WEEKLY
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An
international Sunday school lesson commentary
For
Sunday February 18, 2018
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FAITHFUL
DISCIPLES
(GOD
takes care of HIS faithful disciples)
(Acts
9:32-43)
Acts chapter 9 closes with Luke’s
account of when the Apostle Peter traveled to the town of Lydda, one of his
many stops on his itinerant missions around Judea. Today this city is called
Lod, and it is located just south of Israel’s international airport. It was there
that Peter encounters a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed, and had been
bedridden for eight years. Peter’s miraculous healing of this man, in the name
of CHRIST JESUS, caused many Jews in Lydda, and, in the nearby plains of
Sharon, to convert to the Christian faith, and accept CHRIST as their LORD and
SAVIOR.
While Peter was in
Lydda, an endeared Christian woman by the name of Tabitha (“Dorcas” in the
Greek ), who lived in the nearby city of Joppa, became ill and died. Dorcas was
widely known for her ministry in working with the poor. After hearing of
Peter’s miraculous healing of Aeneas in Lydda, two men were sent there to try
and persuade Peter to take the eleven-mile trip to Joppa, and perhaps perform
another miracle by restoring the beloved Dorcas back to life. They had faith
that, through Peter, GOD, could and would, raise this beloved woman from the
dead, just as CHRIST had done a few years earlier with HIS resurrection of
Lazarus.
Upon his arrival in
Joppa, Peter was taken to an upper room where Dorcas’ body laid in state
awaiting burial. The room was filled with weeping widows whose lives had been
touched by Dorcas’ charity, caring, and compassion over the years. After
entering the room, in the tradition of Elisha the prophet (2 Kings 4:33), and
our LORD JESUS CHRIST (Luke 8:51), Peter sent everyone out of the room.
He then knelt down
and began to pray before turning to the deceased and commanding her to get up.
Dorcas opened her eyes and Peter took her by the hand and helped her up, and
then, called the others back into the room to see that she was indeed alive.
Because of these
miraculous events, news spread throughout the land of the goodness of GOD, and
how HE can work in the lives of those who believe on CHRIST JESUS. It was
events like these that Luke tells us, catapulted Christianity from being a tiny
little-known Jewish sect, in those days, into a major religious movement by the
end of the first century. And it all began with the real-life examples of
charitable, caring people like Peter, Dorcas, and originally, CHRIST JESUS,
HIMSELF.
When we show others
that we care for them, we are exercising the same form of evangelism that was
used to springboard and spur the growth of the Christian Church into prominence
in the first century. And it is that same formidable mechanism of love and
care, that we can help us to regain that kind of momentum in today’s Christian
Church.
Miracles have never been solely for those
believers who benefited from them personally, and in fact, they are most often
used by GOD to help non-believers make the decision to come to CHRIST. By
showing others that we care for them, we are really showing our love for JESUS,
and in fact, we don’t really even prove our love for JESUS unless we are willing
to take on HIS task, and, take up our own cross.
In other words, we
must begin to pull our own weight as responsible Christians in the “spiritual
battle” that is already upon us. And perhaps the biggest part of performing
that task lies in us learning to love and care for one another in the
traditions and examples of “agape love” that has already been exhibited to us
by CHRIST JESUS, and the CHRIST-like people of Scripture who preceded us in
time.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
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