St. Peter's Shadow
I. The first idea suggested by the text is that of a superstitious reliance of the multitude upon the person of St. Peter, operating as a charm upon those brought into juxtaposition with him. They had seen his word and his touch potent to relieve sickness and impart strength. These effects seemed to place St. Peter and all that appertained to him entirely above the commen world. They stayed not therefore to reflect and reason. They passed, in their unthinking enthusiasm, to an exaggerated estimate of the Apostle as the fountain head of health and life, from whom, as from the unconscious sun, radiated a virtue to heal of his peculiar infirmity whosoever stepped within his shadow. It is not difficult to identify the error into which these people fell. They degraded God's grant of miracle to the Apostles, as responsible agents, into a magical influence seated in their bodies. That, however, which God saw to commend amid much worthy of rebuke, was the simple but intense faith which these persons manifested in the Divine power working amongst them. The early disciples, in the earnestness of their belief, sank into a superstitious notion of miraculous virtue attaching itself to unconscious things a cloth, a shadow. We, in our slowness to look beyond the material universe, are in peril of denying the reality of a spiritual world intersecting at every point our own, of questioning the verity of all influences which we can neither calculate nor trace.
II. Note the manner in which God met this childlike faith of these primitive Christians. It is not distinctly stated that where the shadow of Peter fell sickness vanished and the hues of health returned; but the tone of the narrative implies as much. And, if so, then the miracle assumes a very peculiar character. God throws His power into the impotent sign which man has devised. These people fancied that the Apostle's shadow would be their cure; God meets them half-way and invests that shadow with an efficacy which in itself it had not, making it, to those who believed, the instrument of health and strength. Almighty love overflows the prescribed channels, and, in condescension to the creature's infirmity, heals him in his own way. It is not a knowledge of mysteries, but an intense childlike faith in Himself, as the Fountain of all good, that God prizes. There is no error of understanding which can hinder the outgoings of Divine compassion to those who, in whatever depth of ignorance, lift up their souls to Him.
Bishop Woodford, Sermons on Subjects from the New Testament,p. 79.
We all exert unconscious influence, and thus, even in our spheres of secular life, we affect one another. (1) Our voluntary efforts are only occasional and interrupted, while our unconscious energy is everywhere operative and constant. (2) Our constant and silent energy is most expressive of our real character, and therefore comes most into the sphere of what we call moral influence, which is always the most important. Consider this thought in its practical applications.
I. It should impress us with a sense of the importance of human life.
II. Even for the unconscious influence of such a life we are solemnly responsible.
III. Surely death does not destroy all the unconscious influence of human shadows.
C. Wadsworth, Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 1.
References: Acts 5:15. Contemporary Pulpit,vol. v., p. 61. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 1.Acts 5:17-32. Homilist,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 190. Acts 5:19; Acts 5:20. W. J. Henderson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 275.Acts 5:20. J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons,p. 50. Acts 5:29. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 326. Acts 5:31. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxii., No. 1301; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 113; Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., p. 106; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. i., p. 160. Acts 5:31; Acts 5:32. T. Hall, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 270. Acts 5:33-42. Homilist,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 252.