“The Ripple Effect”
Acts 9:32-43
September 2, 2007
Hannibal used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together!” Luke has been setting the stage for the coming-together of God’s grand plan of expanding the gospel to all people, and today’s text demonstrates the continued “widening” of the gospel range. That’s not remarkable to us because, as I illustrated a couple of weeks ago, it doesn’t easily occur to us that the gospel didn’t originate in America—until I pointed it out, hardly any of us considered ourselves products of foreign missions, when in fact we all are! If we’re not careful, we’ll read our Americo-centric viewpoints and presuppositions back into the text and setting of Scripture. Thus it became popular in the 80’s, for instance, to uncritically read II Chronicles 7:14 and apply it wholesale, directly, and uncritically to America. Remember that verse? In the KJV, it reads, “if My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their ways, then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land.” Nice verse—but it’s a misuse of the Bible just to haul that promise uncritically right over into present-day America.
Thus, having grown up 2000 years after the founding of the church, with the gospel having spread around the world, it doesn’t strike us as noteworthy to consider the emphasis of Luke here on the gospel’s spread—but it was quite a different thing to the Jews who were used to considering themselves, by virtue merely of being of Jewish lineage, as being God’s people. Everyone else was dirty, vile, disgusting, and certainly separated from God by an unfathomable gulf (though, if they’d just read their own Scriptures more carefully, they’d have known that not to be true!). The gospel centered in Jerusalem, site of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, site of Pentecost and the first church. But then, responding to the command of Christ, the gospel began a branching-out, and today we see the change brought by the gospel in the lives of three individuals. (Read Acts 9:32-43).
In the 1980’s, Bruce Hornsby lamented that the attitude of many people is, “that’s just the way it is; some things will never change!” And still today, from time to time, we hear that question raised: “can a leopard change his spots?” Michael Vick pled guilty in federal court to dogfighting charges, and afterwards, apologized and spoke of finding Jesus.
Toss Up
“I want to apologize to all the young kids out there for my immature acts and, you know, what I did was, what I did was very immature so that means I need to grow up…I totally ask for forgiveness and understanding as I move forward to bettering Michael Vick the person, not the football player. I take full responsibility for my actions…not for one second will I sit right here and point the finger and try to blame anybody else for my actions or what I’ve done. I’m totally responsible…I’m upset with myself, and, you know, through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God.”
What is a Christlike response? ”
There are people who don’t want to hear about God, about Christ, about change—and many doubt the possibility that a Mike Vick can change. But our texts recently have pointed out to us this fact: God changes things!
As we spoke of last week, the grace of God in the gospel not only saves people, but it changes people as well, and in today’s text, we see several people being changed by the grace of God—and the one whose transformation might be missed in this narrative is the one whose transformation had the greatest impact ultimately of the three. Notice first that
I. The power of Christ heals Aeneas.
:32-35
Today’s text traces the ministry of Peter in two maritime areas of Palestine: Lydda and Joppa. Lydda was 25 miles NW of Jerusalem, a crossroads town where the highway that led from Egypt to Syria intersected with the highway leading from Joppa to Jerusalem, a town of some significant size for those days. This is the only time we see its appearance in the NT. Environments of both of these towns was distinctly Gentile, even if the people healed were Jews. The ripple effect…
“Saints” is a term used in the New Testament of all who are followers of Jesus Christ, referring not to their character so much as to their status as those set apart by God as “holy” people, though implied is the idea that we who are called “holy” should live holy. Interestingly, it’s not used in the NT in the singular, but always in the plural. Does this imply to us that it is in relationship to other believers, as well as in relationship to God, that we find our identity? We don’t know how it is that these “saints” had come to faith in Christ; were some who were scattered from Jerusalem (during the persecution beginning with Stephen’s martyrdom) responsible for sharing the gospel with them? Regardless, Peter considered them to be within his sphere of ministry, and he was concerned to care for them there. We don’t find it in the text, but we can assume that he went there, not so much to heal, but to provide pastoral care: teaching, exhorting, caring, and the like. Luke chooses not to record anything, however, except two healings. This would seem in keeping with his purpose in Acts to show the expansion of the church via the unleashed power of the Holy Spirit.
Though Aeneas was a Greek name, it’s pretty certain that he was not himself Greek, or the events of the following chapter would make little sense. Paralyzed for eight years, confined to his bed, unable to walk as he’d used to, dependent upon others for so much: this was the case with Aeneas. What did this man have to look forward to? Humanly speaking, nothing but pain and disability for the rest of his life. Yes, if he was a follower of Christ, the most important issue in his life was settled, and this is the promise that all of us can look forward to, eternity in the presence of God, where there is no more pain, sickness, or disability. But on this earth, Aeneas remained an invalid.
But then Peter comes on the scene, and pronounces healing. “This moment, Christ heals you” – a present tense verb is used. And it happens at once; healing takes place,
Chuck Swindoll remarks that this was truly a miracle, in that many of us have for years said to our teenagers, “Get up, and make up your bed”, without ever witnessing that event actually take place! But that is what Aeneas did; in words reminiscent of Christ healing a lame man, Peter said, “take up your bed, and walk!” And he did.
