This truly is one of my favorite chapters in the entire Bible - this and the next.

This guy that can’t walk is laying around outside the temple, a lame man, and Peter & John walk by and tell him that they don’t have any money or possessions to give him, but that they did have something.  I am sure this guy was thinking, “Yeah, advice...thanks.”!  But, they healed him.  Then this guy is seen running around inside and outside the temple by everyone, and recognized as the guy that was laying outside and lame.  Everyone is astonished.  And with this opportunity, Peter stands up and does an impromptu sermon to explain and connect the dots between Jesus, whom most of these people would know about, and himself, along with John, and this man.  Peter leverages the moment to point the Jesus.

Now, tomorrow will be the real meat of this story...and I am resisting the urge to move on to that now.  But, there is plenty here; patience! Haha (that’s me talking to myself).

2 things come to mind today.

First off - Notice how Peter has figured it out, he has connected the dots, and he has evolved into much more spiritually rich person; in a moment when it would be really easy to let the light shine on himself for doing something miraculous, he points that light right back at God.  He doesn’t appear to hesitate in doing so.  When I think about myself, I think I would have to admit that I might fall into the trap of taking some of the glory myself.  That’s my track record at least.  I am quick to absorb benefit and credit for the good things, and quick to shirk the blame on bad things.  When I get the spotlight, can I say that I really give God the glory that he is due?  I can’t say that.  That’s an area where I can grow and develop.

Just last night, I was watching a documentary on National Geographic by this guy who was using scientific tools to try to understand more deeply the story of Moses parting the Red Sea.  It was fascinating, and there are some twists in the story that really were very interesting; and it really got me interested in Biblical archeology, as there is so much learning and discovery taking place right now that really corroborates what we see in the Bible.  But, at the end of the show, being a secular show, the host reveals that he has found a couple of reasonable explanations for this story, and none of them include a miracle performed by God.  And that tends to be what science does...it always looks for an explanation that excludes God.  I understand the approach of trying to explain things and searching for a natural explanation, but when science comes up short, it dubs the event “unexplainable” rather than accepting that perhaps it explained in one word: “God”.  It appears that the people, even the religious people in the next chapter, who have seen this man are looking for an explanation as to how he is running around all of the sudden, after being lame minutes before.  Peter and John are thinking, “Ah, it was God...the same God who raised a dude from the dead...so a lame man walking isn’t that miraculous!”.

Perhaps the BEST explanation for all of the amazing things we see from scripture, a collection of 66 books from over 40 writers over a period of about 1500 years is not completely explainable and understandable...perhaps the best idea that we have is just that one word explanation: God.  Maybe it is all true.