Who? (10/20/26-10/21/26)

The more I look at this passage, the more questions seem to arise, which is, I suppose, as it should be.  For if we don’t ask the questions, we are unlikely to find the answers.  But it feels rather like coming at this event as a reporter, looking for the story, wondering if there is one.  The first issue that arises for me is that it is not entirely clear who Luke is talking about at various points in this brief summation of the event.  Who are the they gathered at the portico, for instance?  The answer to that question has significant impact on how we see the action.  Then, too, who are the rest?  That, it seems to me, hinges on who we suppose constituted they who were at the portico.  It doesn’t help matters that Luke seems to use a great deal of hyperbole in his coverage.  It’s not even one, it’s all.  And yet, in spite of the all, there are many, and those many act contrary to what was just said of all.  The end result is that we have a challenge before us, and it seems to me, we need to try and meet that challenge if we are to properly receive the point of having written about this.

I see at least two possibilities.  The first is that we are being presented with something of a contrast between believers being brought into the church and the general populace; i.e. that there are two groups presented before us.  A second possibility, though, is that we are actually looking at three:  The Apostles, the Church, and the rest of the city.  You could even make it four, splitting the rest of the city into two contingents per our first set of two groups:  Those coming to faith, and those missing the point.  It seems that most of our translations make no attempt to clarify or to take a position, which is probably wise, given that we don’t really have clear indication as to who exactly is being referred to in these several references.  But some of our more periphrastic translations do choose a perspective.  The Message, for example, appears to lean towards finding the whole church gathered there at the temple, noting how they were ‘in remarkable harmony.’  The TLB, on the other hand, sees the church as constituting the rest noted in verse 13, saying, “The other believers didn’t dare join them.”  That would leave us with the Apostles gathered as one there in the portico of Solomon.

I have to say that seems to me a far more believable view of the thing, not because it makes the potential for harmony and accord more likely, but because the sheer numbers involved in gathering the whole church together in that place seems so improbable, not to mention a bit unwise.  After all, such a large gathering, happening on the regular right there on the temple premises would be sure to catch the attention of the ones who had just insisted that Peter and John stop preaching Jesus.  It also makes sense that, coming from the report Peter gave of the Sanhedrin’s opposition, many in that young church would be leery of being found with the Apostles in that setting.

So, then, if the Apostles are the ones at temple, and the Church are the rest who didn’t dare join them there, that leaves us with the people, who are the easiest group to identify, being those outside the Church, the rest of the city, and in time, the rest of Judea.  This, in turn, may alter how we connect the scene back to the prayers offered by the Church upon receiving Peter and John back safely.  But I want to spend a bit more time with them, with the Apostles before moving on from this question of who.

These twelve, the Apostles, are at the center of the scene that is laid out in this section.  They are there in the temple courts.  They are there in the streets.  And they are becoming quite noteworthy.  Why?  Well, for one, they are teaching about Jesus, whom the people had known, whom they knew to have been executed, and yet, whom the Apostles declared vehemently to be alive, and not only alive, but seated with God the Father in heaven.  And He Who was and is sits as Advocate for those who believe, having atoned for their sins by the death He died.  Had that been the whole of it, and had the Gospel not been the power of God to save in its own right, they might have been dismissed from thought.  It’s a novel tale, an interesting philosophy, perhaps, but of no practical value.

It was not, however, the spoken word alone, something readily dismissed as so much hokum.  No.  It came with testifying signs and wonders.  We are not informed as to what exactly these were.  We might assume healings, given that they are so prominent in the narrative here, and so prominent as well in the ministry of Jesus whom they preached.  But we have healing specifically mentioned at the end, and curiously, no notice there of the healed and delivered actually coming to saving faith.  They may have.  They may not have.  One could wish Luke had been a bit clearer here, in order that we could clearly delineate who is doing what and to what result.  But he is not, and we must accept that this was to the Spirit’s purpose.  Yet, it does leave me wondering what other signs and wonders were transpiring that affirmed the message.  Maybe it was in fact acts of healing and deliverance, and the impact upon those who believed was that they brought those who had need of same in hopes that maybe they would receive the benefit of these signs.   Yet, if that was the case, does this not imply that perhaps they missed the point?  Would it not render them of the sort who want the benefits but not the faith?  I don’t know.  I may be proving too skeptical of their intentions.  But let me get back to these twelve Apostles.

They are preaching and their preaching is accompanied by such signs as should, and apparently do serve to convince those listening that they speak truly and do so at God’s behest.  Here, they are saying, is what God had in mind for you all from the very start.  Here is the fulfilling of that promise made to Adam and Eve when first they fell into sin and were discovered.  Here is the meaning behind the Flood, and Noah’s provided rescue from it.  Here is what the kingdom of Israel was supposed to present to the world.  Here is what all the prophets were pointing you to.  And it has happened.  It is happening!  It is set before you in full potential.  Listen and hear!  Look and see!  God is among His people.  He has not given up on man.  No!  He is determined to save whom He will save.  He is calling His own out of the way of impending judgment.  That judgment must come, yet there is hope, and not the hope of wishful thinking, but the hope of divine certainty.  And it seems many did hear, and many did see, and they believed.  Not all, but many.  Not a majority, but many.

So great is the impact of what these few men are doing together there in the court of the Gentiles that they are becoming known to all.  They can no longer walk the streets in anonymity.  For all that, it would seem that their route between the temple and wherever it was they were now based was sufficiently known that people were more or less lining the streets with those who could not or would not come to the temple courts to receive from them.  They would not, it seems, impose themselves upon the Apostles to pause and attend to their hurting fellows, but they thought maybe just being in the presence of such men of God might suffice.  If they could just get close enough, perhaps some of that holiness might rub off.  It’s almost as if they thought perhaps the power of God was a bit like static electricity.  Close the gap enough and the spark will jump across.

But again, shift perspective.  Look at this from the place of the Apostles.  What I see are twelve men who are never on break.  When they are at temple, they are actively ministering the Gospel to the people of Israel.  When they are at home, they are actively ministering to those already called out by God.  When they are between locations, they are ministering, ready or not, to those who now have expectations of them.  There is no break apart from sleep.  And one suspects that even in sleeping, they were occupied with ministry concerns.  And again, I would point out that these were not some sort of superheroes, more than human, that they could maintain this activity.  They did not, however, do so by human strength or human will.  They did so because God who had appointed them, who had trained them and prepared them for this task supplied them from His own power.

