Acts 9:32

32-35. We have just seen Saul sent "far hence to the Gentiles;" but as yet we have no account of the admission of uncircumcised Gentiles into the Church; it is time that this account should be before us, and Luke proceeds to give it. He approaches the subject by relating the circumstances which led Peter, who was the chosen instrument for opening the gates of the kingdom to the Gentiles, into the city of Joppa, where the messengers of Cornelius found him. We parted company with this apostle on his return with John from the visit to Samaria. We meet him again, engaged in active labor through the rural districts of his native country. (32) "Now it came to pass that Peter, passing through all quarters, came down also to the saints who dwelt at Lydda. (33) And he found there a certain man named Æneas, who had kept his bed eight years, and was paralyzed. (34) And Peter said to him, Æneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise, and make your bed. And he arose immediately. (35) And all who dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him and turned to the Lord." The long continuance of painful disease makes the afflicted individual well known to a large circle of neighbors, and fixes their attention upon the disease itself as one difficult to cure. Hence, the effect upon this community of the cure of Æneas, like that of the lame man at the Beautiful gate of the temple, was decisive and almost universal. It was a demonstration of divine power in Jesus the Christ, whom Peter had declared the agent of the cure, which the honest people of Lydda and Saron could not gainsay, and therefore they had no honest alternative but to yield to his claims.