Bold Believers

Bold Believers
Acts 5.12-16
Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem. Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as they came by. A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.
It's difficult to imagine God's Church being as bold and miraculous as it was in the book of Acts. This is discouraging. Thankfully, God has given us a model as to what the Church should look like. Acts provides many powerful examples of how bold believers should act.

We see that the early Church performed “many signs and wonders among the people through the apostles.” While television is full of falsified, cheap gimmicks of people being miraculously healed if only they bought a holy leaf or water, there are signs and wonders that God still performs today. He miraculously heals the terminal patient. He fills missionaries in foreign nations or who are among foreign tongues with the language necessary to preach the Gospel. He sends us angels to protect us from physical harm. Most important and miraculous, though, is that He changes hearts. What is it we see emphasized all throughout Acts whenever miraculous events occur? It is that “more than ever believers were added to the Lord.”

That is the ultimate goal of bold believers—they spread the Gospel. God ultimately heals, saves people from physical death, releases “those tormented by unclean spirits” for the purpose of saving them or using their healing to save someone else. Some would say that this means God has ulterior motives—that this means God is not merely saving out of the goodness of His own heart. To this we must say that God surely does have ulterior motives, just as we do. But his ulterior motives are ultimately for the good of His children. He uses bold believers to heal the sick and save the lost, who are then saved and heal the sick, who are then saved and heal the sick, etc. It is a wonderful fractal; it is a repetitive cycle of God redeeming His people. We should be honored to be part of such a ministry.

Christ wants us to be bold believers. He does not wish us to be merely passive, putting on fake smiles and merely being “nice.” This is something I myself must work on, as most of us must do. We are God's Church, and He calls us to be bold. Like the early apostles in Acts, may we too heal the sick, cast out demons, and preach the Gospel boldly. If you haven't been doing that, begin to do so today. Ask God for the strength and guidance to be bold for Him. Amen.

With love in Christ,


Austin Aldrich