Acts 3:1 ¶ Now Peter and
John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the
ninth hour. 2 And a certain man
lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of
the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the
temple; 3 Who seeing Peter and John
about to go into the temple asked an alms. 4
And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. 5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to
receive something of them. 6 Then Peter
said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. 7
And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and
immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. 8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and
entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
9 And all the people saw him walking and
praising God: 10 And they knew that it
was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were
filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. 11 And as the lame man which was healed held
Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is
called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.
In the last passage it
says the signs and wonders were done by the Apostles. Here, we see an example. The
Jews set various times apart for prayer.
Psalm 55:17 Evening, and
morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
Daniel 6:10 Now when Daniel
knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being
open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a
day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
The day had 12 hours,
starting from 6am according to many commentators. See John 11:9. Starting the day from 6am the
ninth hour of the day would be 3pm, in the afternoon. This is called the hour
of prayer so it must have been a well-established custom to attend to prayers
at this time. So, the third hour in 2:15 would be 9am and then noon as Psalm 55
states. See Acts 10:9.
John Gill noted that
the Jews acknowledged there was no divinely appointed time for prayer but that
tradition ruled in the custom of when to pray. We see in the Scriptures a
warrant for observing certain general times.
The Beautiful gate’s location is apparently
in question because different commentators have different opinions on it. John
Gill reported ancient Jewish commentators as saying that it was the eastern
gate of the outside wall which had the most traffic of people going to religious
exercises called Shushan for the place in Persia mentioned in more than a dozen
verses in the Old Testament. That would relate it to the events of the book of
Esther. But, really, scholars aren’t sure. But, since verse 11 had Peter and
John at Solomon’s Porch, which was close to the eastern gate, common sense
tells us that that is where the Beautiful gate was, called Shushan.
Notice in verse 6 this
healing did not require faith in Christ on the part of this person who had been
handicapped since birth but simply that he obey and get up which was probably
not hard to be convinced to do once he received strength in his legs. This
person begging alms was well known to those who entered at this place. Having
had an intolerance to a class of prescription drugs that caused me to weaken
considerably I’ve experienced muscle weakness and then battled back to feel
strength again in my legs. Even in my situation which took months I rejoiced at
the renewed strength in my limbs as I bounded up stairs I could barely walk up
before. This must have been quite a remarkable experience for this man in a
matter of moments.
This suggests an
important thing to us in that sometimes God does something remarkable in our
life, overcomes some great obstacle, performs some great healing, and we didn’t
even know how to ask for it or how far to go in our prayer. But, God provided
it without even our acknowledgement that He would and we have only to claim it,
to just accept it. How many of us are missing out on a miracle that has already
happened in our lives that all we have to do is to act on it? How many of us
have been carrying burdens our entire life that God has already lifted from us
but we keep clinging desperately to them. The only thing that could be said
about it would be that you should just take God’s hand and let Him lift you up
and then leap for joy praising Him. I have seen this myself.
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