Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0845 – November 9, 2008 – Acts 9:32-43 – The Ministry Of Peter Expands

Acts 9:32-43 Ἐγένετο δὲ Πέτρον διερχόμενον διὰ πάντων κατελθεῖν καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἁγίους τοὺς κατοικοῦντας Λύδδα. 33εὗρεν δὲ ἐκεῖ ἄνθρωπόν τινα ὀνόματι Αἰνέαν ἐξ ἐτῶν ὀκτὼ κατακείμενον ἐπὶ κραβάττου, ὃς ἦν παραλελυμένος. 34καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Πέτρος· Αἰνέα, ἰᾶταί σε Ἰησοῦς Χριστός· ἀνάστηθι καὶ στρῶσον σεαυτῷ. καὶ εὐθέως ἀνέστη. 35καὶ εἶδαν αὐτὸν πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες Λύδδα καὶ τὸν Σαρῶνα, οἵτινες ἐπέστρεψαν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον. 36Ἐν Ἰόππῃ δέ τις ἦν μαθήτρια ὀνόματι Ταβιθά, ἣ διερμηνευομένη λέγεται Δορκάς· αὕτη ἦν πλήρης ἔργων ἀγαθῶν καὶ ἐλεημοσυνῶν ὧν ἐποίει. 37ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ἀσθενήσασαν αὐτὴν ἀποθανεῖν· λούσαντες δὲ ἔθηκαν [αὐτὴν] ἐν ὑπερῴῳ. 38ἐγγὺς δὲ οὔσης Λύδδας τῇ Ἰόππῃ οἱ μαθηταὶ ἀκούσαντες ὅτι Πέτρος ἐστὶν ἐν αὐτῇ ἀπέστειλαν δύο ἄνδρας πρὸς αὐτὸν παρακαλοῦντες· μὴ ὀκνήσῃς διελθεῖν ἕως ἡμῶν. 39ἀναστὰς δὲ Πέτρος συνῆλθεν αὐτοῖς· ὃν παραγενόμενον ἀνήγαγον εἰς τὸ ὑπερῷον καὶ παρέστησαν αὐτῷ πᾶσαι αἱ χῆραι κλαίουσαι καὶ ἐπιδεικνύμεναι χιτῶνας καὶ ἱμάτια ὅσα ἐποίει μετʼ αὐτῶν οὖσα ἡ Δορκάς. 40ἐκβαλὼν δὲ ἔξω πάντας ὁ Πέτρος καὶ θεὶς τὰ γόνατα προσηύξατο καὶ ἐπιστρέψας πρὸς τὸ σῶμα εἶπεν· Ταβιθά, ἀνάστηθι. ἡ δὲ ἤνοιξεν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτῆς, καὶ ἰδοῦσα τὸν Πέτρον ἀνεκάθισεν. 41δοὺς δὲ αὐτῇ χεῖρα ἀνέστησεν αὐτήν· φωνήσας δὲ τοὺς ἁγίους καὶ τὰς χήρας παρέστησεν αὐτὴν ζῶσαν. 42γνωστὸν δὲ ἐγένετο καθʼ ὅλης τῆς Ἰόππης καὶ ἐπίστευσαν πολλοὶ ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον. 43Ἐγένετο δὲ ἡμέρας ἱκανὰς μεῖναι ἐν Ἰόππῃ παρά τινι Σίμωνι βυρσεῖ. (NA27)

Acts 9:32-43 Now as Peter was traveling through all those regions, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. 33There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed. 34Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; get up and make your bed.” Immediately he got up. 35And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. 36Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which translated in Greek is called Dorcas); this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did. 37And it happened at that time that she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her body, they laid it in an upper room. 38Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, imploring him, “Do not delay in coming to us.” 39So Peter arose and went with them. When he arrived, they brought him into the upper room; and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them. 40But Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. 41And he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 42It became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43And Peter stayed many days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon.

