Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things
We read in Acts 4:13-14, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. 14 But seeing the man that had been healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.”
Does God use only “spiritual giants” to do His work on earth? No! God uses common, ordinary, everyday people like most of us to do His bidding and to be empowered with abilities needed to influence others for Jesus Christ. Peter and John had just been used by God in an astounding miracle, the healing of a man crippled from birth (Acts 3:1-8). They were dragged before the Jewish religious leaders for interrogation, and Peter answered in Acts 4:10 that it was “by the name of Jesus Christ” that the man had been healed.
We read in Acts 4:13 that the high priest and other Jewish leaders were astonished that what they perceived as “unlearned and ignorant men” could do such a miracle. The Jewish priests, scribes, and elders suffered from elitism, believing that only a limited number of people in high positions could be used by God. That elitism continues in the thinking of many religious people today. But God took care of that prejudice. He chose to use those that the snobbish might consider just ordinary, everyday people, such as Peter and John, to do great things for Him.
In Acts 22:12-13 a man named Ananias came to see Paul, then Saul. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ and at that very moment Saul was able to see him. What do we know about Ananias? Was he a great preacher? An elder or great church leader? No. What we know of him in Acts 9:10 is simply that he was a devout, respected disciple of the Lord. No more is said of Ananias. Yet he was used by God to heal a future apostle’s blindness.
How interesting, an apostle-to-be healed by the ministry of a disciple. But we modern believers tend to get it all backwards. We expect the apostles and other “spiritual giants” to do a remarkable ministry, while the other followers of the Lord remain humbly on the sidelines. That has never been God’s plan. God from the outset has chosen many ordinary, everyday, common people, even supposedly “ignorant” people, to do His work on earth. Moses came from tending sheep in the desert to lead Israel out of Egypt. Daniel came out of slavery and captivity in Babylon to become the godly assistant to the king of Babylon. The apostles Peter and John had previously been fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. In the Bible we see ordinary people doing extraordinary things for God God used Moses the shepherd, Daniel the captive slave, Peter and John the fishermen and God is ready to use you.
Pastor Ralph