32 As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord’s people who lived in Lydda. 33 There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years. 34 “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up. 35 All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. 37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. 38 Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!”
39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
40 Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. 41 He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. 42 This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. 43 Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.
Dig Deeper
One of my favorite all-time television shows is the Andy Griffith show. Even though that show came on the air and was gone before I was even born I have always loved it. I have watched it ever since I can remember and, in fact, it happens to be on the television as I write this right now. I dare say that I have seen every single episode of that show that was ever made. One of the most memorable episodes for me when was when Sheriff Andy Taylor, the main character, was asked to be the sole judge of the town’s beauty contest at their founder’s day celebration. The week before the contest was full of young ladies trying to woo the sheriff and impress him with their considerable talents and attributes. They all desperately tried to demonstrate for the sheriff just how important they were and how foolish it would be to not pick them. To make matters worse, the parents and those close to the different young ladies try to use their influence to convince the sheriff to choose their loved one during the contest. The sheriff was almost overwhelmed by all of this but managed to get through the week and get everything prepared for the big day thanks to the tireless efforts of a very kind and quiet older woman, Ms. Bishop, who took care of almost everything for the event. On the day of the celebration the sheriff didn’t know what to do. He was simply torn as to who he should vote for. As the moment came where he had to crown “Miss Mayberry,” he had a brilliant thought. Everyone was so worried about the “important” girls in town that they failed to even notice this quiet but infinitely helpful servant, Ms. Bishop. So, even though she wasn’t an official contestant, Andy named Ms. Bishop the winner of the contest for being the one who displayed true beauty and grace all week.
It is easy to pay attention to the flashy and important folks around us, even within our church families and not notice the Ms. Bishops very often. They are the quiet humble workers that maybe don’t have the gifts that put them up front in the eyes of others but they are the real heart and soul of the church. They are the ones that make it go, but they very rarely get any credit, not that they would usually want any, and they certainly don’t get noticed much. It’s a good thing for us that Luke wasn’t as unaware of those invaluable people as we often can be. Without his careful preservation of people like those mentioned in this section, we would never know about people like Tabitha and Aeneas. Although Luke is giving the large sweep of the most important events in the development of God’s people, he takes the time to record some of the regular folks who were truly the lifeblood of that family.
We aren’t told exactly why Peter was traveling around the country and visiting the Lord’s people, but it was presumably to encourage and build up the communities there. These communities had likely been formed as Christians that fled the persecution in Jerusalem spread throughout the area (Acts 8:1, 4). Although it is also true that Philip had passed through this area as he preached to gospel as he was going from Azotus to Caesarea (Acts 8:40). Lydda was about twenty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem and Joppa was thirty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem.
As he traveled, Peter met with the Lord’s people in Lydda. The word rendered “Lord’s people” in the NIV is literally “saints.” The meaning of “saints” were those who were set apart for God. Thus, the translation “Lord’s people” is quite appropriate. It is important to note that this word “saints” is always used in the New Testament for a group rather than individual people. Saints are not specific people who have attained some higher spiritual standing than most. It is a collective term that refers to God’s people as a whole. Christians are not saints in and of ourselves, we are all part of the saints, the special collection of God’s family.
While in Lydda, Peter came across a man named Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years (although the Greek could also be taken to say that he was bedridden since he was eight). Luke never explicitly tells us whether Aeneas was himself a Christian or not at the time of his encounter with Peter, but the specific use of his name probably indicates that he either was one at the time or became one after this incident. As Peter encountered this man he made it clear that it was Jesus Christ who was supplying the healing power, not Peter. Aeneas had just experienced the verifying power of the Holy Spirit as he confirmed that this group of the Lord’s people really were just that. People need not see them as a group of blasphemers or God rejecters. They really were God’s people. As a result, then of his healing, more people to come to the truth of the gospel.