Alright, we want to start with Acts 1:8. Acts 1:8 gives the tri-fold structure of the Book of Acts and you never want to forget this. Too many people hone in on the miracles in the Book of Acts, the tongues and personal experiences of the early believers, but that’s secondary to the primary aim of the book. Verse 8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” So the emphasis is on the witness, and this is not their personal witness, I’m sure the apostles had many lovely moments with the Lord Jesus Christ, but that’s not the content of the witness, nor is it the content when we witness, what Jesus did for you may be nice but the witness is about what Jesus did on the cross and His resurrection, what Jesus did in space and time. The witness is to the objective person and work of Jesus Christ, and so you find throughout Acts the consistent testimony of the apostles to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in space and time. Without that there is no valid subjective experience. Everything hinges on the objective facts divinely predicted and interpreted. So we’re emphasizing the content of the witness contrary to postmodern church. So 1:8 gives us the three stages of the witness; Acts 2-7 the witness is in Jerusalem, then in Acts 8-9 the witness spirals out to Judea and Samaria, and finally in Acts 10-28 the witness is to the remotest parts of the earth. So we’re finishing up stage two this week and we want to always remember the structure of this transitional book. 

We said there were seven transitions. Today the geographic transitions are highly significant as the witness of Peter moves about in Judea, the Galilee and Samaria, but in particular three cities were recognized by Luke as having strategic significance in the plan of God for the Church. Starting with 9:32 we have Lydda, Joppa and Caesarea, not Caesarea Philippi but Caesarea Maritama, Caesarea by the Sea. These three places are eminently strategic places and if you are familiar with these places or you study them and think about their significance you realize that Luke is acutely in tune with the movement of the early church in history and Who was behind that movement, the Holy Spirit. Sometimes many of us have wondered in our own lives, “The Scriptures talk about the providence of God, but what does the providence of God look like in history?” Well it looks like the Book of Acts. Nothing here is mentioned by accident, no place or person is chosen by accident, it’s all being set up by Someone working behind the scenes. Somehow, unbeknownst to human beings, because we can’t predict it, we’re finite, but He sets everything up and we just walk into it. We didn’t plan it, we never could have planned it, but His providential control of history works in ways we know not how; it appears on the surface to just happen but looking back it’s more than mere chance or happenstance, it’s divinely designed. History has a plan and a purpose. If you are in tune with the people and places in the Book of Acts you see very clearly that all of them were chosen for some particular reason in the plan of God and that God is the sovereign of history. The apostles and others are like water in His hand to turn them the way He wants them to go. We’re not denying personal responsibility; it’s just that He sets it all up. So today we see once again this principle of divine guidance and that Acts is par excellence the Acts of the Holy Spirit and not the acts of Peter and Paul. 

Last time we finished with Saul, his conversion up in Damascus, Syria, his healing from blindness, his three-year sabbatical in the desert of Arabia where he learned advanced doctrine personally from the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he returned to Damascus where he immediately went into the synagogues with this “Son of God” doctrine and this got everyone stirred up in the synagogue to the point they wanted to kill him so he had to escape at night out of a window in a basket. Then he went down to Jerusalem for a short time, where he went right back into the Hellenistic synagogue Stephen had disputed with, and he got the same results as Stephen, they wanted to kill him. This time he escaped via a ship out of Caesarea where he went to his hometown to share the good news with his father. And we gather that that confrontation didn’t go so well. So with Saul gone Luke turns back to Peter. Peter’s about to go up to Caesarea to the Gentile Centurion’s house and everyone is familiar with this chapter of the Bible, Acts 10 is well-known by believers, what is relatively unknown is the end of Acts 9 where the Holy Spirit providentially sets up Acts 10. So let’s see how He sets it up.

