GOSPEL MEDITATION #31
The Healing of Aeneas & Dorcas Restored to Life
Acts 9:32-43
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- Luke’s story returns now to Peter. Likely Peter, returning to Jerusalem after he and John investigated the events surrounding Philip’s Samaritan mission, evangelized on his way home. At Lyyda, formerly Lod, NW of Jerusalem, Peter encounters a man named Aeneas, a believer, paralyzed for either 8 years or since he was 8 years old.
- Aeneas is healed, by Jesus, and as a result “all” but meaning “many” are converted. (Consult a map to view region.)
- Tabitha (Hebrew name) or Dorcas (Greek name) and both mean Gazelle, living in Joppa, dies. She is called a “disciple” and we note Aeneas was not so designated. (Joppa, also knows as Jaffe, is in the environs of Tel-Aviv.
- She was prepared for burial, absent the usual anointing with oil, and her body was placed in an “upper room”—an open air but covered rooftop room, common in that period.
- Peter is in Lydda, a 3 hour walk from Joppa. The believers in Joppa are aware of Peter’s closeness and send 2 men to ask him to come to Lydda.
- Peter encounters “widows” and these are likely considered poor, and for which Dorcas had given gifts to, which garments they were then wearing.
- Peter put these all “outside,” just as Jesus had done in the case of the daughter of Jairus (see Mark 5), getting on his knees (Jewish men usually prayed standing), said to the “body” “Tabitha arise.” With Jairus’ daughter’s case, Jesus said, “Talitha arise.” Talitha means young girl. We note in Mark 5 that Peter, James, and John were present then.