Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

3:11 Solomon's portico was a colonnaded area along the eastern wall of the temple area. See also 5:12.

3:13-16 For the Jews' refusal to take Pilate's advice and their request for a murderer instead, see Luke 23:13-25. The reference to Jesus as God's servant (Acts 3:13) recalls Isa. 52:13-53:12. you delivered over and denied . . . you denied . . . you killed. Peter directly and repeatedly tells these Jewish people that they were responsible for Jesus' nonrelease and consequent death, and that they needed to repent (but see also Acts 3:17).

3:14 Holy One and Righteous One are messianic terms (cf. Isa. 53:11; Mark 1:24).

3:15 you killed . . . God raised . . . we are witnesses. Peter's emphasis on the veracity of Jesus' death and resurrection is a recurring theme in the speeches of Acts (see 2:23-24; 4:10; 5:30-32; 10:39-41; 13:28-29; see also 1 Cor. 15:1-4).

3:16 His name, in the full biblical sense of "name," means everything that is true about the person, and therefore, in a sense, the person himself. By faith in his name refers to Peter's faith rather than to any faith on the part of the lame man. Jesus healed the man, and faith (or trust) in Jesus also healed the man, because Jesus worked through Peter's faith. the faith that is through Jesus. Jesus himself imparts this kind of miracle-working faith to people's hearts.

3:17 you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers (cf. 1 Cor. 2:8). "In ignorance" probably means that they did not fully understand that Jesus was the true Messiah and also the true Son of God. But such ignorance, in Scripture, while it may diminish punishment, does not fully absolve people of responsibility for their actions.

3:18 Foretold by the mouth of all the prophets and fulfilled by God indicates that there is no contradiction between divine sovereignty and human responsibility (cf. notes on 2:23; 3:13-16; 3:17; 4:27; 4:28).

3:19 Turn again can also be translated "turn back." It means to turn back to God instead of continuing to turn away from him.

3:20 Peter promised three results of repentance: (1) The forgiveness of sins (v. 19). (2) Times of refreshing (a mark of the messianic age), as people are "refreshed" in their spirits when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within them. (This "refreshing" comes also to the world in general as it is affected by believers who are changed by the power of the Spirit.) (3) That he may send the Christ is a clear reference to the second coming of Christ, since the next verse looks forward to that time.

3:21 The time for restoring all the things looks forward to when Christ will return and his kingdom will be established on earth, and the earth itself will be renewed even beyond the more abundant and productive state it had before Adam and Eve's fall (see note on Rom. 8:20-21).

3:22-23 Peter quoted Deut. 18:15 to establish that Jesus was the prophet like me (i.e., like Moses, a comparison that points to a leader prophet) that God had promised to send. In Acts 3:23 Peter quotes Deut. 18:19 to point out the danger of rejecting the coming prophet (i.e., Jesus).

3:24 Samuel was considered the next prophet after Moses, and Peter declared that he and the rest of the prophets consistently pointed to Christ. All the prophets . . . proclaimed these days affirms that all of the OT prophets (including Moses, which implies all of the OT from Genesis onward) were predicting the coming of Christ and the new covenant age that had begun at Pentecost.

3:25-26 Peter noted that the covenant promised to Abraham applied to all the families of the earth. The servant Messiah was for all, only being sent to Israel "first" (v. 26). The worldwide mission was already implicit in Peter's message; only later, however, would he fully assimilate its meaning (see 10:1-11:18).