Acts 3:2

3:2 And a man lame ¹  from birth ²  was being carried up, who was placed at the temple gate called “the Beautiful Gate” every day ³  so he could beg for money ⁴  from those going into the temple courts. ⁵ 

Acts 7:49

7:49 ‘Heaven is my throne,

and earth is the footstool for my feet.

What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,

or what is my resting place? ⁶ 

Acts 11:17

11:17 Therefore if God ⁷  gave them the same gift ⁸  as he also gave us after believing ⁹  in the Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰  who was I to hinder ¹¹  God?”

Acts 13:17

13:17 The God of this people Israel ¹²  chose our ancestors ¹³  and made the people great ¹⁴  during their stay as foreigners ¹⁵  in the country ¹⁶  of Egypt, and with uplifted arm ¹⁷  he led them out of it.

Acts 14:3

14:3 So they stayed there ¹⁸  for a considerable time, speaking out courageously for the Lord, who testified ¹⁹  to the message ²⁰  of his grace, granting miraculous signs ²¹  and wonders to be performed through their hands.

Acts 16:16

Paul and Silas Are Thrown Into Prison

16:16 Now ²²  as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl met us who had a spirit that enabled her to foretell the future by supernatural means. ²³  She ²⁴  brought her owners ²⁵  a great profit by fortune-telling. ²⁶ 

[3:2]  ¹ tn Or “crippled.”

[3:2]  ² tn Grk “from his mother’s womb.”

[3:2]  ³ tn BDAG 437 s.v. ἡμέρα 2.c has “every day” for this phrase.

[3:2]  ⁴ tn Grk “alms.” The term “alms” is not in common use today, so what the man expected, “money,” is used in the translation instead. The idea is that of money given as a gift to someone who was poor. Giving alms was viewed as honorable in Judaism (Tob 1:3, 16; 12:8-9; m. Pe’ah 1:1). See also Luke 11:41; 12:33; Acts 9:36; 10:2, 4, 31; 24:17.

[3:2]  ⁵ tn Grk “the temple.” This is actually a reference to the courts surrounding the temple proper, and has been translated accordingly.

[7:49]  ⁶ sn What kind…resting place? The rhetorical questions suggest mere human beings cannot build a house to contain God.

[11:17]  ¹¹ tc Codex Bezae (D) and {a few other Western witnesses} here lack ὁ θεός (Jo qeo", “God”), perhaps because these scribes considered the Holy Spirit to be the gift of Christ rather than the gift of God; thus leaving the subject implicit would naturally draw the reader back to v. 16 to see the Lord Jesus as the bestower of the Spirit.

[11:17]  ¹² sn That is, the same gift of the Holy Spirit.

[11:17]  ¹³ tn Or “gave us when we believed”; or “gave us after we believed”; or “gave us who believed”; or “gave them when they believed the same gift as he also gave us.” The aorist dative plural participle πιστεύσασιν (pisteusasin) can be understood in several different ways: (1) It could modify ἡμῖν (Jhmin, “us”) or αὐτοῖς (autois, “them”). Proximity (it immediately follows ἡμῖν) would suggest that it belongs with ἡμῖν, so the last option (“gave them when they believed the same gift he also gave us”) is less likely. (2) The participle could be either adverbial or adjectival, modifying ἡμῖν. This decision is primarily a contextual one. The point Peter made is not whether or not the Gentiles believed, since both groups (“us” and “they”) had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The point was whether or not the Gentiles received the Spirit when they believed, just as Jewish Christians had received the Spirit on the day of Pentecost when they believed. Translated as an adjectival participle, πιστεύσασιν only affirms the fact of belief, however, and raises somewhat of a theological problem if one realizes, “Would God have given the Gentiles the Spirit if they had not believed?” (In other words, belief in itself is a theological prerequisite for receiving the Spirit. As such, in the case of the Gentiles, it is assumed.) Thus in context it makes more sense to understand the participle πιστεύσασιν as adverbial, related to the time of belief in connection with the giving of the Spirit. (3) The participle πιστεύσασιν as a temporal participle can refer to action antecedent to the action of the main verb ἔδωκεν (edwken) or contemporaneous with it. Logically, at least, the gift of the Spirit followed belief in the case of the original Christians, who had believed before the day of Pentecost. In the case of Cornelius and his household, belief and the reception of the Spirit were virtually simultaneous. One can argue that Peter is “summarizing” the experience of Jewish Christians, and therefore the actions of belief and reception of the Spirit, while historically separate, have been “telescoped” into one (“gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed”), but to be technically accurate the participle πιστεύσασιν should be translated “gave them the same gift as he also gave us after we believed.” A number of these problems can be avoided, however, by using a translation in English that maintains some of the ambiguity of the Greek original. Thus “if God gave them the same gift as he also gave us after believing” is used, where the phrase “after believing” can refer either to “them” or to “us,” or both.

[11:17]  ¹⁴ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[11:17]  ¹⁵ tn Or “prevent,” “forbid” (BDAG 580 s.v. κωλύω 1.a). Peter’s point is that he will not stand in the way of God.

[13:17]  ¹⁶ tn Or “people of Israel.”

[13:17]  ¹⁷ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[13:17]  ¹⁸ tn That is, in both numbers and in power. The implication of greatness in both numbers and in power is found in BDAG 1046 s.v. ὑψόω 2.

[13:17]  ¹⁹ tn Or “as resident aliens.”

[13:17]  ²⁰ tn Or “land.”

[13:17]  ²¹ sn Here uplifted arm is a metaphor for God’s power by which he delivered the Israelites from Egypt. See Exod 6:1, 6; 32:11; Deut 3:24; 4:34; Ps 136:11-12.

[14:3]  ²¹ tn The word “there” is not in the Greek text, but is implied.

[14:3]  ²² sn The Lord testified to the message by granting the signs described in the following clause.

[14:3]  ²³ tn Grk “word.”

[14:3]  ²⁴ tn Here the context indicates the miraculous nature of the signs mentioned.

[16:16]  ²⁶ tn Grk “Now it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[16:16]  ²⁷ tn Or “who had a spirit of divination”; Grk “who had a spirit of Python.” According to BDAG 896-97 s.v. πύθων, originally Πύθων (Puqwn) was the name of the serpent or dragon that guarded the Delphic oracle. According to Greek mythology, it lived at the foot of Mount Parnassus and was killed by Apollo. From this, the word came to designate a person who was thought to have a spirit of divination. Pagan generals, for example, might consult someone like this. So her presence here suggests a supernatural encounter involving Paul and her “spirit.” W. Foerster, TDNT 6:920, connects the term with ventriloquism but states: “We must assume, however, that for this girl, as for those mentioned by Origen…, the art of ventriloquism was inseparably connected with a (supposed or authentic) gift of soothsaying.” It should also be noted that if the girl in question here were only a ventriloquist, the exorcism performed by Paul in v. 18 would not have been effective.

[16:16]  ²⁸ tn Grk “who.” Because of the awkwardness in English of having two relative clauses follow one another (“who had a spirit…who brought her owners a great profit”) the relative pronoun here (“who”) has been translated as a pronoun (“she”) and a new sentence begun in the translation.

[16:16]  ²⁹ tn Or “masters.”

[16:16]  ³⁰ tn On this term see BDAG 616 s.v. μαντεύομαι. It was used of those who gave oracles.