Healing and the Holy Spirit - Acts 3

Welcome back everybody to the Bible study podcast.

We're gonna keep the angel the wheel, whatever photo editing conversation that was we were just having.

No?

Yes?

Zach says no.

Okay, fine.

Um, but today we are jumping into Acts chapter three, and we have the one and only Thomas Verden.

Howdy.

Thomas, I asked you to do this, not because no one else could be here.

Maybe it's okay.

No, but you're one of the people that came to mind of uh you take Bible study really seriously.

It's like I can tell that you do it for your own betterment, even when it becomes a work task.

Because like speaking to students like every single week, there is a reality of like, I have to read the Bible for my job.

Yeah.

Um, but ever since, like any time I asked you to speak in the youth back in the day, and now that you're doing it more often, I just like can tell that you take it to a level, and we've talked about it where you're like, I've done so much research on this passage and this topic that we have to kind of like then winnow it down.

And so you were one of the people where I was like, we're doing a Bible study podcast, we're gonna have people rotate in.

So I'm glad you're here for it.

I've done a lot of Bible studies, I'd never done a Bible study on a podcast before.

So yeah, so we'll see how it goes.

There's not any right way to do this.

So um it'll be good.

Uh we are in Acts chapter three, and the way we do it was just I'll read a little bit and then we'll chat about it.

Sweet, let's do it.

Acts chapter three.

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, that is called the beautiful gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple.

Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms.

And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, Look at us.

He fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.

But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong, and leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple asking for alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

So it's pretty good.

Yeah.

Thoughts?

Yeah.

Uh it's the first miracle that happens post Jesus' ascension, which is notable.

Oh, yeah.

And it's the first, you know, like obviously the like the moment of Pentecost was like a supernatural thing.

But like this is the first thing that the disciples got to experience with Jesus having gone.

Yeah.

Um, and then like realizing that they can continue on the ministry.

It's like the first normal miracle post-Jesus's ascension, which is yeah, interesting.

Okay.

Um, do you feel like this brings up so many questions?

I know we like briefly chat about it, chatted about it before we uh talked or turned on cameras or whatever, but like, do you feel that what Peter and John had, he says, you know, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

Do you feel like that was like something different?

Like, did Peter have more Holy Spirit power because he's like, you know, the rock and this whole situation is the church is new and all that.

Yeah.

Or do you feel like Christians today have a similar like healing power in the name of Jesus?

Like, I don't know, where do you fall on that?

Yeah, that's why I mean we were mentioning it before we started.

Is I brought up the like, is the Holy Spirit like giving the disciples this really strong authority to start the early church?

Or this is like a hard thing for us to wrestle with, but is it just because they had like a ton of faith that they knew who Jesus was?

They knew the authority that he had, he they witnessed it firsthand, they heard from him and listened to him tell them that they have that same authority.

Right.

And so is it like we uh I I think of I heard somebody say this when they prayed over someone for healing, and they'll say, like, we pray, whether it be a miracle or medicine, that you're healed.

And that's like I I believe that like the Lord works through the doctors can provide through medicine.

And medicine.

Uh, but is that like a we're scared that the miracle won't happen?

And so we'll also add the medicine part.

Like that's that's what I wrestle with.

Yeah, I wrestle with uh have you ever prayed for someone like that you loved dearly to be healed?

Yeah, like in a super direct way and like with a lot of faith, yeah, sort of thing.

Yeah, I like one of my friends uh out of high school, uh, and he wouldn't Alex, he wouldn't mind me sharing this, but like he uh I think he got hit by a car when he was in high school and got paralyzed from the legs down.

Wow.

I was really good friends with him for several years, and we prayed for him all the time that his legs would be healed and that he could walk again.

Um, and I think through like a lot of like chiropractic stuff, like he's able to walk to an extent now.

Wow.

Um but that looked differently than we wanted it to.

Yeah, yeah.

It wasn't like a it wasn't automatically leap for joy and walk into the temple instantly.

Reach your hand out.

Yeah.

And I think too, so I've I've had those moments where I've prayed for people, and you know, I can I can only measure as much faith as I as I've had.

I've seen people that have more faith than me.

So I'm I'm assuming that, you know, you know, there are people who can like just that they believe differently than me, and I'm usually just encouraged by those.

Um, but I've prayed and and what I would say is like a full amount of belief and not seen those people healed even by medicine.

