Acts 3:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Peter and John everywhere appear in great concord with one another. Peter gives John a sign at the supper. They go together to the tomb. Concerning John, Peter says to Christ, “But what about this man?” (Jn 21:21). The writer of this book omitted the other signs, but speaks of the one that produced great fear and struck everyone. Notice again that the apostles were not actually going in order to perform this miracle. So free were they from vainglory, and so did they imitate their Teacher. Why, then, were they going to the temple? Were they still living in a Jewish manner? No, but this action brought benefit. Again a miracle occurs, one that strengthens them and draws the others. It was a miracle such as they had not yet performed.

These two apostles everywhere appear to have great concord. Peter beckons to John (Jn 13:24). Both came together to the tomb (Jn 20:3). Concerning John, Peter says to Christ, “But what about this man?” (Jn 13:24). Incidentally, the writer of this book omits the other signs, but speaks of this sign because it affected everyone. Why were they going up into the sanctuary? Were they still living in a Jewish manner? That could not be. They acted in this way by accommodating themselves to the people and considering it useful. See how they remained continually at prayer and prayed together at the ninth hour. The writer of the book makes exact mention of both place and time in order to give an account of what he describes.

When the apostles enter the temple at the ninth hour, they first heal the lame man who had long remained in paralysis. Then, laboring without ceasing until evening, they feed thousands of people with the word of faith. For the teachers of the Church, who have come at the end of the world, preach both to Israel, long paralyzed, and afterward even to the Gentiles. These are the workers whom the master of the house brings into the vineyard at the ninth and eleventh hours (Mt 20:5-6).

After the sacred historian, in the first two chapters of his narrative, has told us how the opening of the Kingdom of God, or the Church of Christ on earth, was prepared, begun, and accomplished, he now recounts a remarkable and extraordinary event. This event had great significance for the success of the apostolic preaching, for aiding the inner condition of the first Christian community, and for its outward relations and position in Jerusalem. It was the miraculous healing by the Apostle Peter of a man lame from birth.

“Peter and John went up into the temple for prayer” (cf. Acts 2:46). Did the Christian Church of the first period have a temple? She did. The ancient Jerusalem temple served as her temple. Until it was destroyed, the Jerusalem Christians flowed into it as a place of the special presence of God, appointed by God Himself for public prayer (Mt 21:13). Later, when Christianity spread to other cities and villages, Christians began to arrange their own special places of sacred assembly, or churches (Acts 11:26). Thus the use and veneration of the temple were not interrupted in the Church, even when the Old Testament was being replaced by the New. The shadow was passing away, and the very image of the things was coming (Heb 10:1). But what can the Stundists say about why the apostles and all the believers, in this initial period of the existence of Christ’s Church, went to the Jerusalem temple (cf. Acts 22:17)?

After general observations about the first Christian community in Jerusalem, the writer of Acts turns again to the description of particular events in this community which had especially great significance for it. Such was the miraculous healing by the apostle Peter of the man lame from birth at the gates of the temple. Earlier (Acts 2:43), the writer of Acts noted that many wonders were performed through the apostles in Jerusalem. He now describes one of them, especially striking and especially important for the Church of Christ. “The writer of this book omitted the other signs, but speaks of the one that produced great fear and struck everyone” (Chrysostom; cf. Theophylact). The writer of Acts does not indicate when this miracle occurred.

Having depicted the general state of the whole first Church, and at the same time the special place of the apostles within her, the writer of Acts now turns to an account of individual circumstances in their activity. First of all, he tells of the miraculous healing by the apostles Peter and John of a lame beggar at the gates of the temple. At the ninth hour from sunrise they were going to the temple for prayer. It is known that the Jews had the custom of praying together three times: morning, evening, and noon (see Ps 54:18; cf. Dan 6:10). Later, the hours of these prayers were the third, sixth, and ninth, corresponding to our nine, twelve, and fifteen hours, when the evening sacrifice was also offered.

In the book of the Acts of the Apostles it is written: “Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.” What does this mean? The apostles had heard the Lord’s command concerning prayer in a private room. Why, then, were they not content with such prayer? Why did they go to pray in the sanctuary, that is, in the Jerusalem temple, which was still holy, though soon to yield its holiness to Christian temples? Why was this? Because, besides household and solitary prayer, public prayer is also necessary: ecclesial prayer in the sanctuary, in the temple that has received special divine consecration. This kind of prayer is also founded upon God’s commandment.