3 March 2026
A man lame from birth is carried to the temple gate each day to beg, and on this particular afternoon two disciples going up to pray stop, look him in the eye, and offer him something no coin could buy. What follows is the first recorded miracle of the apostles in Acts, and it raises a question that runs through the whole session: what does it actually look like when Jesus' power and compassion work through ordinary people rather than around them?
Editor's note: This article is a written summary based on the substance of Harry's Bible study on this passage. It is not a verbatim transcript, and while it aims to reflect the heart of the teaching faithfully, it cannot fully convey the warmth, care, and encouragement of the class itself.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your word and for the privilege of gathering together in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. As we open the Scriptures today, we ask that your Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds and soften our hearts, that we might hear your voice, grow in the knowledge of you, and be equipped to live and speak for Christ. We commit this time of study into your hands, in Jesus' Name, Amen.
Harry opened with a legend told of Pope Innocent II and Thomas Aquinas: while counting a large sum of money, the Pope remarked, "You see, Thomas, the church can no longer say, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" Aquinas replied, "That is true, Holy Father, but neither can she still say, 'Arise and walk.'" Harry used this to frame the whole passage — Acts 3:1–10 records the first of fourteen miracles in Acts, and it sets off the chain of events that follows: Peter's sermon to the astonished crowd, and then the reaction of the priests, the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees in Acts 4:1–22. Harry linked it back to what the group had read the previous week in Acts 2:43 — "Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles" — noting that this healing is one such sign.
Harry stressed that God's power through Jesus is the focus of the whole account, and that this power now works through the apostles. The healing is not simply a display of power; it shows the new community's compassion meeting a need that goes beyond the merely material. The lame man asks for money, but Peter and John have none to give — instead, in the name of Jesus, the man is healed and given the capability of an entirely new life, an act that pictures what salvation itself does. Harry drew out two parallels: Luke 5:17–26, where Jesus heals a paralysed man lowered through the roof and then declares his sins forgiven after seeing the faith of those who brought him, and Acts 14:8–11, where Paul heals another man lame from birth, only for the crowd to mistake Paul and Barnabas for gods. The key difference Harry highlighted between Luke's account and this one is that Peter mediates the healing and then explains what it shows, whereas Jesus heals and forgives directly — Jesus' authority is immediate in a way Peter's is not.
Turning to verse 1 — "Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer, at three in the afternoon" — Harry made the point that it is no coincidence things happen when God's people go to pray. He encouraged the group to build habits of prayer into their diaries just as they would appointments with doctors, dentists, or clients, warning that time set aside for prayer easily gets eroded by the busyness of life if it isn't planned for. Harry observed that Christians whom God has notably used for His glory have consistently been people committed to prayer and to the study of God's word, and illustrated this with Daniel 6:7–10, where Daniel, facing a decree that made prayer to anyone but the king a capital offence, still knelt at his open window three times a day to pray and give thanks "just as he had done before." The king reluctantly threw Daniel to the lions, but the Lord saved him.
Moving to verse 2, Harry noted how the text emphasises the seriousness of the man's condition — lame from birth, helpless, carried, and put at the gate every single day to beg — and invited the group to imagine themselves in his position. He then turned to the Jewish practice of almsgiving as an act of religious responsibility, rooted in a strong biblical emphasis on caring for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the foreigner. He read at length from Deuteronomy 24:10–22, which instructs against exploiting the poor over pledges and wages and commands leaving gleanings in the field, the olive grove, and the vineyard for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, along with further references in Isaiah 10:2, Isaiah 58:6–7, Jeremiah 7:6, and Malachi 3:5. Harry connected this to later examples in Acts and Paul's letters of believers who carried on this practice: Tabitha, who was "always doing good and helping the poor" (Acts 9:36); Cornelius, who "gave generously to those in need" (Acts 10:2); Paul, who brought gifts for the poor to Jerusalem (Acts 24:17); and the Jerusalem leaders' request to Paul and Barnabas that they "continue to remember the poor" (Galatians 2:9–10).
