The Choosing of the Seven
1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews[a] among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
5 This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6 They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
7 So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
Dig Deeper
Quite a few years ago, my wife and I had the privilege of knowing a great young couple of disciples of Jesus Christ who were getting married. They were certainly full of zeal and excitement both about following Jesus and about being married to one another. One thing that was almost a little amusing, but at the same time a little concerning, was a belief that they seemed to have developed that they were not going to have any conflict or problems once they got married. They had read several marriage books, had received much advice from other married couples, and had observed the lives of many wonderfully mature Christian married couples and they were absolutely sure that they had it all figured out. They were not going to fall into all of those traps that so many others had. As idealistic as they were, though, I have to give them a bit of a break. I don’t think any engaged couple on their way to be married can really grasp just how challenging living together can be and how much it demands of you.
The reality of life is that if you put two or more people together to live together or to closely share their lives in any sort of context, there will be conflict. It really is that simple. In fact, many young Christians make the same mistake as that soon-to-be-married couple, who incidentally found out that married life wasn’t quite as simple as they thought. They come to the body of believers almost thinking that things should be perfect. This seems to be a perfect group of people and they will always be loved and have their needs met perfectly. That’s just not the reality of the present age, however. Yes, the Christian family is called to anticipate the life of the new creation that is to come but not to fully and perfectly live it out. Luke understood that as he recorded the book of Acts and we have to give him credit for never trying to idealize the early church. They had conflict and issues for certain. But the mark of God’s people is not the absence of conflict, it is the loyalty and commitment to one another because of their love for God despite the conflict. It is not that the Christian family won’t have issues, it is how they work through those issues that shows their love and dedication to God. That’s what Luke wants us to see in this passage.
Luke has already shown us, beginning in chapter 2, how the early Christian community included Jews from “every nation under heaven.” This included Jews that had lived in Israel their whole life and those who had returned to Jerusalem after living all around the known world as a result of the Diaspora that spread Jews out throughout the world centuries earlier. This was an early symbol and anticipation of the gospel family that was to finally be the fulfillment of God’s promised one family of all nations that would soon go out beyond the borders of Israel and include Gentiles of all nations. But putting together these Hellenistic Jews (those who would have likely returned to Israel after living elsewhere and who would have primarily spoke Greek along with other languages) with the Hebraic Jews (those who were indigenous to Jerusalem and the surrounding area of Israel and who would have primarily spoken Aramaic at the time), was not without it’s difficulties. Taking disparate groups of people and calling them to live together as a common family (they were not living communally but had certainly intertwined their lives as a single, large family) was going to bring conflict. This too would be an anticipation of the coming time when the Gentiles would begin to stream into the family of God and conflicts would quickly arise, primarily between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.
As many Jews that had been scattered from Israel in previous centuries returned to Jerusalem in their older age to live out their remaining years in the homeland, it left a situation where many of the Hellenistic Jews were widows whose husbands had already passed on. The Jews had a system for taking care of widows, the most vulnerable among them, but these Grecian Jews may not have had the same community system around them as the Jews who grew up in Jerusalem, and it seems apparent that because so many Hellenistic Jews had returned in their advanced years that there was this unusually high number of widows among the Hellenistic Jews. In any case, however, when Jews of any stripe joined the Christian family they knew that this typically meant leaving their blood families and possibly their normal system of care. If the Christian group of believers was going to truly act like the family that God had called them to be, then they would have to provide for those who could not generally provide for themselves, the widows among them.
As mentioned earlier, many young Christians come to the table expecting perfection from the other believers and sincerely believing that they will never be hurt or have conflict within this new family but even a quick perusal of the New Testament should strip someone of any such utopian beliefs. Yet, there are many older Christians who somehow still cling to this belief and who become outraged, pull away in their heart, or even quit the Christian community if anything unpleasant happens. What is often missed, though, is that the New Testament virtually promises that we will have conflict and that we will hurt one another or let one another down. When a passage urges Christians to bear with one another, or be patient with one another, or forgive one another, these are promises of conflict and hurt within the Christian family.
Quite frankly, this was a small issue but it had potential to rip this young Christian family apart. Nothing can be more divisive in a group like this than fault lines that run along old lines of race or nationality. These people had been called to be a new humanity. They were called to be God’s family, the people that would live out the reality of the light of the new creation while still in the darkness of the present age. They were supposed to show the world what it looked like to live by the values of a future age when their would be nothing but love and the presence of God. But now the reality of human shortcoming and the difficulty of organizing a group to live like family that was exploding in numbers and getting larger everyday. They were certainly trying to live out the ideal of sharing everything they had in common and care for every member of the family, but the Hellenistic Jews felt that their widows were somehow being overlooked in this matter. Perhaps they tended to live in one area and that area was somehow being unintentionally neglected. Luke doesn’t give us the details but they are not the point. The point is how was this burgeoning community was going to deal with such a potential earthquake that could split them along nationalistic lines and destroy the very thing that they were to become; one family of all nations.
