Acts 9:32 - Meaning and Application

Here we see Peter visiting the churches that had been planted by the scattered preachers (Acts 9:32). As an apostle, he was not meant to stay as the permanent pastor of one church. Instead, he moved from place to place to strengthen the teaching of the lesser-known preachers, give the Holy Spirit to believers, and appoint ministers.

He went among them all, through the churches in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria mentioned in the previous chapter. Like his Master, Jesus, he was always on the move and went about doing good. Yet Jerusalem was still his main base, and later we find him imprisoned there (Acts 12:2). He came to the saints in Lydda, which seems to be the same as Lod, a town in the tribe of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33).

Christians are called saints, not only special outstanding believers such as Peter and Paul, but every true follower of Christ. These are the saints on the earth (Psalm 16:3).

Then Peter healed Aeneas, a man who had been bedridden for eight years (Acts 9:33). His condition was miserable. He had palsy, likely a speechless or even paralyzing kind of palsy. The sickness was severe, because he stayed in bed, and it was long-lasting, because he had been there eight years. Likely both he and those around him had given up hope, and expected no relief until death.

Christ often chose patients like this, people whose disease could not be cured in the normal way, to show how helpless fallen humanity was when he came to heal us. When we were without strength, like this poor man, he sent his word to heal us.

Peter’s cure was remarkable (Acts 9:34). He brought Christ into the case and asked him for help: “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you.” Peter did not claim to heal him by his own power. He made it clear that this was Christ’s work, pointed him to Christ for help, and spoke of a present and complete healing, not just a possible one, and not just a partial one.

Peter also told him to get up and act for himself: “Arise and make your bed.” This showed that he was fully cured. No one should think that because Christ works in us by his grace, we have no work or duty to do. Christ gives the power, but we must rise and use it. His bed would no longer be a bed of sickness, but a bed of rest.

The power of Christ went with the word, and Aeneas rose at once. No doubt he gladly made his own bed.

This miracle had a good effect on many people (Acts 9:35). All who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. We should not think every single person in those regions saw the miracle or was moved by it. But many did, likely most of the people in the town of Lydda and in the country of Sharon, that fruitful plain or valley that Scripture had described as a place for flocks (Isaiah 65:10).

They first investigated the miracle and did not brush it aside. They saw the man who had been healed, and they saw that this was a true miracle done by Christ’s power, in his name, and meant to confirm the doctrine now being preached. Then they gave in to the clear evidence that the Christian faith came from God, and they turned to the Lord Jesus.

They turned from Judaism to Christianity. They accepted Christ’s teaching, submitted to his commands, and gave themselves over to him to be ruled, taught, and saved by him.