Yeah.

And that's caused it's like caused a couple of things.

There's like maybe God's doing something bigger there, and I don't necessarily know what's going on between that person and the Lord, and like what is the outcome of this situation.

Um, it's caused me to wrestle with like, well, did I believe, or was I, was there a part of me that was just like fully on one side going, but like in the end, if it doesn't happen, I'm okay.

So we're not gonna really believe that this happens.

Um and then also I've seen that you know, the rise and walk mentality on the far extremes in certain like Christian circles leads to like people being really kind of hurt and kind of I build the expectation of like your healing has to look how I want it to look.

And so there's lots of wrestling that comes up when I read this passage.

And I I think the reality is though, is like I've still seen Jesus heal people.

I've seen Jesus heal people in like you're saying, like in the provision, in the timing of the doctors got there early enough or whatever it might be.

But I've also seen people that you know shouldn't have recovered from their situation recover.

And so I do believe that the Holy Spirit still is at work, but I think these moments in the early church definitely give me like this something off.

Yeah.

It's something off with me.

Well, uh correct me if I'm wrong.

Isn't there a disciple that Jesus like doesn't heal because he says that like you'll be a testament to that's in the chosen.

There's like, yeah, like basically it's a way to like express these ideas that I think are biblical ideas, but there's not a like actual story of anyone that asks to be healed by Jesus.

I think in scripture every single person is.

Yeah.

And so there's that reality of saying like Jesus is the great physician, Jesus is a healer.

Yeah.

Um, and so that chosen scene I think is for what I was thinking of, but I didn't know if that was No, I don't think it's biblical, and I think it's for modern audiences to like kind of wrestle with some of those ideas.

And I think it's appropriate, but depends on what you see the role of the chosen is.

And I think it's like entertaining and encouraging, but also it is not scripture, and it is trying to kind of uh approach some of those topics.

And so um, no, there are definitely people that have faith that love the Lord and the Lord loves them, and on this side of heaven, they're they're definitely not healed in the way that we would imagine them.

Yeah.

Um, and I do think that part of this conversation points my brain toward like my conception of what heaven is, because I think I default, even though I know it's not, but I default to that, like we'll be like wisps of cloud floating, and I will have like my presence and your presence will be there.

And we'll be like, like our heart will be toward worshiping the Lord.

But uh in the scriptures, we're told that eternity is gonna be a recreated earth and that we're gonna be given new bodies.

And so there's like there is an embodied, and that's like so like hard to wrap your mind around of like you died and got a new body.

I wonder how connected like my body will be to this body.

Like, will I look similar?

Will I if I if there are mirrors in heaven, which I don't know if there are, but if there are mirrors in heaven, like when I look at myself, will I be like, oh yeah, that's like a different kind of version of me that was on earth, but I see it, but or will it be like I look completely different?

I don't know.

You're like seven foot tall and jacked, seven, seven foot tall, really muscular, yeah, and uh able to dunk a basketball finally.

Or maybe we're humbled.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, I didn't want blonde hair or whatever, whatever it is.

And so um, but you know, ultimately the direction we're headed toward is toward a new body and a restored body in a place where there is no disease or tears or pain.

And so that healing does happen in the presence of Jesus, yep, just like it happens in the presence of Jesus here.

It just looks different than our human brains can kind of expect it to.

Yep.

And I'll say this about the Bible study podcast, and we've filmed a couple of these now, and so Zach can kind of speak to this, but like these aren't like prepared definitive teachings.

This is like, let's read the Bible together and we'll process this out loud to kind of give permission to people.

Like, it's hard to know.

Like, is that an okay question to ask?

Yeah.

For me, even like to mention the the chosen scene where I was like, I feel like that is it definitely in the chosen, is I is don't remember hearing that in the gospel, but yeah, and so uh some of what happens when we read scripture together is we just we process it and uh hopefully we get closer to the Lord as a part of it.

Yeah, and learn something.

I like the idea before we move on.

Is there anything else that jumps out to you from this little first section?

Um I just any time that the temple is involved, I'm really fascinated just because of what the temple meant.

Represents.

Yeah.

And like just the the fact that like he's able to walk and in his own strength, like go into the presence of God or like get closer to God.

That's like I feel like that's really symbolic in a special way.

It's kind of interesting too to think of uh a place where people worship being the like the place where someone sets up shop to to beg for money.

