Acts 9:32-43. As Peter is going about preaching, he comes to Lydda where he meets a bedridden, paralyzed man named Aeneas. Peter says to him "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed" and Aeneas is immediately healed. Seeing this, all the residents of Lydda and Sharon turn to the Lord. Meanwhile, in Joppa, a disciple named Tabitha, who had been full of good works and charity, falls sick and dies. Since Joppa was not far from Lydda, the disciples send word to Peter and ask him to come. When he arrives he finds the women weeping and showing various garments Tabitha had made. Peter sends everyone from the room, kneels down in prayer, and turns to the body saying "Tabitha, rise." She immediately opens her eyes and sits up and Peter "calling the saints and widows," presents her alive. Many came to believe due to this miracle. Peter stays in Joppa many more days with Simon, a tanner.

As I read these verses, I couldn't help thinking of the story of Jesus raising Jarius' daughter (Luke 8:40-56). I think we are meant to see these similarities as a way to see that Peter is indeed the successor of Christ on earth. Just as the woman is healed who touches Jesus' cloak as He is headed to Jarius', Peter performs a "lesser" miracle first - he cures a paralyzed man - before he is called to the bedside of a dead woman. And, just as with Jarius' daughter, everyone is weeping and lamenting when he gets there. Peter trusts and prays and tells Tabitha to rise, just as he had seen Jesus do to Jarius' daughter. Thus, he shows himself to have the power of his Master and to be Jesus' successor.

There are important differences in the stories, though. Jesus' "lesser" miracle was done to someone who sought Him out. The woman with the flow of blood did not even present herself to Him first. She so totally believed that Jesus was God that she thought If she just touched His cloak she would be healed, and she was right! Peter's lesser miracle was to someone he came to ("There he found a man named Anaeas"). I think we are to see an important distinction here. Peter is most definitely Jesus' successor on earth - he is performing miracles only due to the power of God - but Peter is not God himself, as Jesus was. The bleeding woman, merely by touching Jesus, touched God Himself. Her faith connected to the reality of God in that moment and His power flowed from Him and cured her. God, in his very being, is order, perfect health, and eternal life. Jesus, being God, did not have to interact with this woman for His power to be drawn to her. Her faith drew it from Him. Her faith truly did make her well! Peter, on the other hand, does not have the power innately, he is channeling it. In his healing of the paralyzed man, Peter had to direct God's healing power to its intended target. This slight difference reinforces the true divinity of Christ! [Edit and further thoughts: Thinking about this later, I edited this slightly. I deleted the idea that Peter had to interact with people in order to heal them and always direct his power to the person he was healing, remembering that there is the strong implication in Acts 5:15 that Peter's shadow alone was curing people in the streets right after Pentecost! So perhaps Peter does not have to interact with those he heals, nor even always direct the power to its intended target. Nonethless, Peter's shadow curing people would be the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through him, and not Peter's own personal power. In this story, I think Peter's "lesser" miracle is one where he found the man and healed him purposefully in order to juxtapose the power flowing through Peter with the power innate in Christ shown in the healing of the woman with the flow of blood.]

Secondly, after raising Jarius' daughter, Jesus tells her parents not to tell anyone what happened (knowing, I'm sure, that word would spread anyway - it's pretty hard to hide the fact that someone dead is alive again!). But Peter calls all the "widows and saints" and presents Tabitha alive to them, and word spreads and many are converted. I think this difference also comes down in some way to Jesus' divinity. Jesus knows the plan. He does not want to "get ahead of Himself" as far as arousing too soon the powers who will eventually kill Him. He loves his people and wants to cure them, and His miracles are meant to be signs that He is God Himself, and thus serve to spread His message, but He needs time for that message to spread under the radar! So He cures Jarius' daughter, but if He were to present her alive to everyone, His fame would have spread even faster, and He would have had less time to spread His message (there was a LOT He needed to teach us before He died!). So Jesus asked for confidentiality. But when the Holy Spirit is working through Peter, one of the main objectives is making converts. Peter's miracles are meant to show others that Peter is Christ's successor, to show the power of Christ to those who had never seen or heard of Him, and to bring more people to the new church. So Peter does not want confidentiality, that would defeat the Holy Spirit's purposes.

God is ultimately in charge of everything. He was inspiring Peter to perform the miracles He wanted performed, in the way He wanted them performed, and to have people talk about them the way He wanted them to be talked about. Peter, because he had the best of teachers, was in tune with everything God was doing. By doing God's will, Peter was showing himself to be Jesus' true earthly successor.