Alan Lewis
Elon, North Carolina
June 2025
The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed. (Acts 5:12-16 NIV)
We are studying the book of Acts. Periodically in Acts we are given a picture of the early church. It is interesting to compare how churches today look like the first church. Some are similar. Some are very different. What was the first church like? It had several characteristics.
Characteristics of the First Church
1. Public Worship
They did not just have church at home or online. They met in public. Where did they meet? We are told that they met together in Solomon’s Porch in the outer court of the Temple (Acts 5:12).
That raises a question. Why were Christians worshipping in a Jewish Temple? We don’t do that today. They were all Jewish. We separate Judaism from Christianity. The first Christians were Jewish.
The location is not important. What is important is the idea of public worship and the need for public worship today. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade (Acts 5:12 NIV). Many skip church and think it is not important.
2. Church Growth
The second thing we see here is that the church grew. They did not even have church buildings yet and the church is growing numerically. People are being added to the church. Men were joining. Women were joining,
Acts 5:14 says, “more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number” (NIV). That is a sign of a healthy church. It is the sign of a healthy small group. Many churches today are stagnant and dying.
Now, not everyone wanted to join. We are told that in Acts 5:13. Some heard about what happened to Ananias and Sapphira who dropped dead after lying to the apostles.
In this first church, some people were dropping dead. Some were afraid to join it. Not everyone wants to join today. This church was too dangerous to join but even the people that did not join held the Christians in high esteem.
Which describes you? Someone who is a part of the church and involved or someone who stands back and is afraid to commit or be a part of the church?
3. Needs Met
At the beginning of the chapter, a couple sold land and brought some of the money to the church. In Acts 4, another man did the same thing. The needs of the poor members of the church were met by other members of the church who helped them. There was no needy person among them (Acts 4:34).
4. Miracles Occur
This passage in Acts is all about miracles and these miracles look very much like the ministry of Jesus. Jesus said His followers would do the same thing that He did (John 14:12).
They met in the same place where Jesus taught (cf. John 10:23). It was a place in the Temple called Solomon’s Porch. It was a place where huge crowds could gather.
They displayed great healing powers, miracles, signs and wonders. People were healed. Demons were cast out. Extraordinary miracles were done (healing by shadows).
Everyone was healed and crowds came from all over to receive these miracles. That happened in Acts 5, and these kinds of things happened in Jesus’ day.
Today, we are going to talk about miracles. What exactly is a miracle? Are miracles possible? Why does God do them? Does He still do miracles today? Does He use people to do miracles? What is the difference between miracles and signs and wonders? We learn five things about miracles in this passage.
Miracles in Acts 5
1) These miracles are FREQUENT
The apostles performed MANY signs and wonders among the people (Acts 5:12 NIV). They were not occasional and rare but regular and frequent. They did not perform one or two but many, and not just signs, but wonders.
2) These miracles are EFFECTIVE
Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and ALL of them were healed. (Acts 5:16 NIV). Not just some, but all were healed, just like Jesus did. They had a one hundred percent success rate.
3) These miracles are APPEALING
These miracles drew people in. People came from all over to see and experience them. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits” (Acts 5:16 NIV). The rich came. They brought beds. The poor came and brought mats (Acts 5:15). Today, most people don’t come to church to experience a miracle.
4) These miracles are UNUSUAL
As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by (Acts 5:15 NIV)
What is that all about? How is Peter’s shadow healing people? How can a shadow heal? That seems strange. We will come back to that topic.
5) These miracles are APOSTOLIC
THE APOSTLES performed many signs and wonders among the people (Acts 5:12). The ones doing the miracles in this passage were not everyone but the apostles, Jesus’ official representatives.
They had special power. They had special authority. They had a special anointing. Miracles were one of the proofs of apostleship.
I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing. 12 I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles (II Corinthians 12:11-12 NIV)
Many claimed to be apostles in Paul’s day. Many claim to be apostles in our day. There is a difference between true and false apostles. Paul said that a true apostle has certain signs. They perform miracles, signs and wonders.
Let’s talk about each one. What is a miracle? What is a sign? What is a wonder? What is the difference between them? Do you know? There are three different words for miracles. They mean basically the same thing, but they have different functions.
Miracles
Let’s talk about miracles. What exactly is a miracle? It is a supernatural act of God that cannot be explained by the laws of nature. An unusual event is not a miracle. An amazing event like the birth of a baby is not a miracle.
Not everything that is astonishing is miraculous in the biblical sense. Divine acts of providence and answers to prayer are not necessarily miracles. God works in providence, but He does not suspend natural laws.
A miracle is a naturally impossible event caused by God. There is no natural explanation for a miracle. It cannot be explained naturally by modern science.
Signs
The Bible talks about miracles and signs. The miracles in the early church were signs.
How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by SIGNS, WONDERS AND VARIOUS MIRACLES, and by GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:3-4 NIV)
What is a sign? It is a miracle that demonstrates or proves something. It is a miracle with a message. We tend to separate miracles from signs.
