Section 5:12–16

The apostles healed many people

In this section, the apostles were doing many amazing miracles, and all the believers met regularly in one of the temple areas. Other people greatly respected the believers and many were becoming believers in the Lord Jesus. During those days, God used the apostles to heal all of the sick and demon-possessed people who came to them.

Here are other possible headings for this section:

The apostles healed sick people and removed evil spirits from people
-or-
The apostles do miracles, wonders, and healings

Paragraph 5:12–16

5:12a

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people: The Greek is more literally “and/but/now many signs and wonders were being done by the hands of the apostles among the people.” It implies that God was doing these signs and wonders through the apostles. Here are some ways to translate this passive clause:

• As a passive clause. For example:

Now many signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the apostles. (Revised Standard Version)

• As an active clause. For example:

Through the apostles ⌊God⌋ was doing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people.

apostles: See how you translated this word in 1:2 or 5:2.

performed: The tense of the Greek verb indicates that they did a number of these signs and wonders, but not all at one time. See the above examples.

many signs and wonders: The word many applies to both the signs and the wonders. In some languages the word many must be repeated for the correct meaning. For example:

many miraculous signs and many wonders

signs: The Greek word refers to the kinds of miracles which are regarded as having some special meaning. See how you translated this word in 2:22 or 4:30.

wonders: This word refers to an amazing action or event that indicates something is about to happen. See how you translated this word in 2:22 or 4:30.

5:12b

the believers gathered together: The Greek is more literally “they all were.” The word “all” in the Greek probably refers to a different group than the apostles (5:12a).

Solomon’s Colonnade was not a house with beds or places to cook, so the Greek verb refers to the believers generally being in this place.

Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

they were all (Revised Standard Version)
-or-
all the believers were meeting (New Living Translation (2004))

Solomon’s Colonnade: A Colonnade is a long building made of many columns or posts instead of walls. Here there were columns on one side and a wall on the other side. They supported a roof. See how you translated this phrase in 3:11.

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