The apostles were in the clear leadership position of the community but they were just human. They could not do all of this by themselves and they admitted as much. They were not succeeding in overseeing the distribution of foods as they had other roles that needed to be fulfilled, namely prayer and the ministry of the word, and they were in danger of coming up short in those areas if they continued to oversee matters that could be delegated. The solution was to find capable men that were willing to serve and who were known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom in making decisions. The tasks of the Christian community were not to be distributed to make people feel good about themselves. They were to go to people who had proven themselves capable of such an important task.
The apostles decided to leave this decision to the whole group. It’s not that they could not have chosen the men, but they likely felt that they needed to leave the believers to work out this issue among themselves so that they could learn to work out their common life. The entire community of believers did something that appears to be rather amazing. The seven men that they chose all have Greek names. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all seven were Hellenistic Jews but most commentators feel that this was the case. This means that the whole community of Hebraic and Hellenistic Jews chose men from the overlooked minority to oversee the future distribution of foods. There would be no splitting along group lines, no bitter arguments over equal representation between Hellenistic and Hebraic Jews. The whole group trusted one another despite their differences and difficulties and believed that God really had called them to live together as one family. They knew that having separate groups of people worshiping with only those like them made no statement to the world at all. It was only when different groups of people that had no other reason to live together as a single family chose to do so despite their difficulties because of their love for and loyalty to God, that the manifold wisdom of God was truly displayed for the whole world to see (see Eph. 2 and 3, especially 3:10). The whole community did something that was simply stunning. How many times have you heard of a conflict arising between two groups and then both groups coming together to choose a group made entirely of the neglected minority to lead things? Yet this is what they apparently did. They presented the men to the apostles who confirmed the decision and laid hands and prayed for them.
As a result of their continued loyalty to one another, the community continued to grow rather than fracture. Luke gives the specific detail that as it continued to explode in numbers, a large number of priests came to join the Christian family. This likely would not have included the inner circle of wealthy chief priests who had vehemently opposed the gospel. The priests referred to were likely the large group of ordinary priests like Zechariah (Lk. 1:5-6) who were humble to God’s truth and waiting for the Messiah. These men heard the truth of the gospel and accepted it, not being dissuaded by their priestly position but embracing the truth simply because it was true.
The Christian community had faced their first potential divisive conflict but it would not be their last. They would continue to work through what it meant to be loyal to God by loving their brothers and sisters in Christ (1 Jn. 4:12, 19-21). The challenge for us today is not to try to create communities that are devoid of conflict but to live in communities that loyal to God and one another despite the conflicts. It is when the church truly embraces that as part of our vocation that the world sits up and takes notice.
Devotional Thought
What is your response when their is conflict in the Christian community or when you feel that you have been wronged? Is it to pull away or to deal with situations that anyone in the world might? Or is your reaction to continue to step forward and love one another and put loyalty to God above potential conflicts? When another brother or sister in Christ offends or hurts you, do you pull away from them or step towards them in love? How does a passage like Luke 6:27-37 challenge us in this area?
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Acts 5:27-42
27 The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! 30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. 42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
Dig Deeper
During the American Civil War there was a great deal of arguing back and forth between the North and the South as to who was on the side of right. We might look back now from the vantage point of the twenty-first century and think that it is pretty clear that the North was right in their eventual attempts to end slavery within the United States and that the South was wrong in their desire to keep the system of slavery viable, yet the issue was not so clear in the minds of those who lived at the time. In fact, both sides claimed quite boldly that God was on their side during the war. Both sides felt justified in their positions of arguing for freedom. The North argued for freedom of all men, and the South argued for freedom from government control. Whenever one side or the other won a major battle they would immediately give the credit to God and use their victory to put forth their argument that this was proof that God was on their side. Near the end of the war, however, Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief of the Northern Army, was asked if the recent success that the Union had been having in the war was a clear sign that God was on the side of the North. Lincoln responded by saying, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” Lincoln understood that any human being can make a claim that God is on their side but that is not really of any importance unless one is more interested in being justified in their behavior than they are with being truly right. In the end, we must remember that God doesn’t choose sides but we must.
I don’t think that there are any human beings who believe in God who are unconcerned with God being on their side or being with them. Yet, there seems to be a strong human urge to work God into their beliefs to justify them rather than actually and seriously examining what they believe to see if they match up with God’s will. In the first century for those who were speaking about the resurrection and the life of Christ, and the Jewish leadership, the issue of whose side God was on was very much at the forefront. When it came down to it, however, the real issue was not who could make the best case that God was for them to justify their own beliefs and practices. Far more important was which group was on God’s side and which group would find themselves fighting against God and his true people.