We all like miracles. Miracles are cool (turning water into wine, raising the dead, casting out demons) but miracles are also signs. They have a message. The Ten Plagues were not just miracles, they were signs.
I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. 5 AND the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” (Exodus 7:4-5 NIV)
Why did God split the Red Sea, allow the Hebrews to cross it on dry land and judge the armies of Pharaoh? God said, “The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.” (Exodus 14:18 NIV)
Jesus’ miracles were signs. They authenticated who He is. They proved that Jesus is God. They proved He is the Messiah. These miracles had a purpose.
Jesus performed many other SIGNS in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31 NIV)
Wonders
What is a wonder? This is another term for miracles. The Ten Plagues are called “wonders.” That is what God called them in Exodus.
So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all THE WONDERS that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go. (Exodus 3:20 NIV)
What makes them wonders? They are wonderful. They are spectacular, like healing by a shadow. They are something you do not see everyday.
If you saw it everyday, it would not be a wonder. A wonder is something only God can do. It is something that you have never seen before and may not see again.
Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, WORKING WONDERS? (Exodus 15:11 NIV)
BEFORE ALL YOUR PEOPLE I WILL DO WONDERS NEVER BEFORE DONE IN ANY NATION IN ALL THE WORLD. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you. (Exodus 34:10 NIV)
Two Common Errors Today
There are two common errors today. One of these errors you can find outside the church and one of them you can find inside the church.
1) Miracles Can’t Happen
Skeptics say that miracles cannot happen. They are scientifically impossible. If miracles are impossible, then the Christian faith must be false, because it is based on miracles. It is a religion of miracles.
If miracles are impossible, then the Bible is false, because it is full of miracles. Fire falls from the sky. The earth opens up and swallows people.
The sea splits open with two walls of water on both sides standing up and dry ground in the middle to walk on. A man walks on water. A virgin gives birth to a child.
A man who was born blind suddenly sees. A man who had never walked and had been crippled for forty years stands up and walks. The dead are raised, even after being dead for three days.
Water is instantly turned into wine. Three men are tied up and thrown into a blazing hot furnace of fire and come out completely unharmed without a hair on their head being burned. These are miracles. They are in the Bible. If miracles are impossible, the Bible is false.
Are Miracles Impossible?Are miracles impossible? Your view of miracles is tied to your world view. Let’s do a little apologetics. We will use Norman Geisler. He is the master apologist. Geisler points out that if God exists, miracles are possible. If God does not exist, miracles are impossible. The only way to disprove miracles is to disprove God exists. A skeptic must disprove God to prove miracles are impossible. The burden of proof is on the skeptic. The problem for the skeptic is that no one has ever done that. No one has ever disproven God’s existence. They can’t. As long as it is possible for God to exist, it is possible for miracles to exist. Some say that they don’t believe in miracles because they have never seen them. The problem is that they believe in all kinds of things that they have never seen (air, gravity, love). |
2) Miracles Don’t Happen
This is a common view today among many Christians and certain denominations. They are called cessationists. I grew up in a church that taught this.
They believe that God used to do miracles, but He does not do them anymore or does not use people to do miracles. He stopped doing them in 70 AD. There seems to be some support for this view in our passage.
THE APOSTLES performed many signs and wonders among the people (Acts 5:12 NIV). Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed BY THE APOSTLES (Acts 2:43 NIV).
The text mentions the apostles doing these miracles, not other people. The apostles are no longer on earth. They all died two thousand years ago and therefore, the argument goes that there are no more miracles. No apostles, no miracles.
It sounds like a good argument until you read the next chapter. Miracles may have started with the apostles, but they were not the only ones in the early church who performed them.
That theory is refuted by the next chapter. In Acts 6, someone other than an apostle performed one. His name was Stephen. He was NOT an apostle and yet he performed miracles. He not only performed miracles, he performed GREAT MIRACLES.
Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. (Acts 6:8 NIV)
There were certain signs of an apostle and that included the power to do miracles, but they were not the only ones doing signs.
Jesus said, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (Mark 16:17-18 NIV)
Paul talks about spiritual gifts in I Corinthians. He mentions different manifestations of the Spirit.
To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. (I Corinthians 12:8-11 NIV)
Now that is interesting. Paul says there are different kinds of spiritual gifts. They all come from the Holy Spirit. They are given to people as the Holy Spirit wills.
What he does NOT say is that they are gifts for just apostles or just for the first century. There is no hint of this in the text.
Furthermore, Peter said, “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”
He was quoting the Book of Joel. He didn’t say. “During the apostolic age, I will pour our My Spirit on people. They will prophesy. They will dream dreams. They will speak in tongues. They will heal people.”
He did NOT say, “All of these things will happen until 70 AD.” No, they are characteristics of the last days. We will see things like this in the Tribulation. There are miracle working prophets in Revelation 11. All prophecy did not end with the closing of the canon.
Are there signs and wonders today? The definitive work on miracles was written by NT scholar Craig Keener. He wrote three books on miracles that are 1500 pages long.