Thinking back on my trips over to Africa, I can feel that I touched this in some much smaller way.  We did, after all, have what amounted to as off times, however brief.  We could return to our accommodations of an evening and relax a bit.  We would be on our flights without it necessitating that we were being called upon to minister to those in the seats beside us.  I suppose the opportunity may have been there, but it didn’t necessitate being ‘on,’ as you might say.  That said, so long as active ministry required, there was never, or at least nearly never any sense of being exhausted and unable to continue.  I mean, there was that first day after landing, ministering in a hot church eight time zones out of alignment, and yes, exhaustion was an issue, but it would lift the moment we were called to speak or to pray or to do whatever it might be that needed to be done.  And I would say that the road trip out into the remote villages of Zambia took a toll.  Perhaps that is because said trip was not really to God’s purpose?  Perhaps it was simply the unexpectedness of the journey, as it was intended to be a day off for us to recharge.  Perhaps it was my own weakness and selfishness.  Perhaps a bit of all of the above.  I cannot say.  But beyond that, when we were doing what we came to do, there was energy enough and more.  And I must conclude that for the Apostles, though it seems they were always on, the feeling must have been the same, that there was always more than enough energy to pursue the work of God.  I would also expect that they had learned well from their Master and as such found time daily to retreat to a place of prayerful communion with God.  That would suggest that while it appears they were always on, they were in fact finding times when at least being on was, if you’ll pardon the figure, rather like a computer put in sleep mode; still running, still connected, but not actively pursuing the business of ministry; recharging.

It does, however, make me wonder what our lives might look like were we to pursue a course more like that of the Apostles.  It is unlikely that as we go about town, assuming we do, people have us tagged as Christians.  For one thing, our society as much differently structured.  We lack to the cohesiveness of first century Jerusalem, where presence at the temple was almost a given.  I’m sure there were those in the city who would not have their shadow cross the threshold of the temple gates.  Yet it was so integral to civic life that I might suppose even the tax collectors, despised as they were, made an appearance.  We lack that sort of cohesion.  At least around here, the bulk of social contact is with immediate family, perhaps a few close friends, and beyond that, well, our fellow church members.  We don’t even associate with those at other churches in the neighborhood, really.  And in the workplace, well!  I’ve known a few in the course of my career who put up little evidences of their religion, and some even managed a reasonably good example of faith in their dealings with coworkers.  But more often, matters of faith remained private matters, perhaps shared with others one discovered to be fellow believers.  But we have been trained, haven’t we, that the workplace is not a proper setting for evangelism.  Maybe during breaks.  Or maybe one could envision making arrangements for some after-hours discussion.  But it is a rarity, I expect.  We have been conditioned.

What would happen, though, were we to break free of societal constraints?  What would change if we went about our employments in clear and open practice of our faith?  What if we came out of stealth mode, and made plain that we believe in Christ, and then – and this is critical – lived our work lives in such ways as gave consistent evidence of that belief?  What if the impact of our faith were so great that those who encountered us when we were out and about recognized us as belonging to Christ?  It’s going to take more than hanging a cross on a necklace.  More than enough do so already, and account it little more than a decoration.  And so, as a result, do those who see it.  Oh how pretty.  But it has no meaning.  It’s going to take more than a cute bumper sticker, or some attempted cleverness on a sign.  These are too common and too soon contradicted by the actions of the one with the sticker or the sign.  If you’re wearing a tee shirt with some Christian message on it, do you wear it with conscious attention to bearing yourself in Christ-like manner?  Or has it become just another article of clothing, with no more and no less significance than a concert tee?  What does that concert tee say about you?  Yeah, I was at that concert.  Does it tell us anything of your character?  Does it speak in the least of what changed as a result of being at that concert?  Of course not.  It’s barely even a matter of bragging rights.  After all, 99% of the people you encounter have either not heard of the act or don’t think that much of them.  So, what about your Christian tee?  Is it saying anything more than, “I went to church once”?  Does the outward form of that tee reflect a true inward state?  If it does, then that tee shirt should be a sign, something to make people wonder, but the true evidence should be in your interactions with them.

What if you don’t have a tee shirt, a bumper sticker, a poster, or a sign?  The same ought still to hold.  There ought to be something about your interactions with them that gives pause, causes them to wonder.  At bare minimum, it seems to me that the hope that is within us ought to give rise to expressions of that hope.  It ought to set us apart, particularly from the fraught state of most people in modern life.  We find ourselves in a society that is fracturing, beset by fears and troubles.  Yet we ought to be calm and at rest.  We may be facing sickness, perhaps chronic illness, and certainly the effects of aging, which are inescapable.  Yet, if we belong to Christ and know where things are taking us, ought we not to be facing those with peaceful confidence?  Don’t go about mourning like the worldly do.  Is that not the instruction we receive?  Rejoice in all things.  Is that not the instruction we receive?  And what will the world think of one who rejoices in the face of life at its worst?  Surely that is a sign and a wonder!  And if they wonder at the sign, perhaps, just perhaps, they shall inquire as to the cause.  And if they inquire, it’s time for us to be ‘on.’  Let the truth be told, and let seeds of hope take root.

My point, I suppose, is this.  The church is no less powerful and relevant for having perhaps a lesser set of signs and wonders, as men account it.  Maybe even believers account it such, wonder what’s missing, and why we don’t see these things on the regular like the early church did.  My blithe answer would be that this is the case because God has determined that it isn’t what’s needed for this time and place.  If it was necessary, it would be done.  By corollary, if it is not being done, it wasn’t necessary.  Fret not, then.  God is still active, and signs and wonders still occur.  They just don’t look the same.  When a modern intellectual comes to faith, it is still every bit as much a wonder as when some Jewish peasant did, every bit as amazing as those Gentiles who set aside their idols and turned to follow Christ back in the first century AD.  God is, after all, still God, and the Gospel is still the power of God to save.  Let us concern ourselves less with matters of the wow factor, and more with living our faith faithfully, boldly, before a world in need.

And that, I know, is an encouragement I need for myself, inclined as I am to restrict my efforts for training those who already believe.  I don’t know as I am wrong to do so.  We each have our areas of gifting, and that seems to be mine.  Yet, to live faith out loud is needful whatever one’s gifts.  To walk consistently in faith is needful whatever one’s gifts.  And if we do that, I suspect the need to declare the gospel clearly and succinctly will be inevitable.