As Peter moved on to Joppa he quickly joined up with the family of disciples there as they were caring for a disciple named Tabitha. Tabitha was not someone that we would normally hear about. She apparently did nothing spectacular or specifically important as far as spreading the gospel goes. She seemingly held no big title and had no defined leadership role within the Christian community. Yet, as Luke makes clear, she was just as important as any other disciple, evangelist, or apostle, for in Christ there are no distinctions (see Gal. 3:26-29) that make one person any more valuable than another. Tabitha was extremely important, though, because she was a disciple of Jesus Christ. She lived what she claimed to believe. She was always, Luke tells us, doing good and helping the poor. She was one of those people that is easy to not notice but she was dearly loved because she understood that being a Christian meant a life of devotion and service to God’s people and to those who were on the bottom of society.
During Peter’s stay with the disciples, Tabitha herself became ill and died. The family of believers immediately took on the role of family within that culture by caring for her body because they knew that she was their true family. This is in stark contrast to most Christians today who might think fondly of other Christians and even spend a fair amount of time with them, but would hardly consider them as their true family in the areas of being their true identity, the true source and object of their loyalty and affection, and the ones who they would consider more important than their blood families. It was the disciples who would care for Tabitha’s body and bury her if necessary. But they seemed to have something else in mind. Rather than immediately burying her, they sent for Peter.
Tabitha’s constant labor and service within the family of believers had won her many friends. This was exactly what Jesus had urged his people to do with their worldly resources (see Lk. 16:9 where Jesus urged his people to use their resources to gain friends rather than just on themselves). Rather than hoarding our resources and using them for ourselves, we are called to give, serve, and love other people and in doing so, create a community of believers where all achieve sufficiency and none lack because surplus is also rejected. This woman had spent her life helping those who were seemingly insignificant to the world, especially the widows, and would probably have become rather insignificant in the eyes of the world around her at the time, but she was not insignificant within the people of God or to Peter. He immediately went to see her.
As Peter arrived we can almost imagine the touching scene as those that she had shared her life with, showed Peter the clothes that she made for them and surely shared with him all of the ways that she let the words of Jesus inhabit her life and become who she was. They wanted Peter to know how loved Tabitha was and how much she had loved them not because they were poor but because they were part of God’s family. It was the Tabithas who made up the very fabric of the Christian community and who continue to make it up today. They are the tireless and quite servants who never cease in serving and loving others because they know that that is how they demonstrate their true love and loyalty to God (see 1 Jn. 4:19-21). Tabitha didn’t go around helping poor people and becoming involved in causes because she wanted to fulfill some duty or ease her own guilt. She had joined a community of God’s people that had pledged to live their lives in mutual submission to one another (Eph. 5:21) and live with the interests of one another as their key priority (see 2 Cor. 5:15 and Phil. 2:3-4).
As Peter entered into the room where Tabitha was lying, it is hard to imagine that his mind didn’t drift back to the room of Jairus’ daughter that he had entered with Jesus not too many years before (Mk. 5:37-43). He sent everyone out of the room just as Jesus had done and then he turned in prayer to the one who could raise people from the dead. After he prayed, Peter’s mind probably recalled Jesus turning to that little girl and resolutely saying “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up.” Perhaps Peter remembered those words fondly as her turned confidently in the power of the Lord and said “Tabitha Koum,” or “Tabitha, get up.”
Peter, no doubt, took great joy in taking Tabitha, now raised from the dead, and presenting her to those who loved her so dearly. Her life had been about the benefit of others. And now her death and the subsequent miracle of being raised from the dead would also continue to benefit others as word of her raising would cause many more to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and enter into God’s family.
Before Peter left Joppa, though, he stayed with Simon the Tanner. This is one more important detail given to us by Luke as he continues to describe the social barriers that were quickly disintegrating in the family of God. Tanners were looked down upon and often ostracized in the Jewish culture because they were constantly handling dead animals and were continually ceremonially unclean. This would have been rather shocking, but then Luke was making clear that Jesus meant what he said when he quoted from Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19). At every turn this passage reminds us that the people that are most forgettable to the world are not forgettable to God, nor should they be amongst his people.
Devotional Thought
When you die what will the believers say about you? Will they be able to fill a room with the evidence and the tales of all that you did in the service and love of others? Are you truly using what God has given you to gain friends and prepare for his eternal kingdom?
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