What Does Acts 3:6 Mean?

(6) **Silver and gold have I none.**—The narrative of Acts 2:45 shows that the Apostles were treasurers and stewards of the sums committed to their charge by the generous self-denial of the community. Either, therefore, we must assume that the words meant that they had no silver or gold with them at the time, or that, as almoners, they thought themselves bound to distribute what was thus given them in trust, for the benefit of members of the society of which they were officers and for them only. They, obeying their Lord’s commands (Matthew 10:9), had no money that they could call their own to give to those that asked them. But they could give more than money. **In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth . . . .**—The full trust with which the words were spoken was in part a simple act of faith in their Master’s promise (Mark 16:18), in part the result of a past experience in the exercise of like powers (Mark 6:13). And the Name in which they spoke could hardly have been a new name to the cripple. Among the beggars at the Temple-gate there had once been the blind man who received his sight at the pool of Siloam (John 9:7-8). The healing of the cripple at Bethesda (John 5:2; John 5:14) could scarcely have been unknown to the sufferer from a like infirmity. What made the call to rise and walk a test of faith was that, but a few weeks before, that Name had been seen on the superscription over the cross on which He who bore it had been condemned to die as one that deceived the people (John 7:12).