10 March 2026
A lame man healed at the temple gate has now let go of his crutches and taken hold of Peter and John, and the astonished crowd comes running. But before they can make heroes of two ordinary fishermen, Peter has to stop them in their tracks and redirect their gaze to the true source of the miracle. What follows is one of the most densely theological speeches in Acts — an explanation of who Jesus really is, why the crowd is responsible for His death, and what they must now do about it.
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 set this passage in its place in the story: Acts 3:1–10 records the first of the fourteen miracles recorded in Acts, and that miracle immediately sets off a chain of events, beginning with Peter preaching to the crowd that gathers to explain what has just happened. Harry stressed that this is a pattern believers must be ready to repeat continually — when God does something people have never seen or understood, they need it explained to them, and Christians should always be ready to give that explanation. He pointed to Peter's own later instruction, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). As in Acts 2, Harry noted, a work of the Holy Spirit here leads directly to an explanation — and the answer is always Jesus, focused on His death, His resurrection, His ascension, the outpouring of the Spirit, and His second coming.
Turning to the text itself, Harry explained that Solomon's Colonnade, where the crowd gathers, was a well-known location for discussion and commerce (compare Acts 5:12, "all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade"). The healed man clinging to Peter and John made plain to everyone that it was they who had healed him, and the crowd's reaction — "astonished" in the NIV — is literally "utterly astounded," echoing the "wonder and amazement" already noted in verse 10. Harry observed that Peter once again has to clear up a misunderstanding as he opens his speech, just as he did at Pentecost when he had to explain that the disciples were not drunk (Acts 2:13, 15).
Peter's opening question — "why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?" (Acts 3:12) — struck Harry as Peter almost turning the surprise back on the crowd: if they had paid proper attention to what had already happened at Pentecost, they might have expected exactly this kind of thing. More importantly, the crowd's attention had shifted from the healed man to Peter and John themselves, and Peter has to correct this immediately, because it is vital that credit and glory go to the right person. Harry quoted John Stott's summary of the moment: "The power was Christ's; the hand was Peter's." He likened the apostles to drainpipes — mere channels simply passing on a blessing that was never theirs to claim.
Harry underlined how important it is that God's servants never seek glory for themselves or boast about what "they" have done, since it is all the Lord's doing. He pointed to an even more extreme version of the same temptation in Lystra, where Paul and Barnabas healed another lame man and the crowd tried to worship them as gods, tearing their clothes to stop it: "Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them" (Acts 14:14–18).
Peter then gives the crowd a detailed explanation of who deserves the praise, appealing directly to the God his fellow Israelites already worship: "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus" (Acts 3:13). Harry traced this title back to how God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush — "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (Exodus 3:6) — noting the same title reappears in Stephen's speech (Acts 7:32). By using it, Harry explained, Peter deliberately identifies with the crowd's own God and stresses that this is the same God now working through Jesus, doing even greater things than at the burning bush.
Harry drew out the sharp contrast Peter builds: God has glorified His servant Jesus, yet the people handed Him over to be killed and disowned Him before Pilate, even though Pilate had decided to release Him. The language of God "glorifying" His servant echoes Isaiah's Suffering Servant — "my servant… will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted" (Isaiah 52:13) — and, since God says elsewhere that He will not give His glory to another (Isaiah 42:8), Harry took this as pointing to the divinity of the Servant. He also noted that Peter's whole approach — addressing them as "Fellow Israelites," invoking "the God of our fathers," and speaking near the temple itself — shows the new movement in Jesus' name standing in full continuity with Israel, just as Jesus Himself taught: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them" (Matthew 5:17–18). Harry commented that it was hardness of heart, sin, unbelief, fear, doubt, pride, jealousy and stubbornness that had prevented the majority of Israel, especially its religious leaders, from making a smooth transition from living under the law to living by faith in God's Son.
