God Uses MOVING People! Acts 9-10

 Acts 9:32-35 (ESV Strong's)

The Healing of Aeneas

32 Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. 33 There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. 34 And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. 35 And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

God Uses MOVING People!

The above passages about the healing of Aeneas comes right in the middle of some key stories about Paul and Peter.  In one sense, from a literary and structure point of view, it seems completely out of place and unrelated.  In reading the beginning Acts 9 we have just read the monumental conversion of Saul to become the Apostle Paul.  When we read chapter ten we will read Peter’s introduction to sharing Christ with a Gentile, a centurion in the Roman army who “feared God.”  Sandwiched in the middle of these two large events in Church history, we have what appears to be a simple story, unrelated to the theme, as written by the Apostle Luke.    After Aeneas’ conversion, we hear nothing about him in Scripture, ever again.   Yet, perhaps, there is something here for us.   The beginning of the above passage simply states that “Peter went here and there among them all.”   We have little to go with here, other than Peter was on the move.  Aeneas lived in Lydda.   This miracle was done in that town.  That small miracle, however, would be the connected tissue for what follows in Acts.   In a nearby town (Joppa) and women named, Dorcas, became ill and died.  Since the people of Joppa heard of the miracle in Lydda, they sent for Peter.   Healing Dorcas they gave Peter a place to stay in Joppa.  Since he was in Joppa, God would use Peter to speak the gospel to another man in a town near that, Caesarea ... Cornelius, the Roman centurion (the first Gentile to be saved in the book of Acts).   We have to remember, there was no email in those days to contact people. No cellular service.  There was no train, plane or cars.   They walked and talked, face-to-face (seems odd).   God was able to use Peter in Caesarea because he was nearby in Joppa. He was in Joppa, because he was nearby in Lydda.   He was in Lydda because he was moving “here and there.”  God uses people who move for the express interest in being used by God, wherever they are.   God does not want us to “wonder” where we should be for Him.  He wants us to “wander” and be used by Him.   God uses the “wanderer” not the “wonderer.”