Acts chapters 13 and 14 updated to the present
Change a couple of words, but not the meaning, and Acts speaks to us in the year 2016.
Paul was sent out to new territory. He carried the message that Jesus had been raised from death, for this purpose: people can trust the living Jesus to forgive their disobedience.
Where there was a stone wall of rejection, God provided a miracle to break through the unbelief. In one case, there was a man who couldn't walk. He had a congenital defect, he had never walked. But he alone, in a crowd listening to Paul, believed that Jesus could forgive his disobedience. Everyone else thought Paul was babbling aimlessly. But Paul heard the Holy Spirit and looked down into the man's eyes. The Spirit told Paul that the man had faith, not just to be forgiven, but also to be healed.
Paul called to the man, "Stand up from your wheelchair. Stand up on your feet!" Everyone who had been standing, listening to Paul babble, looked down at the crippled man. There was a psychologist, and he knew that the motor part of the man's brain, the part that would normally operate the legs, had never been exercised and had atrophied from disuse, back when the man had been a young child. The psychologist knew the crippled man could stand up only if he were to be hoisted up by onlookers.
There was a special-education teacher who heard Paul call to the crippled man. She knew Paul's admonishment was pointless. Yes, the man had a sense of balance that allowed him to sit. If, somehow, the crippled man could have nerves and muscles to let him rise up, it couldn't happen without months of physical therapy, to train the man to have a sense of balance. The teacher stared at Paul and thought he was so cruel to mock the crippled man.
Another woman, a liberal who was an advocate for homeless people, heard Paul call to the crippled man. She herself had helped this very man obtain some entitlements for his disability, and she knew generous people who had helped the man get a ground-floor apartment. She knew Paul was talking about some sort of religion, and that was so against her own belief. She shared the belief of scientists she heard on T.V., saying that there is nothing out there, nothing that is going to help you supernaturally. She believed there is nothing beyond the grave. And she was incensed that this out-of-towner named Paul would manipulate this poor crippled man.
Another atheist in the crowd was a minister in a Protestant church. Though he was a minister, he taught his flock that spiritual thinking is whatever you want it to be. Yes, there might be a God, but your God might be different than someone else's God, and anyway there are many paths to God, whatever God is. This minister heard Paul's statement, and the minister thought Paul was surely narrow minded. Why, Paul had been saying that a dead man, Jesus, was the only way to God. How old fashioned!
All the crowd turned around to stare at the crippled man. The man's face lit up when he heard Paul's words. There was something else, something he had never sensed. It was the Spirit talking to him. The Spirit told him to rise up, stand up like the rest of the people. Though he knew it was impossible, the Spirit affirmed that he should stand. He believed, and he leaned forward with his hands on the wheelchair arms. There was a feeling in his legs that he had never felt.
The teacher was right next to him. She saw him falling forward and she jumped forward to help. But the crippled man wasn't falling, his feet were moving forward, bearing his weight! The psychologist, standing behind the wheelchair, saw that the man wasn't just rising to his feet, he was jumping up out of the wheelchair!
The wheelchair knocked backwards as the crippled man jumped up. The wheelchair hit the homeless advocate in the knee. Her first thought was, "Where did this other wheelchair come from? If no one claims it, there might be some homeless person who could use a replacement wheelchair." Then she almost fell over backward--the crowd was pushing back in fear. People gasped. She looked into a sudden opening in the middle of the crowd. There was an excited man jumping on his feet. She looked again and saw it was the crippled man, but he wasn't crippled anymore!
The unbelieving minister was astonished at what he saw, then he was immediately suspicious. A man suddenly walking, after never walking before--it isn't natural, this isn't real. The minister glanced around at the people. His mind was racing. Is there anyone here who has been collaborating with this crippled man? Is there a conspiracy to fool people? What could they be after? There must be some ulterior motive. The crippled man must have been pretending disability, but how long has this been going on?
A tall man with a smart phone just happened to have been taking a video. He had a good view of what happened, then he was squeezed out of the crowd when the crippled man jumped up. The woman next to him asked, "Did you get that? Is it in your phone? Here, bluetooth it to my phone, I work at the T.V. station, they need to get this on the 5 P.M. news."
Meanwhile, the crowd is milling around the jumping man and Paul. Some people are glad for the man, and others stare at Paul, wondering how Paul could do this. Paul calls out. "Listen to me, listen. God has done this in his mercy. This man believed Jesus is alive after being dead, and he believed the Spirit who told him to be healed. The Spirit tells me that this man has accepted Jesus' forgiveness. But this isn't just for one person, this is for you all. The world lies to you about what is important. Turn away from lies, turn to the living God who made all the world. In the past, God let all people go their own way. You have just seen this man believe in Jesus' forgiveness. God wants this for all who are willing to believe. It is greater to accept Jesus' forgiveness than to experience a miracle."