Silver and Gold Have I None

Nine at night and the knock is the wrong kind of knock. Not the parcel knock. The other one.

It is the man from the flat below and he is standing there in a coat over what is obviously the clothes he sleeps in, and he says, straight away, "sorry, sorry", twice, before he says anything else.

And then he says the actual thing, which takes him about four goes, and which is about his wife and about a hospital and about the fact that there is nobody, at nine at night, and he does not know why he came up here.

The hall light is behind him. He has not come in.

And the man in the doorway is doing an inventory in his head at speed, which is what a man does, and the inventory comes back empty.

There is no money. That is not a figure of speech this week and it is not a figure of speech most weeks. There is no car. He cannot fix a hospital and he does not know a single useful person and he has never met the wife.

He was raised, absolutely and without exception, that a man who cannot help with his hands full has nothing to offer at all. That was said in his family in about four different ways by three generations and it was not cruelty, it was how they survived.

So he is standing in his own doorway with the light behind him and a man in front of him, and everything he has been taught says: you have nothing for this.

If somebody has ever knocked when your cupboard was empty, you know that doorway. And you know the specific panic of it, which is not selfishness: it is a man frantically checking his pockets for something to give and finding the pockets exactly as empty as he knew they were.

The word, and then what Peter had on him

Let me stand in the hall behind you and say the plain thing fast, because there is a man on your step.

The problem is not the money. Nobody at that door is expecting money and he did not come up here for money and both of you know it.

The problem is that you were raised on a rule about what a man is worth when his hands are empty, and the rule is running right now, at speed, and it is telling you to say something apologetic and close the door.

So let me put the word straight first, and I will be quick.

Blessed does not mean having something to give. It means the favor of God is resting on a person, His face is turned toward them. It is about where He is looking. It is on you in this doorway with the cupboard exactly as it is.

Now the verse, and I want you to look at the two halves of what Peter says.

Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee.Acts 3:6

Silver and gold have I none. He says it plainly, with no embarrassment, to a man who has specifically asked for money. He does not apologize for it and he does not explain it and he does not promise to come back with some.

And then: such as I have give I thee.

Such as I have. That phrase assumes there is something. A man with genuinely nothing does not say that sentence, and Peter, who has just told the truth about his pockets, says it without a pause.

You have a such as I have, and the phrase assumes it before anybody has looked. Acts 3:6 puts the emptiness and the giving in one sentence with a but between them, and it is the Holy Spirit who had been poured out on that man two chapters earlier, which is what he actually had on him at that gate.

What is actually in your hands at nine at night

Now let me name what is in your hands, because you did an inventory and you ran the wrong inventory.

You looked for money, a car and a contact. That is the inventory your family taught you and it is a good inventory for some problems and it is the wrong one for a man in a coat at nine at night.

Here is what you actually have.

A door that is open. A kettle. A chair. The ability to say nothing for twenty minutes, which most people cannot do and which is the single most requested and least available thing in the world at nine at night.

The willingness to walk him back down to his own flat afterwards so that he does not go into it alone.

And a mouth, and a name to say out loud over the situation, which is the thing Peter had and which he did not consider a small item.

You have a doorway you are already standing in and a kettle you have already filled tonight, and that is the actual inventory. Acts 3:6 has Peter naming what he lacks and then giving what he has without ranking the two, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes the second half of that sentence something other than a consolation.

And notice what Peter does after he says it. He takes him by the right hand and lifts him up. There is a physical act. A hand, and a lift.

Whatever else that passage is, it is a man touching another man and putting his own body into it.

You have hands and you have twenty minutes, and both of them are in the passage. Acts 3:7 records the taking by the right hand and the lifting, and it is the Holy Spirit who was on the man doing it, which is why the lifting was not merely kindness.

What this is not, said plainly

Now, and I want to be very exact here because this site is very exact about it.

Nothing comes back to you for this. There is no return. If you let that man in and make him tea and sit with him and walk him down at eleven, nothing whatsoever is credited to you anywhere and no door opens for you later because of it.

That is not a disappointing detail. That is the whole nature of it. The moment there is a return, it is a transaction, and the thing that would be happening in your kitchen would be a different thing wearing the same clothes.

And I am not going to tell you God will provide for you because you provided for him. That is the exact sentence this site exists to refuse.

You are giving something for which nothing comes back, and that is what makes it the thing rather than a version of it. Scripture has Peter giving at a gate with no ledger anywhere in the account, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the supply in a person rather than a return being generated by an act.

And I am not going to tell you what happens to his wife. I do not know. You do not know. He does not know, which is why he is at your door.

If he needs a doctor, or if anything about tonight is a thing somebody official should hear about, help him make that call. That is also giving what you have.