Luke speaks in hyperbole when he says that “all” who saw this man turned to the Lord, but it’s clear that many did, and that this represented, as we said earlier, a widening of the scope of the gospel’s influence. Many times, I’ve heard well-meaning preachers say, of a Scripture text where the word “all” is used, that “’all’ means ‘all’, and that’s all ‘all’ means”. Except that’s not true at all; sometimes “all” means “all”, and at other times, “all” means “many”, as it does here. Regardless, it’s clear that the impact of the healing was that many people placed their faith in Christ, the Healer. The power of Christ changed Aeneas, healing him, and changed many others in the process, as they came to faith.
II. The power of Christ raises Tabitha.
:36-42
Joppa was the seaport that serviced Jerusalem, about 35 miles northwest of Jerusalem, ten miles beyond Lydda, on the Mediterranean.
“Tabitha (Heb.), which when translated is ‘Dorcas’ (Gk.)” – The solution to which, in my humble opinion, is to leave it untranslated (Tabitha? Dorcas? Easy call…). Those words mean “gazelle”, a beautiful animal, a beautiful name for a beautiful lady. She’s called a “disciple”; this is the only NT instance of this term being used in the feminine in the NT. This was a lady with the spiritual gifts of mercy and helps, because she had a heart for the poor and the neglected widows that led her into acts of service on their behalf. Now, this dear lady was dead.
They called for Peter, though the Scripture doesn’t say what they were expecting from him. Peter had healed a number of folks; he’d pronounced the death penalty on Ananias and Sapphira. He didn’t generally, though, raise people from the dead! But we can read between the lines a bit: the body wasn’t anointed yet for burial, and they heard of Peter’s healing of Aeneas. Was it too much of a stretch to suggest that the God Who had healed Aeneas could also bring back life from the dead through Peter?
There, in the room with the dead Tabitha, were many of the women who had been the recipients of her hospitality. They were wearing the very garments that she with love and skill had woven for their covering. They stood as mute testament to the change that Christ had already brought in her life, as her selfless works testified to her faith in God.
Though he hadn’t raised anyone from the dead, he’d seen Jesus do it, with a little girl (Mark 5), and he uses a similar approach to that of the Lord. He sent the mourners out of the room, and praying to God, he spoke directly to the deceased person: “get up!” Ironically, Jesus’ words, “talitha kumi” (“little girl, get up!”) differed by only one letter from what Peter said: “Tabitha, kumi”. Again, the response to this miracle was that many put their faith in the Christ Who had brought her back from the grave.
Healing for its own sake isn’t the point in the outworking of God’s plan. Yes, it brings benefit to the person healed, but the greater point is the growth and advancement of the Kingdom. One thing about healed people: they die eventually anyway! Aeneas walked and leaped away from his healing, but his legs were stilled in death one day. Tabitha arose from her deathbed, but one day, she went back and died and remained dead. But the eternal good wrought by these healings remained forever. Jesus told His disciples not to lay up their treasures on earth, but rather in Heaven, because the treasures that are stored up in Heaven are not susceptible to decay, to theft, to corrosion.
The Power of Christ healed Aeneas.
The Power of Christ raised Tabitha.
III. The power of Christ changes Peter.
:43
Here’s the change that matters most. We don’t hear any more of Aeneas, nor of Tabitha, and the fact of the matter is that the healing was for this life, and the raising from the dead provided only a temporary respite from the clutches of physical death. But the change that is beginning to take place in Peter—that’s a significant one, even though we might lose it in verse 43, which seems almost a “throwaway” verse—but Luke put it here for a reason, and it is significant!
Note the importance of hospitality; this is a NT theme that we don’t mention all that often, but one that had deep significance in that day. No one was leaving a light on for you at Motel 6 back then; Days Inn wasn’t the best value under the sun; back then, you did “roam alone”, in that there was no Travelocity or Expedia or Priceline, and beyond that, the inns that there were, were not only unsanitary, but morally degrading in nature. Simon the tanner opened up his home readily, something that we ought to be ready to do as well even today when we do have better places to stay.
But here’s the change: Peter stayed with “Simon the tanner”. Again, our understanding of the significance of this is clouded by the fact that we don’t live in 1st-century Palestine, but the fact is that the religious teachers considered tanning to be an unclean trade. Tanners worked with dead animals in a smelly, unsanitary environment, and their contact with these animals rendered them ceremonially unclean. Yet Peter stayed with him there. God was beginning to work a real change in Peter’s attitude toward outsiders, toward those whom he’d have previously seen as unclean, as outcasts. We could say that, in one sense, in comparison with the healing and the raising from the dead, there was nothing all that miraculous or spectacular about the change that came over Peter. But if God was going to do a work among the Gentiles, it was imperative that the leadership of the early church have an attitude adjustment toward them, that Peter and the others not see them as unclean individuals, second-class citizens, but as people for whom the same Christ died as died for the Jews. Hold this thought: it will serve as a preface for Acts 10!
The book of Acts is one continuous story, we could say, of the change that is brought about by the work of God in people’s lives, as the unleashed Holy Spirit of God moves in the events and the hearts of people. Saul received a “total makeover” when he was blinded by the light of God and heard the voice of Christ on the road to Damascus. Then, in a “one-eighty” change that took place in his life following the Damascus Road experience, the gospel Saul was opposing became the gospel he was preaching; the people he had been persecuting became his allies, and his former allies his enemies. As we said last week, grace saves us, and then grace changes us. The ripple effect of the gospel that began in Jerusalem changing lives there now has gone to the seashore of Lydda and Joppa, and it is going inward into the heart of a crusty old fisherman named Peter who found his heart being softened toward others. And that same ripple effect continues 2000 years later, as the gospel continues to take root in the hearts and lives of people today!
