<p>4:30- see on Acts 3:7.</p><p><em>While You stretch out Your hand to heal</em>- As the apostles preached (:29), in parallel the Lord would stretch out His hand in doing miracles. The miraculous gifts were to support the preaching of the word by the apostles- a specific thing at a specific time. The stretched out hand of God was a Hebraism speaking of God's covenant with men. The same phrase occurs in the LXX of Num. 14:30 and Neh. 9:15 &quot;the land for which I stretched out My hand to establish you upon it&quot; (see too Ps. 55:20). As the apostles presented God's outstretched hand through teaching the Gospel, so He Himself would stretch out His hand in appealing to Israel through doing miracles. Yet the majority of the 150 or so times in the LXX we read this phrase about God's hand stretched out, it is His hand stretched out to judge sin. Hence the significance of asking God to stretch out His hand <em>to heal</em>, when Israel deserved His hand stretched out yet again in judgment. The miracles were therefore to be seen as a special sign of God's grace to Israel at this time.</p><p>The stretching out of the Lord's hand to save is clearly allusive to what He had done to Peter as he sunk into the waves on Galilee that night. But now, Peter is framed as Jesus, in that he too stretched out his hand to save others as Jesus had done to him (Mt. 14:35 = Acts 5:15,16; Mt. 14:31 = Acts 3:7), bidding them come through the water of baptism as Jesus had done to him. As Jesus was worshipped after saving Peter, so men tried to worship Peter (Mt. 14:33 = Acts 3:11). So Peter went through what we all do- having been saved by Jesus, having come to Him and having been rescued by the outstretched arm, he responds to this by doing the same for others.</p><p>Peter felt that all the work he did by his own hand was effectively the Lord &quot;stretching forth His hand to heal&quot; (Acts 4:30). He realized that&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;hand was now the hand of Jesus, the same hand which had stretched forth s.w. Acts 4:30 to save&nbsp;<em>him</em>&nbsp;on the lake that night. Our experience of salvation simply has to be re-enacted by us towards others. There is great emphasis in the Gospels upon the hands of Jesus- so often stretched out to heal, save and bless; the hands out of which no sheep can be taken, the hands into which all power has been given by the Father, the hands which were nailed through by men in their ignorance and rejection of God's salvation. And those hands are our hands. Think through this again- the Lord &ldquo;stretched forth his hand&rdquo; to save Peter (Mt. 14:31); and this is the very phrase used by Peter in Acts 4:30, speaking of how the Lord&rsquo;s hand is &ldquo;stretched forth to heal&rdquo;. Peter saw himself on the lake as typical of all whom the Lord saves. Yet, it was&nbsp;<em>Peter</em>, not the Lord Himself, who stretched forth his hand to do the Lord&rsquo;s healing work&nbsp;on the lame man (Acts 3:7). Again, Peter is thinking back to the incident on the lake and perceiving that he is now Christ manifest as he had intended to be then. Thus it was the principle of God manifestation which inspired Peter to reach out of his comfort zone so dramatically; and properly appreciated, it can motivate us likewise. &nbsp;</p><p><i>That signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy servant Jesus</i>- This is strictly speaking a just about legitimate translation of <em>pais</em>, but the word basically means 'a boy'. &quot;Servant&quot; would really be the translation of <em>doulos</em>, and this is the word used about the Lord in the 'servant' passage about Him in Phil. 2:7. The AV is not far off with &quot;holy child&quot;. Their image of Jesus had something in it which reflected that child-likeness about Him which still stuck in their memories. Jn. 5:19 gives a window into the Lord's self-perception here. He says that whatever He sees the Father / abba / daddy do, He does &quot;in like manner&quot;. It is the language of a young child mimicking their father. And He speaks of Himself as an adult behaving just like this. There was a child-likeness about Him in this sense. And the disciples seem to have noticed this and perhaps reflect it in this otherwise rather strange title for the Lord.</p>