Acts 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Peter and John heal a man who had been unable to walk since birth, at the temple gate called Beautiful, and the man goes into the temple walking and leaping and praising God. A crowd runs to them in Solomon's Porch, and Peter tells the people that the healing came through the name of Jesus and not through any power of his own. He says they handed Jesus over and rejected him before Pilate, that God raised him from the dead, and that the prophets had said the Christ would suffer. He calls them to turn back so their sins may be wiped out, quotes Moses about a prophet to come, and says God sent his servant Jesus to them first to bless them by turning each of them from their evil ways.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • Peter and John went up into the temple.
   • They went up together.
   • It was the hour of prayer.
   • The hour of prayer was the ninth hour.
2. 3:2
   • A certain man was lame from his mother's womb.
   • The man was being carried.
   • People laid him daily at the gate of the temple called Beautiful.
   • He was laid there to ask alms from those entering the temple.
3. 3:3
   • The man saw Peter and John about to go into the temple.
   • He asked to receive alms.
4. 3:4
   • Peter fixed his eyes on the man.
   • John was with Peter.
   • Peter said to him, Look on us.
5. 3:5
   • The man gave them his attention.
   • He expected to receive something from them.
6. 3:6
   • Peter said he had no silver and gold.
   • Peter said he gives the man what he does have.
   • Peter commanded him, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to rise up and walk.
7. 3:7
   • Peter took the man by the right hand.
   • Peter lifted him up.
   • Immediately the man's feet and ankles were made strong.
8. 3:8
   • The man leaped up.
   • He stood.
   • He walked.
   • He entered the temple with Peter and John.
   • He was walking and leaping.
   • He was praising God.
9. 3:9
   • All the people saw him walking and praising God.
10. 3:10
    • They recognized him as the man who sat asking alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple.
    • They were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
11. 3:11
    • The lame man who had been healed held on to Peter and John.
    • All the people ran together to them.
    • This happened in the porch called Solomon's.
    • The people were greatly astonished.
12. 3:12
    • Peter saw this.
    • Peter answered the people.
    • Peter addressed them as men of Israel.
    • Peter asked why they marveled at this.
    • Peter asked why they stared at him and John.
    • Peter asked whether they thought he and John had made the man walk by their own power or godliness.
13. 3:13
    • The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob is the God of our fathers.
    • That God has glorified Jesus, who is called his child or servant.
    • The hearers delivered Jesus up.
    • The hearers denied Jesus in the presence of Pilate.
    • Pilate had determined to release Jesus.
14. 3:14
    • The hearers denied the Holy One and the Just.
    • The hearers asked that a murderer be granted to them.
15. 3:15
    • The hearers killed the Prince of life.
    • God raised him from the dead.
    • Peter and John are witnesses of this.
16. 3:16
    • Jesus' name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong.
    • The hearers see and know this man.
    • The faith which is through Jesus has given the man this complete soundness.
    • This happened in the presence of them all.
17. 3:17
    • Peter called them brethren.
    • Peter said he knew they acted in ignorance.
    • Peter said their rulers also acted in ignorance.
18. 3:18
    • God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that his Christ should suffer.
    • God has fulfilled it in this way.
19. 3:19
    • Peter told them to repent.
    • Peter told them to turn back.
    • Repenting and turning is so that their sins may be blotted out.
    • Times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
20. 3:20
    • The Lord shall send Jesus Christ.
    • Jesus Christ was proclaimed to them beforehand.
21. 3:21
    • Heaven must receive Jesus.
    • Heaven must receive him until the times of restoration of all things.
    • God has spoken of those times by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
22. 3:22
    • Moses said this to the fathers.
    • Moses said the Lord God will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren.
    • That prophet will be like Moses.
    • Moses said they must hear that prophet in everything he says to them.
23. 3:23
    • Every soul that will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people.
24. 3:24
    • All the prophets from Samuel onward, and those who followed, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days.
25. 3:25
    • The hearers are the children of the prophets.
    • The hearers are the children of the covenant God made with our fathers.
    • God said to Abraham that in his seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
26. 3:26
    • God raised up his servant Jesus.
    • God sent him to the hearers first.
    • God sent him to bless them.
    • The blessing consists in turning each of them away from his iniquities.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

The ninth hour counted from about six in the morning, so roughly three in the afternoon. It was one of the set times of daily prayer at the temple, tied to the afternoon sacrifice. "Went up" is literal as well as customary: the temple stood on the high ground of Jerusalem, so people always spoke of going up to it.

