Cited in sermons
I. Howard Marshall
2 sermons · All people cited
The Ongoing Ministry of Peter
Acts 9:32–43 records two miracles wrought through the Apostle Peter — the healing of the paralyzed Aeneas at Lydda and the raising of Tabitha from the dead at Joppa — and this sermon works through both accounts to establish that the power displayed was Christ's alone, not Peter's. The miraculous signs of the apostolic era served a redemptive, confirmatory purpose: to authenticate the preaching of the apostles and usher hearers into the kingdom of God through the gospel, not to impress or dazzle. On cessationist grounds, the sermon argues that with the close of the apostolic ministry and the completed canon of Scripture, the church's standing commission is to preach the Word — not to seek or perform signs and wonders. The passage also foreshadows Peter's mission to the Gentiles, as Peter's lodging with Simon the tanner at Joppa anticipates the barrier-breaking vision and the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10.
Stephen's Defense, Part 4
Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:17–29 centers on the birth, education, and first visits of Moses to his enslaved brethren — a narrative Stephen deploys not to instruct the Council in history they already knew, but to indict them for repeating the same rejection of God's appointed deliverer. The sermon traces two structural pillars: God's sovereign faithfulness to Abrahamic covenant promises across four centuries of bondage, and Israel's willful incomprehension of Moses as the pattern for the Sanhedrin's rejection of Jesus. The typological connection is explicit — Moses as redeemer-reconciler rejected by those he came to save is the Old Testament shadow of Christ rejected by the very people who claimed allegiance to Moses. Hearers are called to resist the impulse to drive away the deliverer and instead flee to the Lord Christ, in whom all the promises of God find their yes and amen.