Verse 32. Now as Peter was traveling through all those regions, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. 33There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed. 34Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; get up and make your bed.” Immediately he got up. 35And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. Now in verse 32 Peter’s travels end up at Lydda. We know from v 31 he’d been traveling through the regions of Judea, Galilee and Samaria. Where was Peter tied to in chapters 2-7? Jerusalem. Where is he now? Outside of Jerusalem. So obviously he’s realizing the greater implications of the death of Christ. Now he’s stepping out of his narrow provincialism into pagan territories. This is a man on an emancipation journey. This is a man whose worldview is shifting and in the next few weeks we’ll see this was not easy for him to accept. His foundations had been the OT Mosaic Law, all his life he followed the law and yet all that has to change if he’s going to stay in step with the plan of God for history. He’s taken the first step in chapter 8 going up to Samaria, now he’s traveling all these regions and he came down to the saints who lived at Lydda. Let’s get our bearings. Peter has been ministering in Judea, that’s here around Jerusalem, up in Galilee, this was where he was from, he fished on the Sea of Galilee, this was also the region of most of Jesus’ ministry, Samaria was smack dab in between, these were the half-breeds, they were half-breeds both spiritually and physically, but that wall had come down for Peter in chapter 8 so he’s open to Samaritan salvation. Now he’s worked his way down to Lydda. Lydda is situated here in Judea. Today, every person who flies to Israel has been to the site of ancient Lydda, you can’t miss it if you fly in; though probably less than 1 in 1,000 tourists know it, because ancient Lydda is sitting right smack dab under the Tel Aviv Airport (David Ben Gurion). That’s where Aeneas was healed. Before the modern invention of aviation there was a road that led from Joppa on the Mediterranean coast to Jerusalem further inland. And Lydda sat right on that road. This east-west road was the most important road for import-export in Israel because Joppa was the only natural port all along the coast of Israel. When King Solomon wanted to build the Temple he only used the finest materials and the finest trees came from up here in Lebanon, they called them the ‘cedars of Lebanon.’ Well, these trees were shipped down the coast to Joppa where they unloaded them and took them by land down this very road to Jerusalem. About 10 miles inland they would have passed through Lydda which was then known as Lod. And after another 25 miles they got to Jerusalem. So this was a very important road. It played significantly in the War of Independence in 1948. It’s still there today and you can still see buses all shot to hell along that road because the Israeli’s were desperately trying to get supplies to some Jews who were cut off in Jerusalem. Lydda sat on that road. But it also sat on a road running north and south which was the major international highway, the Via Maris, Latin for “Way of the Sea.” All international trade from Africa to Europe and Asia flowed through Israel on the Via Maris. This is the same road if you turn back to Acts 8:40, this is the same road Philip traveled after the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. He headed north along this road and settled at Caesarea, so we gather he passed through Lydda and perhaps had done some itinerant evangelism here. We know from verse 32 there were already some saints there. And in the Book of Acts, Luke uses the term saint to refer to a believer, someone who has responded positively to the gospel message. So we infer that the gospel had gotten here by way of Philip traveling this road. And this is where Peter has come to but the main point we want to center in on is the strategic importance of Lydda. Where does it sit? At a major crossroads of the world. And if you are God the Holy Spirit, thinking in terms of Acts 1:8, and the plan is for the witness to go to the remotest parts of the earth, what better place to get the word out than Lydda. Because you literally have hundreds of thousands of foreign people passing through Lydda every year; Egyptians, Assyrians, Orientals, Europeans, they all pass through with their great caravans and so you hitch the gospel to these caravans and spread the word rather quickly do you not? So Luke, in his reflections of the early movements of Christianity and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, saw this and gives us the record of the key event that spreads from this strategic locale. 

