I want to continue a discussion I started about Acts chapter 3. Particularly I began to highlight 3 unusual things about Peter’s response to the beggar he meets. Previously I highlighted the simple fact that Peter looked at him. I don’t look at beggars, do you? Peter paid the beggar more attention than the beggar paid him.

In this second post I want to highlight the famous line Peter used "Silver and Gold have I none, but what I have I give unto you"

Without getting distracted into the awesomeness that is Peter and what happened after, Let’s look at that… little… piece:

Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver nor gold, but what I have I give you;

At first blush that sounds something all of us would say.

”Spare any change?”

”No I’m sorry, I haven’t got any”

The only difference between us and Peter (aside from the Eye Contact thing) is that he wasn’t lying. He actually didn’t have any money. no silver, no gold no coins, no cash, no atm card. We learn in Chapter 4:34-35 that the reason he didn’t have anything, was that he had already given everything away to other people who are in need.

I spoke previously about the challenge to simply look beggars in the eye. Can you imagine the challenge of giving beggars everything you have. Straight to them, not through some ministry. you ask “how much do you need” and then you empty your bank account until there is nothing left. What a radical and incredible statement to make about the Kingdom of God if that actually worked for both of you?

I’ve been living out the first challenge since it came to my attention last year at this time and it had been a tremendous blessing. The truth is that I’m just too selfish to take on this challenge just yet. But I am putting this blog up as an exercise in the biblical practice of admitting that.

Lord God, my trust in you is incomplete, imperfect broken and sinful. I see these words and I know very well what they mean. I see the same call in the story of the Rich Young Ruler, The Widow’s Might, and Ananias and Sapharia. Even in the Feeding of the 5000 you include a report of a child that shared all he had and fed a multitude. Yet I grasp. I cling to what is mine because I still think I know better despite knowing I don’t. I am broken. Forgive me. And Forgive the many ways I twist the scriptures in my sin to make them mean something else with which I am more comfortable. Amen