Why? (10/22/26-10/23/26)

Considering that once again we find faith close-coupled with acts of healing and deliverance, I find myself asking why?  Why is there this connection?  Is it a necessary connection that the real preaching and application of the Gospel must result in physical healings and spiritual deliverances?  If I run with the assumption that these are at least a portion, perhaps a large portion of those signs and wonders the Apostles were performing, then it offers a pretty clear reason for them being part of that ministry, certainly.  After all, what the Apostles were preaching was, in no small way, turning the official practices of temple worship on its head.  This was advocating for a change far greater than what the Reformation sought to achieve.  It was no longer a case of trying to get back to first principles.  It was full replacement.  The old wineskins of Mosaic rites and ceremonies simply couldn’t fit any longer with the reality of faith alone by grace alone.

But what has this to do with healing?  I mean, it seems sufficiently obvious that disease speaks of the body ceasing to function as it ought, right?  Indeed, it’s a wonder in its own right just how able this physical body is of effectively healing itself.  But there are those things that won’t simply heal, and in fact would not heal by anything man could do.  While modern medicine has made stunning progress in finding treatments and doing far more than merely seeking to ameliorate the symptoms, mask the pain, but actually bring about proper function again, there remain any number of maladies which are still beyond the art of man to truly address.  So, if disease is a malfunction of the body, and neither natural function nor art of man can affect repair, what is one to make of it when that body is in fact repaired?  Well!  It’s rather like taking your exotic imported vehicle to the local shop, whose mechanics throw up their hands, having no idea how to fix it, and rather afraid to make the attempt.  Then, off to the dealership and its trained technicians, and voila!  The Designer of the body is most assuredly able to address these malfunctions.  The power of God is most assuredly able to dislodge any demonic infestation.

This is, after all, what was happening with Jesus when He was present among the people.  Mark tells us about it, as do the other Gospels, but Mark is so pleasantly concise.  From all over the country, people were coming to Jesus wherever He was reported to be.  Whether in village or camped out in the country side, it made no difference.  Word got out, and the sick came in.  Even when it meant friends or family carrying them to Jesus on pallets, they came.  They came in desperate hope, thinking maybe, if they could just manage the touch of the tassels on His cloak, they might be healed.  They needn’t trouble the Teacher overmuch, just be found along His way, wherever it was He was going.  It wouldn’t be taking His time, after all, needn’t even slow Him down.  And, per Mark’s much shorter coverage, “As many as did so were being cured” (Mk 6:55-56).

Why?  I clinical assessment of the result would have to recognize that for all that they were healed, the end result for them was still going to be the grave.  However long life might be prolonged, it was never going to be forever.  Even Lazarus, raised from the grave to the astonishment of all Jerusalem, would eventually find himself there again.  It does give one pause, though, doesn’t it?  I mean, Hebrews is clear enough on this.  It is appointed for man once to die, and then comes the judgment (Heb 9:27).  So, did this equate to double jeopardy for Lazarus?  I can’t say.  And it’s really just a bit of a distraction, I expect; not worth pursuing.

But look at the Gospels.  Look at the ministry of Jesus, and this is no one off.  It’s a common feature of His ministry.  If it were not so, there would have been no reason for anybody to expect anything, no reason to lug loved ones cross country on their beds, lay them out in the heat of the day in expectation of Jesus’ passing by.  If it were a very rare event, even then, I don’t suppose it would have elicited such a response.  But it wasn’t rare.  Yet, it also wasn’t the point, was it?  Healing was a sign, not an end in itself.  It was intended to be evidence of His fellowship with the Father, indeed, as evidence that He Himself was the Son of God, God Incarnate.  And we might ask, how many of those come to receive a healing understood the significance?  How many even cared why He was healing?  They were getting healed, and that was enough.  For many, that’s as far as their thoughts would travel.  Yet, still, He healed.  That is, I think, more amazing than the healing itself.  He healed them in spite of their lack of spiritual concern, in spite of their superstitious concepts.  For some, we don’t really know how many, perhaps healing did position them to hear effectually.  I mean they had come, they were there.  Might as well give Him a listen before going home.  And the Gospel is the power of God to save (Ro 1:16), faith coming by hearing.  So, yes, for some, however misguided the reason for coming, the result was still salvation.  But for many, I expect this was not the case.

What, then, is the connection?  The design is to offer God’s witness to His servants.  Yes, this one is Mine.  Yes, his words are Mine.  For Jesus, it was the daily equivalent of God’s testimony to Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration:  “This is My beloved Son.  Listen to Him” (Mk 9:7).  That same testimony is at play here, if on a different level.  We might even take it as the Son making like declaration over the Apostles.  “These are My chosen servants.  Listen to them.”  Healing was the sign, perhaps the draw, if one wants to think in more commercial terms.  They were the posters about town inviting curiosity, calling folks to come and see.  And they did come, and they did see.  Some even understood, and understanding, became true believers.

The parallel of that aspect of Jesus’ ministry to what the Apostles were now doing is unmistakable.  The parallel in the response to their ministry is unmistakable.  And it makes sense, doesn’t it?  This is how they were trained.  From their first assignment, when the seventy were sent out by pairs, they had known this connection between healing and deliverance and word ministry.  They went together.  It does make one wonder a bit whether we have lost something by dismissing the former.  Or was it by God’s own design?

That is another question that needs to be asked.  Many would insist that the Church has weakened herself by letting this aspect of ministry go by the wayside.  Certainly, amongst Pentecostals and Charismatics, there is a strong expectation that such healings and deliverances yet mark the true Church, and any church that has no such experiences to their account must be found suspect, lifeless even.  On the other hand, we meet the strong opinion that these gifts were specific to the Apostolic era, to the founding of the Church, needful for that time because of the radical change involved.  Yet, isn’t a turn from false religion or no religion unto a real faith in the Christ always a radical change?  Is it any less of a system shock to the modern man?  If it isn’t, then maybe we are doing something wrong.  If saving faith has become something one can put on like a sweater, and be effectively unchanged by the result, if a bit more comfortable, then we have missed the mark.  We have become like those who came for the healing and left with nothing more than that.

It has to make us a bit uncomfortable, given this train of thought, to encounter the final portion of Mark.  After all, his postscript addresses itself not to the Apostolic witness or the Apostolic office, but to ‘those who have believed.’  And what does he say of believers?  Signs will accompany them.  What signs?  Casting out of demons in the name, the authority of Jesus; speaking new languages not known to them, being unharmed by poisons (Mk 16:17-18).  And added to this, the statement, “And if they lay their hands on the sick, they will recover.”