On verses 3–5, Harry pictured the beggar's daily preoccupation with simply getting enough money to survive, and shared a personal memory from his time as a Street Pastor in Manchester city centre, of a man in his mid-thirties, thrown out of his home by his wife and her new partner, whose whole aim each night was to raise the £15 he needed for a bed at a hostel. Against that backdrop, Harry pointed out that Peter deliberately sought the beggar's full attention, telling him "Look at us," and that the man responded, expecting a handout.
Harry lingered on verses 6–8, imagining the man's disappointment at Peter's opening words, "Silver and gold I do not have" — words he had probably heard countless times from people who hardened their hearts to his need. But Peter holds his attention with what comes next: "But what I do have I give you." Harry likened this to the excitement of a friend saying "I've got a little something for you" — the anticipation of not yet knowing what the gift is. Then comes the substance of the gift: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Harry noted how the name of Jesus dominates the whole passage that follows, tracing it through Acts 3:16 ("By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong"), into Peter's defence before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:7–22, where Peter declares "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12), and where the rulers, seeing the healed man standing before them, "could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened" (Acts 4:21).
Harry also pointed the group to Acts 19:11–20, where handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched Paul carried healing, and where the seven sons of Sceva tried to invoke "the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches" over a demon-possessed man, only to be overpowered and beaten by the man, running out naked and bleeding — after which many who had practised sorcery burned their scrolls publicly, valued at fifty thousand drachmas. Harry worked out roughly what that sum represented: a drachma being about a day's wage, and reckoning an average UK day's wage in 2026 at around £150 before tax, the burned scrolls were worth in the region of £7.5 million. He used this to illustrate how much weight a name carried in the ancient world, comparing it to getting into an important event today simply by mentioning who invited you — and how the name of Jesus carried, and carries, far more power still.
On verses 9–10, Harry drew attention to the sheer scale of the change in the man — from being carried to the temple to leaping, jumping, and praising God — and contrasted this with the ten lepers healed in Luke 17:11–19, of whom only one returned to thank Jesus, stressing how important it is to praise and thank the Lord for what He has done. He noted that Luke records the man walking, jumping, or praising the Lord seven times across Acts 3:6–8 and again in Acts 3:12, and drew a line from this outward walk to the inner walk of the Christian life described in Ephesians 4–5: walking in unity (4:1–16), in holiness (4:17–32), in love (5:1–6), and in the light (5:7–14) — suggesting that our inner walk with the Lord matters even more than an outward, visible change.
Harry finished with a short word study: the Greek word for "wonder," ekstasis, is used elsewhere of ecstatic visions — Peter's rooftop trance in Acts 10:10 and 11:5, and Paul's trance in Acts 22:17 in which the Lord warns him to leave Jerusalem. The word for "amazement," thambos, is used to describe the crowd's reaction to Jesus delivering a demon-possessed man in Luke 4:31–37, and the disciples' astonishment at the miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5:9.
Underneath the verse-by-verse detail, Harry was pressing the group toward a simple but searching point: real compassion gives people what they actually need, not just what they ask for, and that giving flows out of a life anchored in prayer and rooted in the name of Jesus rather than in personal ability or resource. Peter and John had no silver or gold, and Harry wanted the class to sit with that — because it meant the healing could not be credited to them, only to the name they carried. The measure of whether that power has truly touched a life, Harry suggested, is not a moment of excitement but a lasting, visible change — praise that continues, gratitude that doesn't fade like the nine lepers who never went back, and an inward walk with God that matters even more than the outward one everyone else can see.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you that we are gathered here in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit, open up our hearts and our minds that we might understand your words in the Scriptures and get to know you more, that we might live holy lives, and that we might share the Good News about Jesus in the power of your Spirit, for the building of your Church and the extending of your Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, in and through Jesus Christ, Amen.