Like if that were happening at the church, it's like I feel like we would help that person or like figure out the situation.

Yeah, it wouldn't be like, well, yeah, there's the guy that always begs just right outside Molly Lane or in front of our front doors, there's that person that begs for money and then they come in.

Um, I don't know.

So it's just an interesting thing that these worshippers are there and it seems like he's able to be, he's surviving at least.

You know, people are providing for him, but the disciples aren't rich like that, they're probably there for for other purposes.

Yeah, and it seems like this guy has been there.

I mean, he specifies that he's gone there daily for a long time.

Uh, and so the people that were going in and out of the temple probably, like if they were giving him alms and stuff, like knew him personally and knew his struggles and knew that you know this was something that has held him back for a long time.

Which, how much cooler is it?

How much of like a witness is it to Jesus and the power of Jesus to say, like, oh, that's that's John, like that's Robert, he he's healed, you know.

Yeah, that's just a cool, a cool thing.

Yep.

Um, cool.

So we'll read on to this next section.

Sweet.

Peter gives another uh another message.

There's lots of messages that Peter gives.

Peter's a big message guy.

Yeah, he ends up speaking a lot.

Can you imagine like the whole time Peter puts his foot in his mouth and like uh he denies Jesus and runs away from Jesus, and then post Jesus's like restoration of Peter, he's like, I guess I'm the talking guy.

Yeah, like I'm given all the messages, yeah.

So it happens so often to be the guy who like follows up like with a message after Pentecost.

Is it Peter who Yeah yeah, like yeah, it's a that's I guess the Holy Spirit.

And when you're with Jesus, all the things you're getting corrected by him all the time, and then you get restored by Jesus, and he's like, You're the guy, so be ready.

And uh good luck.

He said, Don't worry about what they're gonna what you're gonna say when you're arrested, and it seems like Peter's pretty uh obedient in all of these moments.

So here's Peter's next message.

Uh so while he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's.

And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people.

Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at stare at us as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.

But you denied the holy and righteous one, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead, to this we are witnesses, and his name, by faith in his name, has made his man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given this man this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers, but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that is Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

Repent therefore and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed to you for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things, about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Moses said, The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you, a prophet like me from your brothers.

You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you, and it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.

And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed these days.

You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, And in all your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.

Intense.

Intense and also amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Almost exactly what we were talking about with everyone, like almost like worshiping the healing power of like someone and making that the idol.

And Peter is like, no, it's not about that.

Like, you guys, this man needed to be healed and be able to walk and leap and like worship the Lord, but the healing that you guys need is so much more than just your legs working.

It's a spiritual transformation.

And just like the calling out of what they did to Jesus and who he was.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's his and his it's his name by faith in his name that is this man has been made strong.

Yep.

It's like we didn't do this.

And that I think is an encouragement too.

Like the that first chunk of the scripture causes me to wrestle and go, like, well, for that person I prayed for, did I have enough faith?

I totally put the onus on me.

I go, Did I have enough faith?

Yeah.

Not, you know, what is God up to?

How does God work?

It's totally kind of personalizing it to me.

Yep.

And he said, like, we didn't make him walk, Jesus made him walk.

And it's a really cool thing, too, that connection to like the world that's coming.

Um, you know, that we're gonna receive Jesus and uh what's it say?

You acted in ignorance, repent therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time of restoring of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets.

It's like even so, like both of those insecurities and like the place in the conversation that the first part of the passage was was like, Am I enough?

Is my faith enough?

It's like this is about Jesus.

It's like, well, so then what?

It's like, well, until he returns and the restoring of all things happens.

And so it's a really cool, like I love that scripture a lot of the times for me, the questions that I have as I'm reading usually are like addressed really close to the like place that I got the questions.

Yeah.

And so it's a really cool thing.

The people teaching Peter like knew what he needed to say, like the Holy Spirit was giving in the words.

Exactly.

And so when we read something and we have questions, it's teaching me too.

It's the whole it's almost like it's the word of God.

It's inspired by a creator who knows what we need to hear.

Exactly.

Yeah, and I think we'll see later too.

There's a guy who like wants to buy the healing miracle power, and they're like, No, that's not what it's all about.

And so it's just a like they know from the beginning that it isn't about any individual person other than Jesus.

And so if they walked out of here, and in human weakness, there I think a lot of like the gross parts where church can go sideways just comes out of like a general sense of like obviously sin.