Now, I need to stop and consider that.  The standard reading of this, for those who don’t simply discount the whole thing as a spurious addition to Mark’s gospel, takes it as an assurance of the healing gift accompanying all true believers.  That thinking already hits a point of correction in Paul’s discussion of gifts as he seeks to realign the Corinthian church to sound practice.  It’s addressed directly.  “All do not have the gift of healing, do they?  All do not speak in tongues, or interpret, do they?” (1Co 12:30).  These are gifts, given as God designs, and for the purpose of mutual edification.  They are more, then, than signs, though they are certainly that.  They are tools, given by God, to be used according to instruction.  They are gifts given, not assets demanded.  They cannot be demanded.  Neither has He given over management of their proper use.  I was struck by something said in Hebrews that touches on this point.  Speaking of the Apostles, those who had heard our Lord and bore His message, that author writes, “God was also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will” (Heb 2:4).

I place emphasis on that last aspect, because it is key to any discussion of the gifts of the Spirit, however it is one regards them.  Their exercise is to be according to His will, not for whatever fancy passes through our minds.  In Corinth, they had become a show, a prideful display, a competition.  There was nothing of edification in their use, only boasting, and Paul rejects that absolutely.  God rejects that absolutely.  If that’s what you’re doing with ministry then stop.  Stop now, before God Himself puts a stop to you.  Far better you should repent and be changed now, than that you should suffer just punishment later.

But there is another tiny word in that passage that bears emphasizing.  God was not so much bearing witness to them, as with them.  It’s an interesting compound verb that the author uses, sunepimarturountos.  It’s the sun part that captures the with aspect of it.  Close union with:  A cooperative effort.  Those signs and wonders are not the Apostles putting on a performance, nor even the Apostles performing, though they be the vessels through whom the events are done.  It is God who is acting, God who chooses to act, and He does so according to His own will.  So take that back into the question of why such gifts are not active in so many churches.  Is it evidence of their weakness, their infidelity?  Or is it simply that such things are not in accord with God’s will in this time and place?  For a people so used to medical miracles, as we deem them, such miraculous healings maybe don’t carry the same testimonial power they once did.  Or, perhaps it really was intended primarily as testimony to the Apostles, and not to believers in general.  Or maybe, the sorts of signs and wonders needed to connect with modern, Western man are very much different than what was needed in ancient Israel.  Maybe what’s needed in Africa, or in South America, or in Asia takes on a somewhat different from than what suits our situation.

One more thought as regards that concluding bit of Mark’s gospel, and then I‘ll move on.  As I read through that on this occasion, matters of context came to mind.  This mention of laying hands on the sick comes on the heels of notice regarding the impact of serpents and poisons.  Those are matters of encounter.  One is bit by a serpent, and there is something of a normal flow of events, right?  The venom takes hold, and, particularly in that time and place where anti-venoms and other such treatments were unknown, death was likely to result.  The poison is ingested, and likewise, one could expect an early demise; nothing to be done.  And we see, towards the end of this book of Acts, a case in point, as Paul is bitten, and the natural expectation is that he’s done for.  Add the superstitions of the locals, and there is further assumption that he must be a guilty man, for the gods are punishing him in spite of his escape from the wrecked ship.  But Paul is not much impacted by the snake at all, shakes it off into the fire and gets on with life.

Okay, so take all that with poison, and now, we have this notice of laying hands on the sick and recovering.  The question is, does the ‘they’ in that last bit apply to the sick, or to the ones laying their hands on the sick?  Think of those lepers encountered by Jesus.  The most amazing aspect of His ministering to them was that they were healed of their disease, certainly.  But just as amazing in the sight of those watching, I expect, was the fact that He was willing to touch them, that He did so without contracting their disease Himself.  These were people required to carry a sign announcing their condition, disallowed from coming too close lest their contagion spread.  It would be so with other diseases as well, wouldn’t it?  Think of the warnings you get about foreign travel.  So many things can be transmitted by mere skin-to-skin contact.  For all that, how many have come away from a domestic flight with a case of flu due to airborne virus particles circulating through the plane?  It just makes me wonder whether this was intended as a promise of healing gifts for ministry, or more simply, that the saint need not be overly concerned about contracting whatever it is those they minister to may be suffering from.  I’m honestly not sure which way to take that passage.  So, I’ll just put the thought out there.  If God should choose to make it plain to me at some time, fine.

We’re still on the question of why these healings had such a significant impact not only on those healed, but more, on those who believed.  And to be clear, this includes those who believed already.  The occurrence of these healings made sufficient impression that when Luke sought to learn of the events of these earliest days of the Church, his sources made a point of noting it.  This made an impression.  Of course it did.  It was clear, undeniable evidence that God was in this work that they were doing.  I expect that where one has been used of God, empowered by God to cause such results as this, it’s going to tend to stick in memory.  I can think of a few moments where the impelling power of God was at work in me such that I had to speak or to act as I did, and those events, at least some few of them, do stay with you.  It’s not a matter of pride, but of wonder.

For those in the Church of that day, this had to make a huge impression.  After all, this wasn’t some one-off event.  It wasn’t that Peter healed that one guy that had led to his and John’s arrest.  This was happening regularly.  And let’s not miss how this connects back to what precedes it in Luke’s narrative.  I’m not thinking about Ananias and Sapphira at this point, I’m thinking before that, when Peter and John were released and returned to tell the Church what had transpired.  And the Church responded in prayer.  That prayer, as we have it presented to us, concluded with a rather expansive request of God:  “Extend Your hand to heal.  Let signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus” (Ac 4:30).  And what has been the result?  God has extended His hand to heal, in significant numbers.  Signs and wonders are happening daily, or near enough to.  The name of Jesus, His excellence, His authority, His renown, is spreading.  That prayer, in short, is being answered, and answered above and beyond their wildest expectations.