Harry spent considerable time on Peter's next title for Jesus: "You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you" (Acts 3:14). He noted that even the demons in the Gospels recognised this identity — "I know who you are — the Holy One of God!" (Mark 1:21–28) — and that Peter himself had earlier confessed Jesus as the Holy One of God when many disciples deserted Him (John 6:69). John later wrote that believers "have an anointing from the Holy One" (1 John 2:20), the risen Lord addressed the church in Philadelphia as "Him who is holy and true" (Revelation 3:7), and even at His birth the angel called Him "the Holy One" (Luke 1:35).
Harry drew out the sheer blindness of the crowd's action: they killed the Holy and Righteous Son of God and asked instead for a murderer to be released. He explained that this "substitution" carries deep theological weight — Jesus was the substitute for humanity's sin, bearing the penalty of death and divine wrath in the place of sinners, a doctrine known as penal substitutionary atonement. He cited "He bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24) and "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21), alongside John the Baptist's words, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29, 36).
Peter's next phrase — "you killed the author of life" (Acts 3:15), which could equally be translated "Prince of life" or "Leader of life" — struck Harry as another deliberate contrast: Jesus is the one who makes life possible and who gave new life to the lame man, set against a murderer who takes life. He linked this to Acts 5:30–31, Hebrews 2:10, and Hebrews 12:1–2. And again the contrast lands: for all the evil done to Jesus, God raised Him from the dead, and Peter states plainly, "We are witnesses of this." Harry then noted verse 16 — that it was by faith in the name of Jesus, not by Peter or John's own doing, that the man was made strong and completely healed — as a preview of the following week's study, which would look specifically at the name of Jesus.
Moving to verses 17–21, Harry pointed out that the word Peter actually used was not "Fellow Israelites" but "Brothers" — not addressing them as brothers in Christ, but acknowledging their shared Jewish identity. He explained that the crowd acted in ignorance, yet what took place also fulfilled exactly what God had foretold through the prophets, that His Messiah would suffer — human responsibility and divine sovereignty running side by side. Harry stressed, though, that ignorance does not remove the need to repent, and Peter calls the crowd to do exactly that. He compared this to Paul's words in Athens: "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30–31) — noting that God commands, rather than politely asks, and that having overlooked ignorance in the past out of rich mercy, He now expects holy living: "As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy'" (1 Peter 1:14–16).
Harry unpacked the promise that follows: sins "wiped out" means erased or obliterated, the same word David used after his sin with Bathsheba — "Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity" (Psalm 51:9). He explained that "repent" in the Greek means a change of mind, and "turn" means a radical change of direction in one's life — both important features of Old Testament prophetic preaching. The "times of refreshing" that follow repentance, Harry said, point to the age of salvation and all its blessings, including the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Finally, Harry turned to verses 22–26, where Peter quotes Moses' promise of "a prophet like me" whom the people must listen to on pain of being cut off from their people (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, 19), and notes that every prophet from Samuel onward foretold these very days. Peter reminds the crowd that they are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with Abraham — "Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed" (Genesis 22:18; 26:4) — and that God raised up His servant and sent Him first to Israel to bless them by turning each of them from their wicked ways. Harry summarised the principle underlying the whole passage: the greater the deliverance promised, the greater the blessing, but also the greater the judgment for those who reject God's grace, mercy and love as shown in the death, resurrection and ascension of His Son. He closed the study with Hebrews 2:1–3: "We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?"
Underneath all the detail of this session sat one insistent point: when God does something remarkable, people need it explained, and that explanation must always end up pointing away from us and toward Jesus. Harry kept returning to the danger of the crowd's misdirected stare — fixing on Peter and John rather than on the One who actually did the healing — as a warning against ever taking credit that belongs to Christ alone. But he wasn't content to leave it there as a lesson about humility; he pushed it further, into the urgency of Peter's call to repent. Ignorance is real, and God is patient with it, but ignorance does not excuse anyone from turning to Him now. Harry wanted the class to leave not simply admiring the titles Peter gives Jesus — Holy and Righteous One, Author of Life — but recognising that so great a salvation, bought at that cost, cannot be safely ignored or postponed.
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.
