A certain beggar who had been lame from birth was carried daily to the gate of the temple called Beautiful. Doubtless, he had accepted the evidence of the senses, and, supposing that gold and silver were the source and substance of supply, believed he had little or nothing, while others had plenty. Ignorant of spiritual values and the riches of true character, his expectations of supply were evidently fixed upon persons and money. How pitiful the eager concern with which he must have watched for those "clothed in purple and fine linen"! How bitter the disappointments, and how uncertain the meeting of his needs, so long as he was relying upon the varying moods of those passers-by to toss him a few pence! Because of such false dependency, was it strange that he continued impotent and unable to stand upon his own feet?
But one day a wonderful thing happened. A certain man, one of two passers-by to whom the beggar appealed for alms, gazed searchingly at him. He did not offer the beggar money, but said he would give him what he had. Then, taking him by the right hand, the Apostle Peter with Christly command cried, "Rise up and walk." "Immediately his feet and ankle bones," we are told, "received strength." The beggar stood upright, erect. In the twinkling of an eye he had been transformed from a lame, poverty-stricken man to an active man. Quickened by Spirit, no wonder that in a spontaneous outburst of joy the liberated man ran and leaped and praised God.
In offering to help the beggar, the apostle evidently gave no heed to the condition of his feet or to his poverty, but with penetrating spiritual insight gazed searchingly at him, as if to look past the frail personality into the consciousness of true manhood.