Now, verse 33, the key event, And There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed. We don’t know much about Aeneas. His name is Greek so apparently he was a Hellenistic Jew and not a native. And he had a chronic condition; some interpret the Greek here to say he had been bedridden since he was eight years old (ablative) and others that he had been bedridden for eight years (genitive). But in either case he had a chronic condition that had become common knowledge to everyone in the region because some event in this man’s life knocked him out of commission, I take it eight years before. Now he was paralyzed and bedridden. We’re not told if he was a quadriplegic or a paraplegic but he was at least a paraplegic. He couldn’t walk anywhere. He had no use of his legs whatsoever for a period of eight years. These people were a part of their society just as they’re a part of our society. Of course today we just euthanize them, remove them from society because they’re a burden on society, and we just want to go on with our lives. But because it is clearly an act of murder we redefine it in the courts as an act of mercy. Besides, they’re not full persons anyway so we’re doing them a favor. Stick them with a needle or something. So our society does what the sin nature always does and that is redefine deviancy, call that which is evil good and that which is good evil. But every time we do that there are consequences to pay because you’re tearing the structure of reality, ripping the fabric of society apart. And people think we can get away with this without any serious repercussions. But the Jews in the first century had enough of a conscience left not to murder innocent bedridden people, instead family and friends took care of them, particularly the women, but with no way to transport them other than to physically move them they usually just laid on a bed like Aeneas. And when Peter entered he said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; get up and make your bed.” That statement Jesus Christ heals you is a present tense. It means “Jesus Christ here and now heals you.” So here we have the name of Jesus Christ again, it’s always the name, the name, the name, because this is no more going to happen in Peter’s authority than the dividing of the Red Sea would happen in Moses’. This has to happen by Jesus’ authority. And what this is saying is that Jesus Christ’s authority was being unleashed through Peter to heal Aeneas. It wasn’t just Peter pronouncing some words over Aeneas, it was Jesus Christ actually present in a geometrical-spatial way healing him. This is one of those fantastic truths of the body of Christ. We talk about the body of Christ, “Yeah, I’m in the body.”  Well what does that mean? Granted it was not well understood at this time but what it means is that the resurrected Christ is with the believer and when the believer goes somewhere, when you go to work, when you go to the restaurant, when you go to the store, when you go to the park Jesus Christ is there with you. The early Christians didn’t see this too well, Paul explains it later, but they did realize that in some way where they were Jesus Christ was. When you go to some person’s house Jesus Christ is going to that person. It sounds kind of strange but it’s the truth. What did Jesus tell the apostles when He gave them the great commission? And lo I am with you till the end of the age, and He meant that in a very geometric and spatial way, He was with them. So somehow Jesus Christ was there healing Aeneas at that very moment. 

And what happened? He immediately got up. Now think of this, this is a man who hasn’t taken a step in eight years, the brain signals that tell the spinal neurons to fire the muscle tissue in his thighs and calves have been non-operational for eight years, the neurotransmitters at the synapses aren’t in balance and therefore this man has no muscle mass, when you don’t use your muscles they just shrivel up and get replaced by collagen because the human body is too efficient to waste resources. So Aeneas’ legs were nothing more than skin and bones, just worthless appendages. How many months and years of rehabilitation would it take to get a person back walking from that condition? Months and years of re-training the brain signals, learning to lift one pound, two pounds, four pounds, learning to stand up, building muscle, learning to walk, we’re talking years and yet when Jesus Christ heals him what’s the result? He immediately got up. All that was fixed in an instant of time. All the months and years of rehabilitation were collapsed down to a fraction of a second, as Jesus Christ works one of His great miracles. Verse 35, And all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. Of course that’s hyperbole but watch this because this verse is a set up for everything that follows with Dorcas and Cornelius, that event at Cornelius’ house which is so dear to the Gentile Christian goes back to Aeneas at Lydda. We know where Lydda is, it sat at the crossroads of the Via Maris, it was on the route to Europe, Africa and Asia. But Sharon, that’s not a city, that’s a region known as the Plain of Sharon, sometimes called the Shephelah, the coastal plain. It reached from Joppa in the south to Mt Carmel in the north. So if we’re looking at a map you have all these ancient regions of Israel, here’s the Plain of Sharon. And so the verse is saying the news got around and there were people coming from this entire plain region to see him. So obviously what do we conclude? That the people in Joppa and Caesarea heard about this man such that this one miracle becomes the jumping off point for the next two events in Acts. Put another way, had Peter never gone to Lydda the door for the Gentiles would never have been opened in Caesarea. This so therefore this is the operation of the Holy Spirit. He’s paving the way.

