Acts 3:8

and he leaping up stood There is no hesitation in the man's manner; he does not question the power, but obeys at once.

entered with them into the temple He doubtless felt that this was the best visit he could make with his new powers, and he would be the more anxious to go there as Peter and John were going too.

leaping For delight at his new strength he cannot put it too much in exercise. This exultant use of the gift was a part of his "praising God."

We can hardly fail to see, if we compare the narrative of this miracle with that of the similar one wrought at Lystra by St Paul (14), to which we have already referred, that St Luke has used faithfully the materials with which he was furnished by "eye-witnesses," and has given the accounts as he received them without any colouring of his own. In this chapter we have a description such as a painter would desire; the scene is brought vividly before us, and all the characters are in lively action. It is just such an account as we find in St Mark's Gospel of the cure of the demoniac child (Mark 9:14-27), and both are quite in accord with all that we know of St Peter's mode of speaking, and from St Peter it is most probable that the narrative in this chapter is derived. On the contrary, the story of the cure wrought at Lystra by St Paul is told in the fewest possible words and with no touch of the graphic power of which this description is so full. The difference bespeaks the faithfulness of the writer of the Acts, and shews us that he has left the narratives as they came to his hand, without any attempt to stamp on them an individuality of his own.