In my preparatory notes, I observed that God is answering prayers offered in sincerity.  I do think that to be a key factor in the matter of effective prayer.  A prayer offered out of some sense of obligation, or because it’s expected, need not expect any significant answer.  It may come, I suppose.  It’s God’s prerogative to do so if He so desires.  But to toss off a half-hearted, flippant prayer, and expect that He will honor it?  On what basis would you have any such expectation?  If your own child came to you with such presumption and relative disregard, would you incline to honor their request?  I doubt it.  If your employee has been doing the bare minimum to avoid being fired and yet comes seeking a fine raise come review time, how likely are you to satisfy his expectations?  So, why would you expect God to be any more responsive to such disaffected prayers?  For all that, we have the clear declaration that we should divest ourselves of any such expectation.  “Let him ask in faith without any doubting.  The one who doubts is like the wind-tossed sea.  He need not expect anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways” (Jas 1:6-8).  Doubt, presumption, demanding action as if you were the one in charge and not He:  None of these are likely to move the needle of prayer.  But prayers that are offered in sincerity, and in line with the purpose and the will of God?  These may be ever so bold, outrageous even, in their requests and yet find themselves answered.

This church had prayed, and they meant what they prayed.  They prayed as those who knew God was both willing and able to answer.  They prayed as a people desirous of seeing God’s work done on earth.  To be sure, this was a far more pleasant aspect of His work in which to participate that would be the persecutions to come.  But those, too, were faced with like desire for God’s will to be done.  I think of Paul’s depth of commitment as he sat in his imprisoned state in Rome.  He didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, how things would turn out for his case.  He knew his innocence, certainly, but one couldn’t know how much innocence was going to matter when brought before the emperor, especially when the emperor was so unstable a person as Nero.  Yet, his confidence is not in the immediate outcome, but in the divine purposes of God.  And so he could write with utmost sincerity to his dearest converts, “for me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Php 1:21).  However things turn out, it shall be to God’s glory, and, “I shall not be put to shame in anything, but with all boldness Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Php 1:20).

Paul was not alone in this depth of devotion.  The church during those early years of official persecution was filled with like-minded believers.  To die for Christ was not to be feared, but to be embraced as a signal honor.  That’s not to say that Christians were called upon to be suicidal maniacs, seeking death by provocation.  But neither need they shy away from even the cruelest physical punishment, for God was with them, and they, in the end, would be with Him.  They believed.  They heard the words of Jesus.  “He who believes in Me shall live even if he dies” (Jn 11:25-26).  They heard the question Jesus asked Martha, “Do you believe this?” and responded, “Absolutely!  With all my heart and soul, I know it is true.”

So, back to this earlier moment, persecutions to come still incipient, but the threat quite real.  They prayed, and they meant it.  Whatever the risks, let us be bold to proclaim this gospel, and knowing the risks, let us know Your accompanying power.  Show Yourself in and through us by such things as these, by such things as You may choose to do.  But let it be known and recognized by all that indeed, it is the name of Jesus, the power, the authority, the glory of Jesus, the Son of the living God, that we proclaim, and it is in accordance with His teachings that we live our lives.

That is as much a prayer for personal integrity as for evangelistic impact.  Honestly, I would fully expect that the latter will never be as it should be except the former accompanies it.  The most honest preaching, accurate in all its exegesis and exhortation must come to naught if the one preaching demonstrates by his unchanged life that he hasn’t received the message himself.  Preaching is, after all, a sort of prayer, isn’t it?  The same necessity of sincerity applies.  It has often been said that one cannot preach the message effectively if he has not been affected by it himself.  One cannot pray effectively if he does not earnestly desire and expect answer, and that expectation cannot be earnest where the prayer is selfish or self-willed, rather than offered in pursuit of God’s glory, God’s will.

These people meant it.  They understood the work God was doing in their midst, and desired nothing so much as that all and sundry would come to know the glory and the goodness of God.  They didn’t dismiss the traditionalists as a hopeless cause.  They didn’t suppose the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees unreachable.  For one, they already had among their number some from the Pharisees.  I’m not sure about the Sanhedrin, except as represented by the likes of Nicodemus.  But God’s reach wasn’t limited, and they knew it.  They had seen, after all, what He could and would do.  They were living it.  And they saw past the wonder to the purpose.  May we also be such as see past the wonder to the purpose, and may we be every bit as committed to the cause of Christ as were these first converts.  What might God yet do through the likes of us if we become more like them?

To What End? (10/24/26-10/25/26)

I want to focus now on the last verse of our passage, which serves both as a further summation of events, and as a point of contrast between the general populace and the Sadducees, who come back into view once again in the next passage.  As concerns the people generally, we learn that they held the Apostles in high esteem.  After all, they could see what was happening around them.  And they saw how the Apostles responded with compassion to the needs of the people who came to them.  Those signs and wonders involved healing and deliverance, and these were likely the most frequent of signs and wonders.  They had been with Jesus.  Jesus didn’t perform signs merely to wow onlookers.  They were ever in service of real need, whether by healing, or by exorcisms, or simply by supplying a meal.  The Apostles were likely to be following the example He had set.  After all, it was to this that they had been trained.

And yes, those who came seeking healing were finding it.  But they were also encountering the Gospel.  The Apostles weren’t merely filling the role of itinerate healer, a thing not uncommon to the times then.  They were boldly proclaiming the marvelous good news of Messiah, the Son of God come among men, making peace with God a real possibility by His substitutionary death, a possibility sealed and certain, as evidenced by His resurrection.  And this Messiah was, is, now seated on His throne!  He sits beside the Father, is One with the Father.  And He actively advocates for those who have come to Him in faith, intercedes on their behalf!

This, as I continue to insist, was the fundamental point and purpose of all that Luke is showing us, all that which God was doing through His representatives here at the outset.  All of it is geared towards making the Good News known to all.  That is the full and final purpose of the whole business of religion, whether we consider the proper function of Mosaic Law or the relative liberty of Christian faith.  These are, after all, both reflective of the same God, both instituted of the same God, and He has not changed.  He does not change.  What was good and true for Moses remains good and true for us to this day.  That certainly doesn’t mean we are bound by the rites instituted for Israel in her nascent form.  But as concerns what the Law reveals of God’s nature and His expectations in regard to the character of His people, nothing has changed except that we move from fear to love; not leaving fear, awed reverence behind, but recognizing this marvel that God has undertaken to satisfy His own demands on our behalf, and is now Himself working in us in order that we may indeed willingly join with Him in pursuing the work for which He designed us.