So what’s the grand conclusion of this miracle? How did people in the region respond to this healing? They turned to the Lord. The Greek word there is epistrepho and it means they turned 180 degrees from enmity against the Lord to submission to the Lord. It’s an expression of faith in the Lord Jesus. In the military the equivalent is to do an “about face.” And what it means is the soldier is walking along in rank and file and suddenly they are halted by their superior officer and commanded to turn 180 degrees opposite. The parallel in the spiritual life is these people were going along in the rank and file of Satan’s army and suddenly they were halted by a superior commander, the Lord Jesus Christ and they turned 180 degrees opposite, they believed in Him and His leadership. So I take it that “turning to the Lord” is equal to “believing in the Lord.” In fact, verse 42, the result of the raising of Dorcas, “many believed in the Lord.” Two miracles in two different towns, one group turned to the Lord and the other believed in the Lord, therefore to turn to the Lord is to believe in the Lord (cf 2 Cor 3:16; 1 Thess 1:9). And obviously this would have to be in connection with the preaching of the gospel. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, but the miracle was the definitive authentication that if Jesus Christ healed Aeneas then obviously Jesus Christ was not dead in a tomb in Jerusalem but He was alive and His authority over the negative consequences of sin was being manifested on earth in Lydda. So if you ever travel to Israel maybe Tel Aviv Airport will be a little bit more meaningful for you now. 

Verse 36, the witness moves to Joppa, Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which translated in Greek is called Dorcas); this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did. 37And it happened at that time that she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her body, they laid it in an upper room. 38Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, imploring him, “Do not delay in coming to us.” So we turn to a woman named Dorcas and the delegation sent to Peter from Joppa. Now Joppa is another strategically chosen city. It was the only natural port in Israel, you had a man-made port up in Caesarea, but this was natural, it consisted of this little jetty and out about 300-400 feet there were reefs that kept the water calm for ships to make a northern entry. It was for the greater part of history held by the Phoenician’s, the great seafarers of the ancient world, and so when Jonah fleed the Lord he departed from this port on a Phoenician ship. Well, in this town lived a woman named Tabitha or in the Greek Dorcas, we’ll call her Dorcas and she dies here in Joppa. And we learn in verse 36 that she was a disciple. She probably became a convert through Philip’s ministry because when he went up this coastline from Azotus to Caesarea he stopped at many of these towns and evangelized. But she’s more than just a believer, the believers in Lydda they were called saints which is just another word for a believer, all believers are saints. But she’s called a disciple which means she’s a believer in training, she’s a student of Bible doctrine and it’s obvious that it’s the true disciples of the Lord that see the most dramatic results in their life; this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did. From the remarks made here we can gather four things about her. First of all, she was not a hearer only but a doer also. James tells us to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only. She applies doctrine and the way it manifested in her life was deeds of kindness and charity on an ongoing basis. She was not just a student of the Christian faith she was a practitioner of the Christian faith. Second, from the nature of her practice she probably had the gift of helps (1 Cor 12:28). There are several gifts of the spirit but her particular deeds were in the realm of helps. Third, we gather that she was a woman of wealth or she was connected in some way with wealth because of the amount of charity she engaged in. Fourth, from v 39 we can gather that her ministry was basically to women. So she’s a great example of a woman ministering to other women. This is the Scriptural norm. No female pastor-teachers, no female elders and so forth. She knew her role as a woman in God’s church and she operated freely and very effectively within His plan. She didn’t think she had a better idea than God like the feminists today and that goes for the evangelical feminists, egalitarians, whatever you want to call them. They always want to make up reasons why Tit 2 doesn’t really mean what it says and neither does 1 Tim 2:9-15. But Dorcas had no problem with the plan of God for women. She never felt somehow short-handed by God, she functioned just fine in her role. She ministered freely within the form of women’s ministry, there is a form and in that form there is freedom.