But there's like a human weakness of like, well, yeah, God did this amazing thing through me, and the me gets elevated, and it's like I'm the miracle worker, come to me.

But God's doing it.

It's like Peter and John could have totally taken the credit and been like, Yeah, isn't this amazing?

Join our club because our club is where you get healed.

But they said, like, this isn't about us.

The Lord wanted him healed, and he also wants you to know that he's the one that's been prophesied through the since the beginning, since Abraham, and the blessing is coming now, and you get to experience that.

Like it's just a cool thing.

And put like putting ourselves in the people that are hearing Peter's message, message is shoes.

Like they're standing in like the outer courts of the temple where like everyone's welcome essentially, but then there's like layers to the temple, like only Jewish women and men can go, and then it's only Jewish men that are clean, and then priests, and then the high priest.

And there's so many like things that you have to do to be in the presence of God.

Jesus broke the veil in the Holy of Holies, like he gave it gives us access to the presence of God.

And to be standing in the outer courts and be taught a message that like Jesus has made our made the way for us to be in the presence of God.

Right.

We don't have to like jump through all these hoops and be this gives the context for the all nations will be blessed sentence that he says.

He's referencing what God promises to Abraham, yeah.

And he's like, Yeah, in the outer, hey, in the outer courtyard, Solomon's portico, like we're here.

What do you think?

All nations or no?

And it's like, oh, you get to be the first to experience some of the fruit of the promise of Abraham, and they would have like totally got that, yep, and looked around and been like, him, him, and then the guy on the ground, and him, even him, yeah.

So it's just a super encouraging.

And I think Axe has like that's what I love about Axe is like so much of the there's the prophecy that's fulfilled through Jesus, and those are like, you know, amazing.

It's like a hammer just like slamming down on a nail once and getting it all the way, and you're like, yes, yes, yes.

But then you see like the way it plays out, and acts is a lot messier, like of a process.

Like there's confusion about how the Holy Spirit works, there's who's included, who's not, correcting people, lots of awkward conversations, and it's like what churches, what ministry is?

Yeah, I haven't so much.

I have a dream, and it it might not be impossible, but it feels like a project of like preaching through acts with a group, but you preach through acts with all of the letters in sequence to like the events that as they happen.

Because there's like moments where they're meeting people that are addressed in certain letters later, and like the characters that surface in the book of Acts are like, this is the early church.

All of those letters that Paul and James and John are sending are all kind of happening around this time or just after these times.

Yeah.

And so I wondered like, is it ever possible to like fold those letters in, like tuck them as bookmarks into things?

It's like, okay, we made it to this part in Acts, and now we're gonna do a series on Ephesians because we're talking about Ephesus and Acts.

Like just be a cool, like This is where Paul was when he wrote Philippians.

Right.

So we're gonna go through the Philippians.

Exactly.

That's cool.

Um I don't know if it's that that seems like too big of a project, and there's probably stuff that I don't know about the sequence of events that would play out.

But it'd be cool to know the timeline a little bit better.

Yeah.

Even if it was like simplified.

Right.

But like you're saying, this is like about the church community and about the church people.

And you know, in the last chapter, it said that what does it say?

2,000, 3,000?

How many were added?

It was like 150, I think, and then it's I think it says 2,000.

About 3,000 souls, verse 41 of chapter 2.

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.

And so it's like there are this new megachurch in Jerusalem.

And it's not really like a traditional megachurch that you would imagine, but there are a lot of people that are starting to process what this means and these moments that are happening in Jerusalem, because Jesus says you'll go from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

It's like there's lots of clarifying questions that people are going to have.

And it's just cool to see that this one's such an obvious one.

And it's again what he said earlier in Acts chapter 2, and he says it's a similar thing.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Repent, turn back from your sins, that they may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ.

Like it's like kind of all summed up in there.

Yeah.

So cool.

Anything else to add or what do you think about um verse 17 that says he like gives his message and is like, and you killed him.

Like you asked for a murderer, blah blah blah.

But he says, and now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance.

As did also your rulers.

Yeah.

What do you think about the the ignorance?

Like I don't know, is that like you didn't know what you were doing, or you fully bought the propaganda that Jesus was Or that you like just gave into the crowd and like, you know, social pressure got the best of you.

Which is what happened with Pilate.

Yeah.

Like that was totally Yeah, he thought you was innocent.

