So as I said a moment ago before the prayer, we're going to be looking at the beginning of Saint Peter's ministry. This particular lecture will be like part one. I think that we're going to take two hours to do this. We could take many, many more hours.
This lecture, we're going to go from chapter three all the way through the end of chapter seven, and looking at the ordination of the deacons and then specifically the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. But before we begin, what I'd like to do is to kind of tee up this lecture and the next couple of lectures as well, to really point out the objective, which is to look at how the Holy Spirit is leading the church. Right? This is kind of the big picture, the lens through which we want to see the rest of the acts of the apostles.
Way back in chapter one, way back, whatever, two chapters ago. Back in chapter one, Jesus says I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit, who will be empowered, that Dunamis, that dynamite. You're going to be empowered. Last lecture was Pentecost.
Now, let's begin to see how the Holy Spirit leaves the church for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Right? Go out into all the world baptizing the name of the Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, etc. These verses that we've been looking at for so many lectures here.
So with that in mind, I want to clarify a particular key word here, and that is karigma. K-E-R-Y-G-M-A, karigma. It's a Greek word. It simply means preaching or proclamation.
It's a very important word in categal circles, in evangelizing. We want to proclaim or preach the core essential message of Christianity. What is that for the early church? And what you're going to see over and over again is the karigma.
The preaching to proclamation of the early church is always the Paschal Mystery, essentially. Right? Jesus suffered, died, was buried on the third day He rose again. He ascended into the right hand of the Father, and the apostles are witnesses to these things.
That's essentially it. The Kingdom of God has come. Jesus is the anointed one. He died and He rose from the dead.
And you're going to see this many, many times with the preaching of Peter, of Paul, the deacons, Stephen, Philip, multiple times. It essentially gets boiled down to that message. And I think that's really powerful as we share our faith with other people, or you get into debates or conversations, whatever it is, whatever the context, really that is the core of Christianity. Faith in Christ, who has conquered death, and sits at the right hand of the Father.
The Kingdom has come, we must repent of our sins in order to be included into His everlasting Kingdom. That's the core, okay? So we're going to see that many, many times. And also I'd like to point out, as you've seen already before in salvation history, we've come a long, long way here, with this our 37th lecture, and this is still just an introduction to salvation history.
The repetition of keywords is really important. We've seen that going all the way back to Genesis. So here in Acts of the Apostles, you're going to see the repetition of a lot of keywords. Power is one of them.
Dunamis, we introduced that before. Obviously the Holy Spirit, we can call Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. So you're going to see the Spirit acting within the Apostles to guide the Church, of course. Another key word or name, or she's a key word, is name, excuse me.
A key word you're going to see, reference over and over again is the word name, the name of Jesus. Now everything that Peter and the Apostles do is in the name of Jesus, for the name of Jesus. They're empowered in the name of Jesus, etc. So you're going to see that word being repeated a ton.
Also boldness, that the Holy Spirit gives them power and enables them to be bold and proclaim the Gospel. So there's the corigma. Proclaim the Gospel with great boldness. They pray for more boldness.
And then finally witness. I think that's a good five words there that you can focus on in this little introduction to Acts of the Apostles and see how these words always come up when the Apostles and the deacons in St. Paul are proclaiming the Gospel. Okay, so there's my quick little few-minute introduction here.
Let's look at chapter three with the first miracle of Peter. Where chapter three verse one through ten is when this miracle happens. And the main point here, this is his first miracle is recorded and after the Apostles. And again, the main point is the healing ministry of Jesus continues in the Apostles.
It continues through the Church of in hammering that point home the last couple of lectures here. The Kingdom of God has come and it is perpetuated through the ministry of the Apostles. So just as Jesus went about preaching and teaching and healing, he gives this authority to Peter and all the Apostles. And I've got a couple references here in your notes so you can see that even in the Gospels and specifically Matthew here how this happens.
And obviously in John 1412 we saw this before but it's a great opportunity to review it. Jesus says, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these will he do because I go to the Father. So I like this verse because it kind of again keeps everything together for us. When we believe in Christ, when we're united to Christ, specifically the Apostles in this context, they will do greater works than Christ did, even more works than Christ did, because he goes to the Father and has sent the Spirit upon them.
Okay, so the Apostles are going to perpetuate the mission of Christ. That is really a crucial golden thread to keep in mind throughout this whole section, the whole rest of the New Testament. And even in our age, here we are in the 21st century, same thing. We are perpetuating the mission of Jesus.
So, all right, so the first miracle of Peter, chapter three verses three and following, essentially what happens, I'm going to have to summarize a lot of these stories here for you because even though we're only covering a handful of chapters, there's still so much to talk about. But essentially what's going on in chapter three here is there is a man who has been born lame, he's been born paralyzed. We know a detail later on, he was 40 years old, which is an interesting symbolic detail, 40 you know by now, meaning a period of tribulation and trial temptation. So this, you can imagine the trial and the suffering of this man being born lame for his whole life.
Now in his 40th year, it's all going to change. All right, his period of trial and temptation has ended as he is going to be welcomed into the church. Well, he's always begging in the temple here and Peter sees him and verse four and says, look at us, he fixes attention upon him expecting to receive something from him. If Peter has this classic line, I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have in the name of Jesus.
Again, there's the beginning of the repetition of these words now. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk and he took him by the right hand and raised him up and immediately his feet and his ankles were made strong and leaping up as a keyword there, leaping up, he stood and walking into the temple with him, walking and leaping and praising God. This is really, really beautiful scene. Now this man is because of his handicap because of this infirmity, he's not able to enter into the temple to worship God.
And the old lie about some references here in your notes, Leviticus and Deuteronomy prohibit individuals with blemishes or hemorrhages or handicaps, paralyzed all these different requirements. And we talked about this long ago, why that was the case is because it teaches the people pedagogically that God is life, right? He is holiness. And so he's not able to enter into the temple.
Now his healing physically allows him to approach God into the temple to approach the temple and to join the rest of his people in the worship of Yahweh. And all of that physically symbolizes the spiritual healing that he is now going to be able to approach God and to love God and to worship God. And this is the same thing that we saw with the healing of the paralyzed man in Matthew 9 when we were talking about this in the of the life of Christ and the public ministry of Christ, the same thing. Again, because Peter heals a crippled man and all the symbolism that is implied is again, a continuation of what Jesus did when he heals a paralyzed man in the gospels.
So this man, this paralyzed man who has been healed is a beautiful symbol at the macro level, right? The larger picture here. It's a symbol of Israel's restoration and healing because Israel as a nation is paralyzed, paralyzed by sin. And so as Jesus comes along and heals a paralyzed man symbolizing the beginning of the restoration of the nation of Israel, allowing Israel to rise and to walk and to leap into dance and for enjoying glory and glorifying the Lord.
Now this happens with Peter's healing of the paralyzed man. Through the ministry of the church, Christ is going to bring Israel back on her feet and not just Israel, but of course, all nations. And there's a great reference in Isaiah 35, 6 that points to this. The whole larger context is about the arrival of the Messianic Age.
In fact, Matthew quotes this passage to the disciples of Saint John the Baptist when they come and ask him, are you who we should be expecting? You might remember the story. But let me just read this, verse 6, just one verse for a sake of time. It says, then shall the lame man leap like a deer in the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
And it goes on to talk about the effects really of the Messianic Age. The lame shall leap like a joy. And here you have how Luke, talking about how this man is leaping twice. He uses that very word, showing that the fulfillment of Isaiah 35 is here.
All right. So it's a beautiful story. His first miracle, very symbolic, I think, for Peter and the continuation of Christ's ministry in the church.