3:2

The temple was not one building but a walled complex of open courts with gates in the outer wall, and the crowds passing through those gates were the best place in the city to beg. Giving to the poor was a religious duty, which is why beggars stationed themselves at the entrances. The King James word for such gifts is "alms." Which gate was called Beautiful is not certain; no other ancient source uses the name.

3:6

A person's name stood for that person's authority. To command something "in the name of Jesus Christ" was to act as his agent, on his authority, not simply to mention him. Calling him "of Nazareth" identifies him the ordinary way, by his home village in Galilee.

3:11

Solomon's Porch was a long roofed colonnade running along the eastern side of the temple's outer court. It carried Solomon's name by tradition, though the structure people stood in dated from a much later rebuilding. Being sheltered and public, it was a normal place for teachers to gather a crowd.

3:12

Peter is speaking to a Jewish crowd inside the temple, which is why he addresses them as "men of Israel." In the King James, "answered" often just means "responded" or "spoke up," even when nobody has asked a question.

3:13

The King James "his Son" and the rendering's "his servant" translate one Greek word, pais, which covers both child and servant. Here it echoes the figure called the Lord's servant in Isaiah, so most translators take it as servant. Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea, the only man in the province with authority to order an execution.

3:14

"A murderer" is Barabbas, the prisoner released instead of Jesus at the festival. The King James "granted unto you" means handed over to you as a favor.

3:15

The Greek word behind "Prince of life" is archegos, which can mean leader, founder, or the one who originates something. The rendering takes the last sense. The point of the phrase is the sharp contrast: they killed the one from whom life comes.

3:16

The Greek of this verse is knotted and repeats itself, and it is genuinely unclear whose faith is meant, the healed man's or the faith that Jesus himself makes possible. The rendering keeps the doubling rather than smoothing it out.

3:17

"I wot" is old English for "I know." It has nothing to do with doubting.

3:18

"Christ" is not a surname but a title, the Greek for "anointed one," the same word Hebrew renders as Messiah. Anointing with oil was how kings and priests were installed, so the title means the figure God appoints and commissions.

3:19

"Be converted" in 1611 English simply meant turn around or turn back; it did not carry the modern sense of changing religions. "Blotted out" pictures writing sponged off a document, the way a record of debt was erased. The Greek connective is ambiguous: it can mean "so that times of refreshing may come" as a result, or "when they come" as a time marker. The rendering follows the King James in taking it as a time marker.

3:20

The King James "which before was preached unto you" follows a Greek manuscript reading meaning "proclaimed beforehand." The better attested reading is a similar word meaning "appointed beforehand," which is what most modern translations give.

3:21

"Restitution" here does not mean paying something back. The Greek word means restoring things to their proper condition, putting the world right again. "Since the world began" translates a phrase meaning "from of old" or "long ago"; it is a way of saying ancient, not a claim about the moment of creation.

3:22

Peter is quoting Moses in Deuteronomy 18, where God promises a prophet like Moses from among the people themselves. "Raise up" there means bring forward or appoint, not raise from the dead.

3:23

"Every soul" is a Hebrew way of saying every person, not a statement about a soul as distinct from a body. "Cut off from among the people" is a standing formula in Israel's law for being removed from the community.

3:24

Samuel was counted as the first of the line of prophets after Moses, so "from Samuel on" is a way of saying the whole prophetic tradition.

3:25

"Children of the prophets" means heirs to them, the people the promises were made for. A covenant was a binding agreement with obligations on both sides, the kind of formal pact nations and kings made; this one is the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis. "Thy seed" is a collective singular meaning descendants, and the King James "kindreds" means families or clans of people.

3:26

"Raised up" here picks up the wording of the promise quoted in verse 22, meaning brought onto the scene and commissioned. It can also be heard as raised from the dead, and the Greek allows both. "Iniquities" means wrongdoing, acts that are crooked or twisted.