But it happened, verse 37, at that time that she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her body, they laid it in an upper room. And they sent this delegation to fetch Peter. This is very interesting because obviously they had heard about Peter healing Aeneas in Lydda so what do they expect by bringing Peter to Joppa? That he would raise her from the dead. That’s what they expect and that’s why they send the delegation. So we have this woman, she’s dead, meaning her human spirit departed from her physical body. Then they took the body and did something very interesting that we want to look at in connection with 1 Cor 15; they washed it. 1 Cor 15 talks about being baptized for the dead and when you get the translation right you see it has to do with this procedure of washing the dead body. They did this according to Mishnaic law, Shabbath, xxiii.5. Why they did this was because their Jewish background was probably Pharisaic and the Pharisees had all kinds of ritual cleansings you had to go through on a daily basis. There were all kinds of ways you could become unclean, touching a dead body for example. So once a person died they would wash the body to cleanse it from all defilement. That would render the body prepared for resurrection. Now, in v 29 we’re in the heart of the great resurrection chapter and this verse bothered me for a long time, this statement about being baptized for the dead. When I lived up in Lubbock the Mormons came in and built a temple and the unclean Gentiles got a chance to tour the thing after it was erected. Before you go in they put you in all this surgical attire so you don’t defile their temple, then you march through. One of the interesting things in there is this massive baptismal with these oxen underneath it holding it up, this is where they practice baptism for the dead. In other words, let’s say you have a sister die and she was an unbeliever, well then if you’re a good Mormon you’d go into your Temple and get baptized in her place since she never got baptized and this will get her into the kingdom of God. They call this proxy baptism. And they would cite this verse 15:29 as support for their practice and I didn’t really know how to answer their argument till one day I was reading some archaeology that gave the background for this passage. This was published in 1987 in the archaeology journal Bible and Spade, I quote, 

“Observant Jews of the first century, during and following the time of Jesus, were bound by” the Mosaic Law. The Rabbi’s also erected extra laws around the Law “in order to keep people from breaking that Law. Many of these “extra” laws had to do with defilement, or uncleanness, which required cleansing in a ritual bath…The bath installation was called a mikveh. It was either built up or carved down into bedrock similar to a baptismal pool. Mikvaoth (plural) have been discovered all over Israel from this time, especially around the Temple…The religious groups most concerned were the Pharisees and the Essenes. They performed daily cleansings and washings to remain clean from all sorts of defilements. The Pharisees also believed in the resurrection from the dead. For people this concerned with ritual cleansing during life, it should not be difficult to understand that they would want to be absolutely clean for the resurrection from the dead. Thus, they washed the corpses of their loved ones as a “final” preparation. It should be translated then, “baptism of the dead”, not “baptism for the dead.”” 
. 
So I hope that bit of archaeology helps you understand that verse, what they were doing with Dorcas’ body was simply washing it in preparation for the resurrection. Nobody was being baptized for anybody else, they washed her body then placed it in the upper room and sent for Peter. 

Verse 38, Since Lydda was near Joppa, about 10 miles, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, imploring him, “Do not delay in coming to us.” 39So Peter arose and went with them. When he arrived, they brought him into the upper room; and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them. 40But Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. 41And he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. So Peter came, it would have been at least 10-12 hours for them to reach Peter and for them to return. When he arrived there was a crowd of widows in the upper room and they were weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas had made, the middle voice shows they were actually wearing the garments saying, “Hey Peter, look at this, look at the detail, look a the time it took for her to make this exquisite garment and so forth.” Verse 40, But Peter sent them all out, this is a procedure he learned personally from the Lord Jesus Christ because when Christ raised Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5:40 he sent everyone out of the room, so Peter is following the protocol laid down by Christ. But then he did something different, he knelt down and prayed because he can’t rely on his own power and authority he has to rely on the power and authority of Jesus Christ and then he turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, koumi,” only one letter different from what Christ said to Jairus’ daughter, “Talitha koumi.” Tabitha koumi” meaning “female gazelle, arise,” Talitha koumi” meaning “little girl, arise.” Notice it’s the word, the word is instrumental in this miracle. And in both cases they woke up as if they were asleep and opened their eyes. Just think, when a person dies all the systems shut down, the blood starts to congeal, decay is very rapid so what happened in an instant of time is all the decay had to be reversed. In the language of modern physics we’d say there was a reversal of entropy here, a reversal of the second law of thermodynamics. So what happened, she wasn’t resurrected, she didn’t get a resurrection body at this time, she’s in exactly the same body but she was revived or resuscitated, just like Lazarus and Jairus, CPR. And the main point is that this is unprecedented, nothing like this has happened at the hands of an apostle. Jesus said it would happen, Jesus told the apostles in Matt 10:8, “heal the sick, raise the dead,” and now Peter has done just that. Now the apostle Peter is doing miracles on the same plane as Jesus Christ and the way he is doing them is obviously not in His own power or authority but in the power and authority of Jesus Christ. The implication; Jesus Christ is not dead but alive. And He is with Peter and the other apostles in the Book of Acts. 