Yet, there are these healings happening, and they are not a bait and switch operation.  Neither are they a distraction.  They are an outward evidence of God’s presence and power, alongside being evidence of His desire for good.  Clearly, demonic possession indicates some sin in the one possessed.  In the minds of the general populace, and of the Sanhedrin as well, I expect, disease indicated the same.  We saw it in the questions the disciples asked.  Who sinned, this man or his parents?  What’s behind this man’s illness?  There must be something that explains it, right?  And we will be familiar with Jesus’ response:  This was in order to show forth the glory of God.  What?  How?  How could disease and malady have anything to do with the glory of God?  Well, we would argue, they come of a different source.  Certainly demonic possession is the work of the devil, rather than God, and we would likely argue that sickness and disease are from that same author.  Yet even he, in the end, though he acts according to his own nature and interest, acts as God determines, and the outcome is as God determines it shall be.  And He is not shy about claiming ultimate control of such things.  “I am the LORD who does all these things” (Isa 45:7).  He is as much the source of darkness as of light, of calamity as of well-being.  They whys and wherefores may differ case to case, but not the end result:  He shall be glorified, and acknowledged as the God Who Is.  Every knee will bow, gladly or otherwise.  Every tongue will confess, whether in gladly or grudgingly.

One thing about this which strikes me as at least curious is Luke’s choice of words in describing the events before us, where they were all being healed.  It’s not the expected term which would apply to medical procedures.  Neither is it the more spiritual term that is applied to salvation.  Rather, it is a term we would find familiar from our use of it in the words therapy and therapeutic.  If I consider those terms as compared to the sort of treatments we might expect in things like surgery or other forms of treatment, it’s the difference between what we would consider a medical cure and something maybe more tenuous.  Therapy might help.  Surgery, in the general case where it is applicable and correctly done, is a more certain matter.  If I apply this to the health issues my wife is currently facing, a cure would mean kidneys back to normal, digestive function fully restored.  Yet the doctors are pretty clear that they can offer no such result.  We don’t really have the means to restore function.  Maybe, in an extreme case something like a transplant might offer such hope, but that, I suspect, is a rarity still.  What they can do is offer therapeutic treatment; maybe manage the progress of illness, address some of the symptoms or accompanying issues.  It’s a lesser outcome than the ideal, certainly.

Does this distinction apply to the scene before us?  The term in Greek does have connotations of serving the one incapacitated by illness.  My efforts on behalf of my wife would certainly fall into that category.  I can’t do anything for her inner physical condition, apart from praying, which is certainly something powerfully significant.  But I can serve.  I can seek to do for her what has become painful to do for herself.  I can take up her load, at least in large part.  These are acts of compassion, or at least they should be.  Do they still count as compassionate on days when they are done but grudgingly?  One hopes.  One hopes, as well, that God will give the grace to serve graciously, without resentment.  But we are yet in sinful flesh, and tire, and tiredness gives place for weakness, and our old ways may find expression in our tired and overworked state.  But still God is with us.

What I am curious about, though, is what this intends to convey about what the Apostles were doing.  Is Luke merely being a tad technical because this falls into his sphere of knowledge and training?  Well, there’s no medicine involved, so it’s not really a cure cure.  No incisions were made, so it’s clearly not surgical.  But something was done, and real results were obtained.  Those results may very well be indistinguishable from the results he would obtain by his arts.  They may even exceed such results as he could have achieved.  Perhaps this should inform how we view the efforts of naturalists and holistic health practitioners.  I still see much about it that seems so much hokum, yet if it obtains results without imparting further sinfulness or involving demonic influences, shall we complain of it?  On what basis?  God is the God of Life.  If these things are life-restoring, shall we really attribute the outcome to him whose great power over us is death?

I wonder, though, if Luke’s intent is to emphasize the personal touch of compassionate care as the Apostles ministered.  I think of the examples we have of Jesus’ activities in this regard.  Met by lepers, He didn’t maintain safe distance, nor did He write them off, even knowing that most of them would go away healed but otherwise unchanged.  When met by the rather superstitious behavior of the woman with the issue of blood, He did not deride her for her false conceptions.  He didn’t refuse service because she misunderstood.  He cared.  He healed.  What became of her thereafter?  We don’t know.  Maybe she believed.  Maybe she just got on with life.  What we do know is that for all that such great crowds formed around Him wherever He happened to be active, when push came to shove, only a very few actually proved faithful.  By the time we find our Apostles in that upper room after His crucifixion, numbers are down from thousands to 120.

What happened to those thousands?  Many, one suspects, rapidly reversed course and joined the masses shouting for His execution, whether out of disappointment that this Messiah person wasn’t chasing the Romans off, maybe simply because their leaders, the Sanhedrin, were pushing for it, maybe with no clear idea at all why they had become antagonistic.  Some, perhaps many, came to their senses, the deed done.  I mean, even the Apostles ran, abandoning their Master to his fate.  But they repented and returned.  He returned.  That in itself was a signal declaration of forgiveness.  He didn’t chide them for their actions.  Heck, He told them beforehand that they would do as they did.  He knew.  Yet He came back for them.

Carry that into your own situation, your own progress as concerns a life of righteousness after having come to faith.  He knows.  Yet He comes back for you.  He doesn’t give up.  He doesn’t stop working.  In light of that, knowing He is our teacher, our Master, our Lord and King, how then should we be acting in regards to our brothers and sisters?  How should we be acting towards that neighbor who is nice enough, but not a believer?  How should we be acting towards that neighbor who isn’t nice enough, really?  For whom would we cease praying, if they have still the breath of life in them?  What child shall we simply abandon to their fate?  What civic leader shall we decide is too far gone to deserve our prayers?

Turn it another direction.  How can we demonstrate our compassionate concern for those around us?  What would constitute a like displayed evidence of God’s compassion?  As I have noted already, healings don’t really carry the same weight as they used to.  Medical marvels are too common.  I mean, it’s nice and all, should one be healed without need of visiting the doctor.  But if the healing comes by way of doctors, is it any less of a healing?  Is it any less the work of God?  Who, after all, granted that they might discover enough of His design as to be able to do as they do?  And who guides them as they seek to help, whether they recognize that reality or not?

Is it not the same for us in our various employments?  By what means have I learned to do engineering work?  Yes, some of it is textbook training.  But then, who trained the trainers?  And go back farther, asking whence the discoveries of science that gave rise to electronics and computers and such.  It’s rather like trying to chase down the origins of the universe.  However much one understands, or thinks he understands, about these cosmic processes, there remains the question of yes, but what was behind that?  Or Who?  If all of existence is but a dream or an experiment, Who is the dreamer, the experimenter?  If it’s a multiverse, from whence did it arise?  And if you have that point nailed down, where did that point have its origin?

