Silver and Gold I Do Not Have

Three o’clock in the afternoon was one of the hours of prayer, and one afternoon that spring Peter and John walked up to the temple to pray, the way they had done all their lives. There was a gate on the way in that people called the Beautiful Gate, because it was. And every morning of every day, somebody carried a man to that gate and set him down beside it.

He had never walked. Not once, from the day he was born, and he was over forty years old now. He could not work, so he sat at the gate where the crowds went past on their way in to pray, and he asked them for money, and some of them gave him some. He had been sitting in that spot so long that everybody in Jerusalem knew his face without ever having asked his name.

He asked Peter and John, the same way he asked everybody. And Peter stopped, and looked right at him, with John beside him. “Look at us,” Peter said. So he looked up, and he watched them, waiting to see what they would give him.

“Silver and gold I do not have,” said Peter. “But what I do have, that is what I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth — walk.”

And he took hold of the man by his right hand and pulled him up. And as he came up, his feet and his ankles went firm underneath him — feet that had never held him for one second in forty years. He got them under him and stood. Then he took a step. Then he jumped. And he went into the temple with Peter and John, walking, and then jumping, and then walking again, and shouting out loud how good God was, all the way in.

The whole courtyard turned round to look at a grown man leaping about in the temple, and then they recognized him, and that was when it went quiet. That was the man from the Beautiful Gate. Everybody knew that man. Everybody had walked past that man. He would not let go of Peter and John, and the whole crowd came running to the three of them in the long covered walk they called Solomon’s Colonnade, and stood there staring.

So Peter turned round and talked to them. “Men of Israel, why does this astonish you? Why are you all staring at us as though we made this man walk by our own power, or because we are such good men? The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has given glory to his servant Jesus. You handed him over. You said no to him in front of Pilate, when Pilate had already decided to let him go. You said no to the holy and right one, and asked for a murderer to be given to you instead, and you killed the one who starts life going — and God raised him from the dead, and we saw him. We are the witnesses of that. And it is his name, and trusting his name, that has made this man strong. You can see him. You know who he is. It is what comes through Jesus that has made him whole, right here in front of every one of you.

“And now, brothers, I know that you did it without understanding what you were doing, and so did your rulers. But God had said, through the mouth of every one of the prophets, that his Christ was going to suffer — and this is how he did it. So change your minds, and turn back, and your sins will be wiped away, and times of rest will come from the face of the Lord, and he will send you the Christ he chose for you, Jesus. Heaven has to keep him until the time comes for everything to be put right again, which is what God spoke about long ago through the mouths of his holy prophets. Moses himself said, ‘The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your own brothers, like me. Listen to him — to everything he says to you.’ And all the prophets from Samuel onward, every one who spoke, told about these days too. You are the sons of the prophets, and of the promise God made to your fathers when he said to Abraham, ‘And through your seed every family on the earth will be blessed.’ God raised up his servant, and he sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you away from your wicked ways.”

They did not get to finish. The priests came, and the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees, who were extremely annoyed at two fishermen teaching the people in the temple courts, and more annoyed still at what they were teaching — that a dead man had got up. They took hold of Peter and John, and because it was already evening and too late for a hearing, they locked them up for the night. It did not work. A great many of the people who had heard them believed them, and by that day the number of the men had come to about five thousand.

In the morning the whole council met: the rulers and the elders and the scribes, and Annas the chief priest, and Caiaphas, and John and Alexander, and everybody belonging to the chief priest’s family. It was very nearly the same room, and very nearly the same faces, that had sat in judgment on Jesus a few weeks before. They stood the two fishermen in the middle of it. “By what power, or in what name, did you do this?”

Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he answered them. “Rulers of the people, and elders: if we are being examined today about a kindness done to a sick man, and how he came to be made well, then let all of you know it, and let all the people of Israel know it. It was in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth — the one you crucified, the one God raised from the dead. It is by him that this man is standing here in front of you, sound and well. This is the stone that you builders looked at and threw away as no good, and it has become the cornerstone of the whole building. And there is no rescue in anybody else. There is no other name under heaven, given among people, by which we have to be saved.”

And the council sat and looked at them, and could not work them out. These two had no schooling. They had never studied under anybody. They were plain men off a fishing boat, and here they were talking back to the council of Israel without a tremble in them. And then somebody recognized their faces, and remembered where he had seen them before: they had been with Jesus. Also, the man who had been healed was standing right there in the room with them, on his own two feet, and there was not one word anybody could say against that.

So they sent the three of them outside and talked it over. “What are we going to do with these men? Everybody living in Jerusalem knows a real sign has happened through them, and we cannot say that it has not. But we can stop it going any further. Let us warn them, and forbid them to say one more word to anybody at all in this name.” They called them back in and ordered them never to speak or teach in the name of Jesus again. “You decide whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you instead of to God,” said Peter and John. “But we cannot stop talking about what we have seen and heard.” So the council threatened them some more and let them go, because they could not find any way to punish them. The whole city was praising God over what had happened to the man at the gate.