And he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. Verse 42, It became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. And of course the news spread all over Joppa. There’s still a church there today called the Church of St. Peter the Apostle which is where tradition says Peter raised Dorcas from the dead. Here you can see it from the aerial view. This is from the harbor. And here’s a close up. This is just tradition but it was in this area. What was the result of the news spreading? Verse 42, many believed in the Lord and as I said before this is the same as verse 36 when the Lyddans “turned to the Lord.” They were not converted to Peter, they did not believe in Peter, which shows that though these apostles were doing great things the focus was always on the Lord Jesus Christ, that He was the source of the great miracles, this is not Todd Bentley stuff, this is genuine. The real apostles never hit anybody in the face or body slammed them, the stuff that Christians pass off as genuine miracles today, a bunch of malarkey. So again, this miracle authenticated that the witness of Peter was sourced ultimately in God. 

And finally, verse 43, Peter stayed many days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon. Now you may not realize the significance of this. But a tanner worked with dead animal skins and this was an unclean profession. Why in the world is an orthodox Jew staying with an unclean Jew? Obviously because this man is on an emancipation journey. We always point to the vision Peter has up on the roof of Simon’s house of the animals coming down on the white sheet and the Lord saying, “Rise, kill and eat Peter,” but the emancipation process had already begun. That vision becomes the final straw but just look at this man, now he’s lodging with a guy who works with dead animals? No Jew under strict Mosaic legislation would have done this.

In conclusion keep in mind that everything that happens with Peter all the way to chapter 10:48 stems from the healing of Aeneas. It’s a short account, we only have four verses about the whole thing, we get 50 verses about Cornelius, but the four about Aeneas are a set up for the Dorcas miracle and the Cornelius event. So let’s review how the Holy Spirit has set everything up. First, He chose Peter, He got Peter to Lydda to find this man, He’s done it all right here on the crossroads of the Via Maris, the central commercial route for all the nations of the world. Then the news spread to the Plain of Sharon which includes the next two stops, Joppa and Caesarea. First he went to Joppa, another strategic location because from here the gospel can go out by ship to the remotest parts of the earth. Thousand and thousands of seafaring people sailed into Joppa every year, and he did a miracle on par with Jesus’ raising of Jairus and Lazarus, people became believers and he settles in for awhile at Simon’s house. All this is to show that Acts 1:8 is being fulfilled, the witness is going out and very rapidly it is going to the remotest parts of the earth. Now we want to look at one last thing. Who did the Holy Spirit use to record this miracle? Luke. What was Luke’s profession? Medical doctor. Who better to relate the details of miracles than a medical doctor, someone who has intimate knowledge of anatomy and physiology? Someone who would be interested in such stupendous claims. Someone who would be very skeptical of such claims and someone who would investigate very thoroughly the details of the miracle before giving a positive report, and here is his report, a report that validates it as evidenced by the fact that he uses several Greek medical terms. The details were carefully analyzed by Luke, he was not a fanciful man, he was a medical doctor with a reputation to maintain.