Catholic Commentary
Signs, Wonders, and the Growing Church
12By the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. They were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.13None of the rest dared to join them; however, the people honored them.14More believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.15They even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mattresses, so that as Peter came by, at least his shadow might overshadow some of them.16The multitude also came together from the cities around Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits; and they were all healed.
Acts 5:12–16 describes the apostles performing many signs and wonders in Solomon's Porch while the church grows with multitudes of believers, and recounts instances of remarkable healings through Peter's shadow and apostolic power over sickness and demonic possession. The passage illustrates the Church's expansion in Jerusalem through divinely authenticated miracles that inspire both reverent fear and deep honor among the people.
Peter's shadow heals not through magic but through faith—the early Church's power was inseparable from its demand for holiness.
Commentary
Acts 5:12 — Signs and wonders in Solomon's Porch Luke uses the phrase "signs and wonders" (Greek: sēmeia kai terata) deliberately, echoing the language of the Exodus (Deut 6:22; 26:8) and Moses' ministry. The apostles do not act by their own authority; the passive construction "were done" (egineto) signals that God is the primary agent. Solomon's Porch — the eastern colonnade of the Temple precinct — is no random location. It was a recognized place of public teaching (cf. John 10:23), connecting the apostles' ministry to Jesus' own Temple activity and to Israel's ancient worship. The community's unity ("with one accord," Greek: homothumadon) is a recurring Lukan refrain (cf. Acts 1:14; 2:46; 4:24), describing not merely organizational solidarity but a spiritual consonance wrought by the Holy Spirit.
Acts 5:13 — Holy fear and holy honor The statement that "none of the rest dared to join them" is often misread as rejection. In context, it describes the effect of the Ananias and Sapphira episode (Acts 5:1–11), which has just generated a "great fear" in the community. The Greek verb etólma ("dared") implies awe before a sacred, even dangerous, holiness — the trembling reverence appropriate to the presence of God. Yet the people "honored" (emegalunen, literally "magnified") them. This tension — holy fear and deep honor — mirrors the Old Testament response to theophanies: one does not casually enter the presence of divine holiness, yet one cannot look away.
Acts 5:14 — Growth by addition Luke's accounting language ("were added," proseteíthento) echoes Acts 2:41 and 2:47, framing the Church's growth as a divine act of gathering. The explicit mention of "both men and women" is theologically deliberate: the new community in Christ transcends the gender-differentiated membership markers of Second Temple Judaism (cf. Gal 3:28). The "multitudes" (plēthē) indicate that what began at Pentecost with 120 has now overflowed into a mass movement.
Acts 5:15 — Peter's shadow This verse is among the most striking in Acts. The people carry the sick into the streets on klinariōn (small cots) and krabbatōn (pallets — the same word used in John 5:8 of the paralytic healed by Jesus), so that Peter's shadow (skia) might fall on them. Luke does not say the shadow itself healed; he reports what the people believed and sought. Yet verse 16 confirms that "all were healed," implying that God honored their faith. The typological resonance is rich: as the "overshadowing" (episkiazō) of the Holy Spirit came upon Mary (Luke 1:35) and as the divine cloud "overshadowed" the Tabernacle (Exod 40:35) and the disciples at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:34), so now the apostolic shadow becomes a locus of divine power. Peter — whose very name evokes the rock on which the Church is built — becomes a living extension of Christ's healing presence.
Acts 5:16 — The healing reaches beyond Jerusalem The geography expands: people come not just from Jerusalem but from surrounding cities. Luke is tracking the movement he will narrate throughout Acts — from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The healing of those "tormented by unclean spirits" (pneumata akatharta) mirrors Jesus' own ministry of exorcism and signals that the apostolic Church shares in Christ's authority over the demonic realm. "They were all healed" — the universal scope is emphatic. No one who came in genuine need was turned away.
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition finds in this passage a rich theology of apostolic mediation and sacramental instrumentality. The Catechism teaches that Christ continues his work of healing and salvation through the Church and her ministers: "The Church has received this charge from the Lord and strives to carry it out" (CCC 1421). Peter's shadow functioning as a conduit of grace is not magic but an instance of what Catholic theology calls instrumental causality — God working through a created medium precisely because he has chosen to unite himself to humanity through the Incarnation and to extend that union through the apostolic ministry.
St. John Chrysostom, preaching on this passage in his Homilies on Acts (Homily 12), marvels that Peter's shadow surpasses what even his physical touch accomplished during Jesus' ministry and calls it a vindication of the Resurrection: the disciples now act with greater power because Christ is glorified. Pope St. Leo the Great similarly taught that what was visible in Christ has passed over into the sacraments and the ministry of the Church (Sermon 74).
The scene also anticipates Catholic teaching on sacramentals — objects and actions through which the Church, in dependence on Christ's merits, implores blessings (CCC 1667–1668). More broadly, the passage grounds the Catholic understanding of apostolic authority: the power manifest in Acts is not a personal charisma of Peter but flows from his office as the Lord's appointed witness. The Church Fathers, from Origen to Augustine, consistently read the apostolic miracles as credential and continuation of the one mission of Christ, not as independent phenomena. Vatican II's Lumen Gentium (§20) affirms this continuity: "Just as the role that the Lord gave individually to Peter, the first among the apostles, is permanent and was meant to be transmitted to his successors, so also the apostles' office of nurturing the Church is permanent."
For Today
This passage challenges contemporary Catholics on two fronts. First, it confronts a therapeutic, low-stakes approach to faith. The holy fear of verse 13 — where the insincere dare not approach — is a rebuke to a culture of belonging without conversion. The early Church's power was inseparable from its seriousness about holiness; the two cannot be decoupled.
Second, the image of people laying the sick in the streets so that Peter's shadow might fall on them is an icon of intercessory faith — bold, expectant, undignified, and utterly dependent on another. Catholics are uniquely positioned to understand this instinct: it is the same impulse that drives pilgrims to Lourdes, that moves the faithful to seek a bishop's blessing or venerate a relic. These are not superstitions but the sacramental logic of the Incarnation: God works through embodied, particular means. The practical challenge is to recover that bold, expectant faith — to bring the sick (literally and spiritually) to where Christ's power is concentrated: the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Anointing, the prayers of holy people — and to trust that the Lord who healed all who came to Peter will not turn away those who come to him today.
Cross-References