistributes what’s left so badly that people die of starvation when the currency becomes worthless. No. The early Christians weren’t socialists. Peter refutes that when he admonishes the lying Ananias.

“While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.””
‭‭Acts‬ ‭5‬:‭4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Peter doesn’t have a problem with private property. Why would God give commandments not to steal or covet if He had a problem with private ownership? Jesus told parables praising faithful servants who invest wisely and grow private wealth.

The problem wasn’t that Ananias wasn’t sharing. Peter didn’t care if he sold the land and used the money to take Sapphira on a cruise to Tahiti. It was their money to do with as they chose. The problem was, they LIED about how much money they had gotten from the sale of the property. They pretended to bring 100% of what they had been paid. They didn’t.

🤔 Why was God so harsh?

🤓 Yeah? There are lots of dishonest people in the church now.

🤨 Some are even in phony-baloney ministry.

🤓 How come God doesn’t strike THEM dead?

😒 Might help if He would.

My theory is that God was setting a precedent.

I don’t know if you remember WAY back to when we read through Leviticus; when Nadab and Abihu were struck dead for offering incense with unauthorized fire.

I think this is a similar situation; down to the two dead people being wrapped up in their own clothes and carried out by young men.

If the Lord hadn’t given a severe course correction early-on, how long do you think the church would’ve lasted before it became corrupted like the Jerusalem priesthood had? The shocking deaths of Ananias and Sapphira told the whole community the same message that the newly-formed Aaronic Priesthood got: You don’t mess around with God.

That’s the wise counsel of the Rabbi Gamaliel; the teacher of one Saul of Tarsus. He was advising the rest of the council to not get too harsh with the Apostles just in case the things they were doing and teaching really were from God. He knew, you don’t mess with God.

The apostles had been teaching in Solomon’s Colonnade and healing people just like Jesus did. The leading priests thought they got rid of Jesus, but now there are 12 more versions of Him.

We don’t know if it was all 12 or a smaller group of them, but a number of them got arrested and thrown in jail. And an angel comes and does the first Harry Houdini trick. The angel opens the locked doors and gets them out of the prison and somehow the next morning, the doors are found still securely locked and the guards have been there all night and didn’t see a thing.

God did this same miracle in May of 1997 for a Chinese Christian leader known as Brother Yun. If you have not read his autobiography, The Heavenly Man, I encourage you to do so. His life is the most book-of-Acts series of persecution and miracles you’ve ever read.

Here’s the cliff-notes version of this particular story:

Chinese house church leader Brother Yun (Liu Zhenying) walked out of the heavily guarded Zhengzhou Maximum Security Prison on May 5, 1997, despite having severely crippled and broken legs.

The Background of the Escape

• Severe Injury: Guards had brutally beaten and deliberately shattered Yun’s legs, leaving him so crippled that he could not walk or even crawl to the toilet without help from other inmates.
• The Divine Command: On May 5, 1997, after hearing a clear inner prompting from the Lord telling him that it was time to leave, Yun felt a miraculous surge of strength. He got up and walked.
• The Obstacles: Escape seemed physically impossible because there were multiple heavy, iron double-gates separating his area from the outside, each manned by armed guards with guns. No one had ever escaped from this prison.

Walking Past the Guards

• Overcoming the Doors: When Yun stepped forward in faith, the heavy iron prison doors and locks inexplicably opened before him. Sometimes a door would open to let another person through and he would walk through it with a guard just ignoring him.
• Unseen by Guards: As he walked through the corridors and past the checkpoints, the armed guards looked right in his direction but acted as though they were blinded or did not see him, making no attempt to stop him.
• Disappearance: He walked straight out of the main gate (which was inexplicably open) into the courtyard, hailed a taxi that arrived right at that moment, and safely escaped into the underground network.
• Investigation: An investigation by the prison found that Yun had received no assistance from either inmates or guards. They did not mount a man-hunt so as not to draw attention to the fact that a prisoner had escaped the maximum security facility.

The apostles went straight back to the temple to teach the new Christians. And this time the guards went to… uh… very politely ask them to come speak to the council.

I find that hilarious. One day the Levitical temple guards are just manhandling them off to a cell. Then after a supernatural escape, they send the top brass practically with a gilded invitation to tea…

“Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭5‬:‭26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Of course the Apostles preach to the men who had their Master crucified. The council lets them off with a warning and beating.

The beatings don’t matter. Not for the Apostles or for saints like Brother Yun. The important thing is that the Gospel is preached.