Peter and John went back to their own people and told them everything the chief priests and the elders had said. And the whole gathering did the only thing they knew how to do. They prayed, out loud, together, all with one mind. “Master, you are the one who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. You said, through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David your servant: ‘Why did the nations rage, and the peoples plan things that come to nothing? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers gathered themselves together against the Lord and against his anointed one.’ And that is what happened in this very city, against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed — Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the nations and the peoples of Israel, all gathered together to do the things your hand and your purpose had already decided would happen. And now, Lord, look at their threats. And give your servants the boldness to speak your word, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders happen through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

They did not ask to be kept safe. They asked to be made bold. And when they had finished praying, the place where they were gathered was shaken, and every one of them was filled with the Holy Spirit, and they went out and spoke the word of God with all the boldness they had asked for.

The whole crowd of them who trusted were of one heart and one soul, and not one of them said that anything he owned was his own. Everything belonged to everybody. There was no poor person among them. If anyone owned a field or a house, he sold it and brought the money and laid it down at the apostles’ feet, and it was handed out to each person as each person needed it. One of them was a Levite from the island of Cyprus, named Joseph. The apostles had given him a second name, Barnabas, which means son of comfort, and it seems to have suited him. He had a field. He sold it, brought the money, and put it down at the apostles’ feet.

Not everybody was honest about it. A man named Ananias sold a piece of land, and he and his wife Sapphira agreed together to keep back part of the money for themselves and say nothing about it. Then he brought the rest and laid it at the apostles’ feet as though it were the whole price. “Ananias,” said Peter, “why has Satan filled your heart, so that you lied to the Holy Spirit and kept back part of the price of the land? While you still had the land, it was yours. When you had sold it, the money was yours to do whatever you liked with. Why did you put this thing in your heart? You did not lie to men. You lied to God.” When Ananias heard that, he fell down and died. The younger men wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him, and a great fear came on everybody who heard about it.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing anything about it. “Tell me,” said Peter, “did you sell the land for this much?” “Yes,” she said. “For that much.” “Why did the two of you agree to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Listen — the feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out too.” And she fell down at his feet and died, and the young men came in and found her and carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And a great fear came on the whole gathering, and on everybody who heard about it.

Meanwhile the apostles kept on, and a great many signs and wonders happened through their hands, and they were all together in Solomon’s Colonnade. People got so sure about it that they carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on little beds and mats along the way, hoping that when Peter came past even his shadow might fall across one of them. Crowds came in from all the towns around Jerusalem, bringing sick people and people troubled by unclean spirits, and they were healed.

The chief priest had had enough. He and everybody with him — the Sadducees — were eaten up with jealousy, and they arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But in the night a messenger of the Lord opened the doors of the prison and walked them out. “Go and stand in the temple,” he said, “and tell the people all the words of this life.” So at first light they went into the temple and started teaching.

Which made for a strange morning at the council. The chief priest arrived and called the whole council together, and the full senate of Israel, and sent officers down to the jail to fetch the prisoners. The officers came back without them. “We found the jail locked up tight,” they said, “and the guards standing at the doors. But when we opened it, there was nobody inside.” While they were still standing there wondering what on earth this was going to turn into, somebody came in and told them that the men they had put in prison were at that moment standing in the temple, teaching the people. So the captain went and got them — politely, and without laying a hand on them, because he was afraid the crowd would stone him.

They stood them in front of the council again. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” said the chief priest, “and look at you — you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you mean to bring this man’s blood down on us.” “We have to obey God rather than men,” Peter answered, and the rest of them with him. “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, the one you killed by hanging him on a tree. God lifted him up to his own right hand, as the one who leads and the one who rescues, to give Israel a change of mind and the forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things — and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God gives to the people who obey him.”

That cut them through, and there were men in that room who wanted the apostles dead by the end of the morning. But one man stood up. His name was Gamaliel. He was a Pharisee and a teacher of the law, and everybody in the country respected him, and when he got to his feet the room waited. He asked for the prisoners to be taken outside for a few minutes. “Men of Israel,” he said, “be careful what you are about to do to these men. Not long ago a man called Theudas stood up and said he was somebody, and about four hundred men joined themselves to him. He was killed, and every one of his followers scattered, and the whole thing came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean stood up, in the days when they were writing everybody down for the tax lists, and he drew people away after him; and he died, and everybody who followed him was scattered too. So here is what I say to you. Keep back from these men. Let them alone. Because if this plan or this work is from people, it will come to nothing all by itself. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them — and you may find yourselves fighting against God.”

They listened to him. They called the apostles back in, had them flogged, ordered them all over again not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And the apostles walked out of the council rejoicing — because they had been counted worthy to be shamed for the name. And every single day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not stop for one day teaching and telling the good news that Jesus is the Christ.