Yeah, and well, he he wants to be innocent.

He said, I wash my hands of this.

Well, no, he he he knew that Jesus was in the house.

Oh, that Jesus was innocent.

Yeah.

And that pressure, and even his wife was like, have nothing to do with this Jesus.

And I always wonder about the washing I wash my hands of this like moment.

Yeah.

Of like, is that his way of kind of like pleasing the crowd and pleasing his wife?

Of saying, like, well, I had nothing to do with Jesus.

It's the crowd that wanted Jesus.

Yeah.

I I didn't do anything.

Um scrappy leader.

Yeah.

And but like you're saying, acted in ignorance.

Yeah.

And I wonder it's hard for me to believe that Pilate acted in ignorance ignorance.

I feel like he got enough uh heads up and knew what he was supposed to do.

Yeah.

But um I like that these people who were either witness or in the crowd at Jesus' crucifixion or had heard about it in a way that was like really connected because it was really recently.

Yeah.

Like there is that like allowance to say, like, but you didn't know what you're doing.

And it's what Jesus says from the cross, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing.

And so I wonder if that's the words that are reading in or ringing in Peter's head as he's as he's giving a message to the people that murdered his rabbi.

And like he he knew Jesus was God.

Right.

And to teach some to teach a crowd not just to like rebuke their past, but to give them hope, like in a different way.

And and that you're included.

Yeah.

Is a really cool like you're included in this blessing if you if you decide decide to embrace this.

Repent of what you did.

Yeah.

Like you recognize that you're wrong, turn from that and come be part of this.

Yeah.

It's a good message for all of us.

Super cool.

Super cool.

So I think that's it.

I mean, unless you've got anything else that any details, you've got a gigantic Bible.

I do.

Is this a study Bible?

It's yeah, it's my it's my study Bible.

It's got more notes in it than it does like it takes like this one's about 50-50 on notes to scripture ratio.

Very good.

Any any enlightening things you learned while reading this chapter?

I actually didn't use the study bible to read.

I just kind of like just read it.

Just read it.

Sweet.

And looked up stuff when I had questions.

Typically what I do.

Do you use Google for that?

Do you use ChatGPT?

How do you how do you study?

I honestly try to stay away from ChatGPT just for like a lot of uh transparency.

Like I just think it gets stuff wrong like too often.

Yeah.

Um and so I'll just like either look up commentaries on Google or I'll look up a specific question and read a few different articles, and maybe there's commentaries or notes or whatever.

I've seen ChatGPT or AI tools like that to be really useful when you're looking at like a certain kind of thing that you're then gonna go study in the Bible to say, like, what passages should I read for this?

And then you go dive into it.

But as far as question and answer, there's a lot of like the AI sound like spits something back that sounds sounds kind of right.

Same with Google, but yeah.

Like people always tell you to never use Wikipedia as like a factual source.

And that's what AI is AI is like, I love Wikipedia.

Point you in the direction, but like AI pulls from Wikipedia where anybody can edit.

And so what were those questions that you had when you were reading this?

I know you mentioned the courtyard and yeah, so uh I couldn't remember what portico was.

Okay.

So I looked it up.

It's just like ancient Roman uh it's essentially like visualize I'm trying to think the uh gaze scene in Inception where they're like walking down that like tunnel and he like turns it into a mirror.

Okay, yeah.

I can't remember.

And it's like columns all the way down, and then there's a cover.

Yep.

That's essentially like what that was in architecture.

W Chick-fil-A drivers have the drive-thru.

Kind of.

Yeah.

It's like some more ancient version of the Chick-fil-A drive-thru cover.

But it was a place for people to gather and to have shade.

Uh essentially the same reason they have it at Chick-fil-A drive through.

There you go.

To be a place where people can gather and order their Chick-fil-A in the shade.

Sweet.

Okay, so cool.

That was interesting.

And then just uh all the temple dynamics.

Uh reflecting like the architecture of the tabernacle, and the tabernacle reflecting the architect like God's plan in the Garden of Eden.

Yeah.

It's just all really that's I went on down a rabbit trail about that.

And that's the beauty of every time you read scripture, you're like, I could spend a whole year just in this chapter.

Yeah.

Um, well, cool.

So that's Acts chapter three, and we'll be back next time on the Bible study podcast for Acts chapter four.

Sounds good.

I don't have any I feel like we need an outro, we need an intro and an outro.