Acts 3:1-10 | Worship in the Good, in the Bad, and With Hopeনমুনা

NT Wright provides a great insight. Peter’s response to the beggar is all the more interesting when you consider that in the end of Acts 2, we see the believers selling property and possession to help those in need. Here, they go beyond it. Money was no longer the most important thing for them. There was a new power and new kind of life they discovered in Jesus’s name.

Something else. Unlike Jesus, Peter and John don’t just say, “Get up and walk.” They say, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” They knew where the power resided. And they were unashamed. They expected the power of Jesus’s name to continue to bring the power of his kingdom to a world suffering and in need.

It might seem odd to think of a name carrying power, like it’s magic or something. It didn’t seem odd to Peter and John, nor would it to people in their day. Nor should it to us today. We still get a glimpse of it today when an important person with full rights and access tells us, “Just mention my name and they’ll let you in.”

Jesus’s name carries power, and the mention of him even makes demons shudder, despite the fact that people might miss the significance of who he truly is.

Jesus’s name carries power. As NT Wright says: “Mention his name, and new things will happen. This is as true now as ever it was. In this story, it turned a disabled man who sat outside the Temple into a worshipper who went all the way in. There’s something to ponder.”