November 16, Day 320

Today's Reading

The Acts of the Apostles, we have traditionally called it. I'm not sure that was the way Luke originally titled it. It is certainly the history of the early apostolic age, but the "acts" were more clearly the acts of the Holy Spirit among God's people. It was the days of the early church and we still have much to learn from them two millennia later.

In Acts 3, I suddenly had a picture of what it must have been like for Peter, the crusty fisherman, to be addressing a crowd of city dwellers (no doubt far more educated than he): "People of Israel," he said, "what is so surprising about this? And why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness? (Acts 3:12 NLT) I think that Peter didn't even look religious! How could such a display of power come through him? It is time for us to quit thinking that clergy are the only channels of God's power -- in fact I expect the opposite these days. God is using ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And God gets the credit!