¹³Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. ¹⁴And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. ¹⁵But when they had ordered them to leave the Council, they began to confer with one another, ¹⁶saying, “What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.”

While the first miracle “in the church” was the healing of the lame man at the gate called “Beautiful” (Acts 3:1–10), an earlier miracle had occurred among the disciples before the first meetings of the church. (Although some debate when precisely the church began, we take the terminus ad quo to be the immediate result of the day of Pentecost, after which the believers began meeting as described in Acts 2:42. At any rate, the movement of Jesus’ followers beginning to fulfill the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20, Luke 24:46–49), began with a miracle of the highest order.

That miracle was the transformation of an anxious, fearful band of men, “uneducated and untrained” as they were, into confident, powerful challengers of the status quo in the face of the authority structure of the religious leaders (see Acts 4:5–6). Those rulers and leaders were “amazed” and clearly identified the apostles as “having been with Jesus.” They acted and taught just like their master; they even performed miracles just like Jesus did. The resemblance was unmistakable. While they had a whole night to consider the healing, they were now speechless, having been completely caught off guard by what they must have perceived as a frontal attack on their authority and their traditions.

They needed time to confer without the apostles present; the healing was undeniable, and they even called it a “noteworthy miracle.” There was no coverup, no spin that could hide the fact. God orchestrated the event to be as public as possible, and word had spread like wildfire. But it was the message that was more the concern for the religious rulers, for it confronted them with their rejection of Jesus Christ and laid judgment right at their feet.

Unbelief causes blindness; it especially cripples people of “religion,” those who go through the motion of belief but deny the power of God and His penetrating, convicting message of sin and judgment. Yet the miracle speaks of God’s desire to heal people from their blindness, their spiritual disability. To be sure, God is concerned about our physical wellbeing, but more so He is concerned about our spiritual wholeness.

Lord, help me see Your power to change lives with spiritually whole eyes.