Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are just getting into the glorious message about Jesus that this book of Acts proclaims. There are 14 miracles recorded in the book of Acts, at least according to the count of one commentator I read. (I don't know how he defined "miracle"). This is the first of those miracles. And it is crucially important; obviously, that's why Luke puts it right at the beginning of the story. Once the Spirit came, once the church had a foothold in Jerusalem, the next issue the narrative deals with is the relationship between the Temple and the church. We will see that the temple and its leadership are a primary issue all the way through ch. 7, where Stephen denounces the temple. Luke's point is simply that the temple is obsolete. It is no longer how God dwells in the midst of His people. The old order is changing into something new. That is the point of this, the first miracle recorded in Acts. What we'll see is that this story is not primarily about healing a lame man, as cool as that is. The story is instead about leaping over temple boundaries into the presence of God, through faith in the name of Jesus.