So, how do we present God into the marvels of modern life?  When rockets are launching, and cars beginning to fly, and it seems there’s no limit to what man can do, what proclaims God?  Perhaps it would be the insistent pursuit of peaceable harmony with those around us, in spite of our differences.  So much of life today is fractured and tribal.  Everything seems to devolve to us versus them.  What happens if one comes into such a scene with a willingness to listen and discuss, to seek understanding rather than dismissing all who disagree as hopeless cases?  Well, we know in part what happens.  Darkness hates the light.  But persistence, perseverance in love may just wear its way through the staunch defenses of sin’s fortress.  Is that not the promise of the Church?  Christ will build it, and the strongest forces of hell shall not prevail against her.  Oh, many will insist on remaining lost.  Many will make their glad way to perdition.  But many will recognize the Light for what it is:  the hope of life.

Clearly, the design and the result alike of what was happening here in the first church was that the reach of God’s kingdom in the world was expanding.  And that remains the focus of the coverage Luke provides throughout this book.  It’s not that the Apostles were some super believers, highly charismatic and therefore gaining a following.  It’s that God is a super God, the One above Whom or beside Whom there is no other.  None can compare.  He is the Lord Almighty, God Most High.  This becomes harder to impart in a world that has lost sight of the divine.  The gods of man at present are material things, or things to make one feel important, whether causes or political stances, or entertainers; whatever they can find to displace thoughts of any being to whom they might actually have to answer.  The idea of heavenly beings, apart from maybe aliens, just strikes them as so much foolishness.  So we must find ways to break through to that mindset with the reality of heaven and heaven’s King.

We have also the now longstanding challenge of a fading acceptance that there is anything that counts as real, absolute Truth.  I don’t know how the sciences are going to survive under the circumstances.  How can you expect to find valid answers if truth is not knowable, maybe not even a factor?  How will you build if the equations of mathematics aren’t describing invariable truth?  If matters of sums are mere opinion, and all answers are equally valid, then kindly keep your buildings near to the ground!  If there were no truth then frankly, most everything we have come to take for granted in modern life, our computers, our cars, our homes, our clothing, our food, and so on – the list is endless, really – would not exist.  It would be impossible for them ever to have been designed or made.  But God is True.  He defines what is, and He has defined it in orderly fashion, even if that order is of a level that exceeds our capacity to fully apprehend.  In order to live as if truth is some fluid thing no firmer than opinion, one really has to disregard an insurmountable wealth of evidence to the contrary.  One has to live in a state of madness.  And the evidence around us would suggest that this is exactly what has resulted.  All grasp on reality has eroded, and with it, any sense of morality, any sense of common humanity, any understanding of love.  All this, I would note, is as Scripture has long told us things would be in this sinful, sin hungry world.

As we have been reading through the Revelation in men’s group, for all that it is a most difficult book to interpret with any real certainty that one has got it right, we keep running into the competing views as to the proper framework for attempting to understand.  Is it historical, such that all or most of the events described came to pass long since?  That’s one perspective that is taken, finding it mostly involved with the Roman Empire, or the Roman Church.  Is it prophetic, such that all or most of the events still lie ahead?  Are we still looking at some era of cataclysmic plagues and sorrows such as will destroy all but the most hardy of men?  Is it strictly a morality play, not really depicting real events at all?  What are we to make of it?  Should we tremble in fear lest we find ourselves in the midst of those events?  Or are we perhaps already in their midst?  Lord knows many have sought to connect these things to their present day, and it’s honestly not hard to do so.  It’s unlikely to come up with correct answers, but it’s easy enough to find correspondence.  I suppose I am in the camp that perceives the tribulations described in those pages as having begun when Christ was crucified, and expected to continue until He returns.  But one does tend to feel that things are growing darker, coming apart at the seams.

All that to say, how do we interact with such a world so as to gain a hearing for the Gospel?  I don’t ask how we fix it.  We know the only fix is the Gospel, and we know that in the end, the Gospel will not fix it entirely.  We have the end of history told us, and while the Church wins, there are massive numbers of humanity who simply will not have God as their God, and He will, finally at the end of His patience, grant them their desire, removing Himself wholly from their presence, and them from His.  For all that such an outcome may offend our sensibilities, or upset our cuddly ideas of who God is, it is rather clearly laid out before us in Scripture that this is how things go.  Were it not so, there would be absolutely no purpose to those woes and plagues spun out upon the earth in John’s visions.  There would be no need of a new Jerusalem come down.  He could just poke the conscience of every man who ever lived, breathe the Spirit into them, and poof!  100% conversion.  But it is obviously not so.  Why?  I don’t have an answer beyond that it is His choice, His will, and serves to uphold His glory.

But how to reach those He would see reached?  Preach the Gospel.  How to gain a hearing, though, for the Gospel?  Some would insist we need to advertise better.  Some would suggest adopting this or that artifice from the world’s repertoire, whether it’s better staging, snappy videos and slick musical production, maybe offering something less directly churchy as a draw, and then we’ll slip the gospel message in there.  Our church has probably tried all of these to one degree or another.  Others have done similarly, and such things may in fact bring new faces.  Many of those new faces will likely depart almost as fast as they appeared, but some will prove to have truly heard the call of Christ.  I’m not sure I could say that any of these approaches are wrong, even if they do somewhat bother me.  By all means, so as to save some; that has been the Way from the outset, hasn’t it?

Paul didn’t go through Ephesus and Rome, or even Athens, denouncing all other religions, angrily shouting down all other systems of belief.  Neither did he reject the culture.  He made use of it; made it a point of contact with those to whom he would speak, a starting point from which to begin to present the Truth.  You can’t reach those whom you refuse to understand at all.  In missions, it would be like trying to reach foreign peoples while insisting on speaking only English and refusing to use a translator.  How could you hope to get your message across?  But dealing with the world around us on the local level is really not that different.  We speak the same language, but often mean different things by the same words.  Our basic concepts and perspectives are so wildly divergent as to make it difficult to convey our ideas to one another reliably.

Having spent most of my life now in the realms of electrical engineering, I see how much this impacts even that endeavor.  You write a specification which you hope will explain the operation of whatever it is you’re designing in such detail as will ensure that anybody reading that specification and designing to meet it will naturally find their design and yours working compatibly.  Yet, however well done the spec, there will be those who understand it differently.  For one, as we write the spec, we are writing as those who have already thought long about the details.  We have underlying assumed knowledge so inherent in our thinking as to automatically filter how we read that spec.  Others, however, come to it with a different set of underlying assumptions, a different way of filtering meaning, and thereby conclude that what you meant is something quite different from what you actually did mean.