He wrote a two-volume book on miracles in the NT in 2011. It is called Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. In 2021, he wrote a third volume on miracles, entitled Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World, which describes some verified miracles in our own day.
Four Unusual Miracles
1) Peter’s Shadow
Let’s look at four unusual miracles in the Bible. There are some miracles that are so strange, they are hard to believe. Acts 5 contains one of the strangest miracles in the Bible.
As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by (Acts 5:15 NIV).
So many people were coming to get healed. Peter could not get to everyone. Some hoped if Peter could not get to them, they could at least get his shadow and be healed. His shadow was considered part of his body
How could a shadow heal anyone, even the shadow of an apostle? There was nothing magical about shadows. The power was not in the shadow but in the Lord.
“The power was not in the shadow, but in the Holy Spirit who so surrounded and overwhelmed Peter that the power of God went with his presence everywhere”[1]
2) Paul’s Apron
Another example of an unusual miracle is healed by Paul’s handkerchiefs. It is also found in the Book of Acts.
God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them (Acts 19:11-12).
This was not healing by Paul’s touch but by Paul’s clothing. This was an unusual miracle. Now, this has been abused today. Catholics use it as a verse which supports holy relics. They use it to prove that relics are biblical.
Ernest Angley and others have healing cloths that are prayed over and anointed that you can buy. The Scripture doesn’t say that Paul asked for money for these things or sold them.
In fact, we don’t even know if he gave them to people or if they took them and used them. The point is that God can use anything to heal people.
3) Jesus’ Robe
We have not only healing by a shadow and a cloth but by the hem of a garment. It is a familiar story in the Gospels about the woman with severe menstrual bleeding that went on for years. It went on for twelve years. Twelve years is a long time to be sick.
Today, it would just be a medical problem. In her day and culture, it made her unclean. It not only affected her physically and medically, it affected her socially and financially.
Mark says, “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse” (Mark 5:26 NIV).
This is funny. When Luke tells the story about this woman, he doesn’t mention that detail, because he was a physician himself. He didn’t want to condemn the entire profession.
The woman heard about Jesus healing all kinds of sickness and diseases and said to herself, “If I can’t touch Jesus, and if I can’t touch Him, if I can just touch His clothing, just a tassel or hem of His garment, I shall be healed.” She did it and she was instantly healed, not by touching Jesus’ body but by touching His clothes.
Did His clothes heal her? No. There was nothing magical about Jesus’ clothes. They did not have any healing qualities. Jesus said, “YOUR FAITH has made you well. Go in peace” (Matthew 9:22; Mark 5:34; Luke 8:48). He didn’t say, “My clothes have made you well.” Her faith healed her.
4) Elisha’s Bones
In the Bible, we not only have healing by a shadow, a cloth, the hem of a garment but also by dead bones. We do not talk too much about this story. It is found in II Kings 13.
Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. 21 Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet. II Kings 13:20-21 NIV)
This story may not be as familiar to us. Let me give a little background. One of the greatest prophets in the OT was a man named Elijah.
When Elijah’s ministry was over, he ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire and horses. He did not even die. He was succeeded by a man named Elisha, who saw him ascend. He was an eye-witness to the event. You can read about this in II Kings 2.
As he was ascending, he dropped his mantle. It was some garment that he wore. It fell and Elisha picked it up and received a double portion of his spirit.
Elisha ended up performing more miracles than Elijah did. Elijah performed many miracles. He even raised someone from the dead. He was the first one to do that. Elijah performed eight miracles. Elisha performed sixteen miracles.
Eventually, he got old. He got sick. He died and was buried. He was not carried up to heaven like Elijah was. He was dead for a while. His body was nothing but bones in II Kings 13.
After he died, another poor man died. His loved ones try to bury him. A funeral took place for him. During the funeral, a group of thieves from Moab showed up. These were descendants of Lot.
The loved ones tried to put the corpse in the nearest tomb, as quickly as they could. They threw the man in Elisha’s tomb. The corpse touched Elisha’s bones and came to life. His dead bones resurrected a dead man.
That is a strange miracle. Catholics use this as a verse for veneration of relics of saints, but that idea does not come from this verse.
These men did not throw the body in the tomb to bring it back to life. They were not venerating relics. The man who was thrown into the tomb did not exercise any faith.
He was dead. Elisha’s bones did not have any power in themselves. This was the power of God who can use anything to perform a miracle.
Miracles Today
Let’s talk about miracles today. God still does miracles today. Many say that we have not seen miracles on this scale since the days of the apostles. Not too many are healed by shadows today.
That is true but God is still doing miracles today, amazing miracles. He still heals people. He still sets people free. He still delivers people from all kinds of things.
That did not stop in 70 AD. Many have incredible testimonies about what God has done in their life. If we do not see them, we need to pray for this kind of power in the church today. The apostles prayed for it, and we can too.
[1] John R. Rice, Filled with the Spirit: The Book of Acts, A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 146.