The same issue arises when called upon to write some communication to the church.  I recall occasions where the church faced some major issue, and the elders had need to make the congregation aware of the situation.  We would spend hours seeking to compose a paragraph in such fashion as would convey what we designed to convey without leading to any misunderstanding or misinterpretation.  But often in such cases you can’t simply lay out everything you know in infinite detail.  And frankly, even if you did, the result wouldn’t change.  There would be misunderstanding.  There would be speculation that solidifies into certainty in spite of lacking any proper basis.  There would be those certain that we must have missed something, that they would have come to better conclusions, maybe have prevented the whole matter from arising in the first place.

The old adage that art is in the eye of the beholder applies.  And meaning is in the ear of the listener.  It can render attempts at communication rather frustrating, even between spouses.  It may take significant effort to ensure that what was heard is what was said, and that what was understood in hearing is what was meant in speaking.  I suspect a great deal of the agita that arises in our dealings with one another is due to an unwillingness to restate our ideas, to clarify, and make certain that meaning and understanding have fully aligned.  Honestly, for some of us, at least for me, such efforts are annoying.  I spoke clearly, why should I need to phrase it differently?  What’s wrong with you, that you can’t understand plain English?  Of course, I have my own failures to understand.  And in all of it, I need to remind myself of those engineering specs, and how readily they are misread.  Language is a tricky business and there’s really no sense being agitated by the need to clarify.

Okay, I’ve wandered a bit, haven’t I?  But let’s bring it back to the matter of the church.  We’re going to face the same challenges, all the more as we discuss topics that mean wildly divergent things to others.  Ask a man whether he believes in God, and he may well answer in the affirmative, but have some conception of deity far removed from the God revealed in Scripture.  Ask him if he prays, and he may well say yes, but to whom and with what expectation?  Speak of angels?  Who knows what people think, even if they excitedly agree that such beings are real?  The world is become full once more of all manner of superstitions posing as religion, and it’s nearly as true in the Church as outside.  Polls that seek to discern understanding in the evangelical church show how widely this impacts us.  It’s not enough to say, “I believe!”  What do you believe?  Is it true?  Is the God you worship the God Who Is?

This is at least a part of why there is a church, a gathered worship, a time to come together and sit under the word of God.  It allows for affirming true beliefs, correcting misconceptions, growing in maturity together, edifying and being edified.  How, after all, can we hope to present the true Gospel to those around us if we have but a tenuous grip on it ourselves?  How can we hope to pray effectively according to God’s will if we have no proper concept of His will to begin with?

Here’s the wonder of it, though:  God is God.  He can use us as is.  He is maturing us, but even in our infancy, He can and will use us to good effect.  Look at what’s happening here.  Hundreds, thousands are being added to the body as days go by.  Do you suppose these all arrive at instant full understanding?  Of course not!  Just like ourselves, there were preconceived notions that needed to be stripped away.  There were socialized perspectives that had to be corrected and realigned with real truth.  There were new things to learn, new ways utterly foreign to their experience.  These things take time and effort.  Yet, they were not ineffectual.  The bulk of the work may have been at the hands of the Apostles, but then, they did as they did by the Holy Spirit, and that same Holy Spirit had come to abide in each one of these converts.  He doesn’t wait for some level of maturity in us before making His abode.  Indeed, our maturity cannot possibly develop except He has already done so.

So, they prayed, and to the degree their prayers were in fact aligned with the will of God, God answered.  I would suggest there is a second aspect of their prayer that rendered it effectual.  They meant it.  They prayed with earnest desire to see things come to pass as they prayed they would.  They prayed with real expectation that God would indeed affect the desired result or perhaps something even better than they had thought or imagined.  His will and our desire:  When these two meet, signs and wonders transpire.  They may not be the flash things of our imagination, but they are no less wonderful, no less significant for being, shall we say, more mundane.  That may seem a paradoxical statement, but I don’t think it is.  Any person come to faith is wonderful.  Any child of God growing towards maturity is become a living sign of His presence.  That we fallen creatures can find ourselves not merely loved by God, but loving Him in return is wondrous beyond all reasonable expectation.  But let us take our prayers seriously.  Let us take the honesty of our prayers seriously.  Let us earnestly seek to perceive what He is doing and join Him gladly in doing it.

Look at what resulted here in this scene.  Word was spreading because things were happening.  The Sanhedrin had sought to silence the work of God, but it wasn’t going to happen.  Word got out, and people came.  Why did they come?  Well, clearly, they were drawn by the hope of seeing their loved ones healed.  It wasn’t necessarily hunger for the clear word of God that drew them, but rather the physical benefits.  We might incline to meet such motive with disdain.  But perhaps we would better meet it as opportunity.  It may well be that the majority of those drawn by the chance of healing would leave again, satisfied with the physical result and disinterested in the spiritual.  It may well be that whatever means we choose to employ in evangelizing the community around us, many of those who come will have come for the wrong reason, and leave unchanged.  So it has ever been.  So it ever shall, so long as life persists in present form.  But some believed.  Some were changed.  Some received life, and that more abundantly.

So, was it superstition or faith that was being met in these people drawn from the surrounding regions?  Yes.  That is to say, it was likely both/and.  For many, it may have been no more than superstitious beliefs and expectations, fully met in the resultant healings.  It had been the same with Jesus.  Ten lepers healed, and only one thought to say thank you.  Many are called, but few are chosen.  The seed scatters across all manner of soils, but only that in good soil grows to fruition.  It’s okay.  It’s the design.  We are not called to weed out the superstitious and dismiss them.  They will, frankly, dismiss themselves readily enough.  We are called to proclaim the Gospel in the same unconditional way that God distributes His goodness.  He brings light and water to all peoples.  I will grant that some regions seem to suffer more from lack or overabundance than others, but those are regions, not peoples.  As concerns the population of those regions, all are affected alike, whether believers or infidels.  All receive in like fashion, whether superstitious or faithful.  Our mission is not to discern motives and respond accordingly.  Our mission is to deliver the Gospel faithfully, and leave it to God to decide who responds and how.  Only, let it be that our efforts are in pursuit of His ends, and not in pursuit of our own aggrandizement.