As the apostles were brought in once again (at least for Peter and John) before the Sanhedrin, it is clear to see that the Sanhedrin were rather annoyed that their first instructions to stop speaking about Jesus were not heeded. This begins with the apostles standing before the Sanhedrin and being scolded and threatened, yet we see no fear on their part. The Sanhedrin were the most influential and powerful spiritual group in Jerusalem and the normal response of people being brought before them was to be filled with fear and intimidation. But these men were different. They were of no account and no impressive training and yet they had a boldness and wisdom about them that was striking. So much so, that they quickly seemed able to turn the tables in the hearing and put the Sanhedrin themselves on trial.
The real issue wasn’t whether or not the Sanhedrin had the power or authority to silence them; or in other words, whether God was on the side of the Sanhedrin. The real issue was their actions. Peter and the other disciples were not, in their opinion, trying to justify their own behaviors by saying that God was on their side. Their argument was far more significant than that. They were not using God to justify themselves, they were simply obeying God. God had sent one who claimed to be his promised Messiah but the Jewish leadership would not consider that. He had performed many signs and wonders but they would not see. He had spoken the words of God but they would not listen.
Instead they responded by conspiring with the Romans to hang Jesus on a cross. The literal word that Peter used in verse 30 is translated “tree,” which makes clear that he was making an obvious allusion to Deuteronomy 21:23 which declares a curse for anyone who is hung on a tree to die. What seems like a bad thing, though, was actually good news for all people because through the mercy of God “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us; for it is written ‘cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” (Gal. 3:13; see also Acts 13:29). This man that they thought was accursed by God because he died on a cross was actually God’s Messiah who became a curse for all so that they might have access to God’s kingdom. God had proven Jesus to be in the right by resurrecting him from the dead and exalting him to his right hand as Prince and Savior. The exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God was a key element in the early preaching of Jesus to the Jewish people because, in part at least, it showed him to be the one like the son of man of Daniel 7 (see Acts 2:33-35; 3:20-21; 4:11).
The apostles were not trying to defend their own actions, per se. They were demonstrating that Jesus really was God’s Messiah and they, therefore, had no choice in the matter except to obey God. Jesus had promised them that the Spirit would come and enable them to be his witnesses and in verse 32, Peter confirmed that they were partnering with that same Holy Spirit to be just that. They were not concerned with whether or not God was on their side. They were claiming undeniable proof that they were on God’s side; that they had done the only thing that they could have done under the circumstances. And now it was the Sanhedrin’s choice. They had stood in judgment and been responsible for Jesus’ death but the apostles were shockingly offering salvation to the very group that had crucified the Messiah.
One man that seemed to grasp at least some of what was going on in the midst of this incredible scene was the great Rabbi Gamaliel the elder. Gamaliel was a deeply respected man, perhaps the most highly respected man of his time. It was said of him when he died that “the glory of the Law ceased and purity and abstinence died.” At the time of Gamaliel there were two basic camps of interpretation of the Law amongst the Pharisees and Rabbis. There was the school of Shammai which tended to be very zealous for God and the Law. They were hard-lined and were more than willing to engage in violence in order to protect one or the other or both. Then there was the school of Hillel which included the more moderate faction that believed that the real issue when it came to God was the heart so violence wasn’t necessary. They believed that God would work it out. Most commentators have speculated that Gamaliel belonged to the school of Hillel, but there is evidence to support the notion that he was so highly revered that he may have had his own school and followers (later traditions cite Gamaliel as a member of the school of Hillel but early writings indicate that he did not belong to Hillel and had his own school, the school of Gamaliel). It is simply not known for sure where Gamaliel fell on the spectrum of zeal for the Law but it is clear that he had a student named Saul (Acts 22:3) who was quite zealous (Phil. 3:6) and more than willing to kill Christians to preserve the honor of God, which would lead us to believe that at some level, Gamaliel would not completely fall in the camp of Hillel (Saul, of course, would later be known as the apostle Paul).
Gamaliel’s point was stunning and insightful and he offered two examples from history to prove his point. He referred to two rebellions that likely took place shortly after the death of Herod the Great. The rebellion of Judas was fairly well documented in history but that of Theudas has been lost outside of this reference. His point was that both of these rebellions must have taken on some sort of Messianic tones or claims but they both amounted to nothing. It wasn’t necessary to determine whether or not God was on their side, the very fact that they had amounted to nothing following the death of their leader demonstrated that they were not of God at all.
Gamaliel made it clear that the Sanhedrin should tread carefully. Perhaps he had noticed the fantastic nature of the signs and wonders surrounding the Christian community and could not explain it away so simply. In this moment of deep wisdom, Gamaliel argued that fighting against this new movement was largely unnecessary. If they left them alone they could see what would happen. If they were not from God, then the movement would surely fail. But if they were to try to extinguish these believers and they really were a movement that was being powered by God himself, in other words, if they were truly on God’s side, then the Jewish leaders would find themselves in the unenviable position of fighting God. Thus, persecuting these people would serve no purpose.
Luke doesn’t tell us how he learned of this conversation among the Sanhedrin but it is possible that Gamaliel’s student, the young Saul, was present and later reported these events to Luke. If that was the case, Gamaliel’s words were evidently lost on Saul as he would go on to persecute the church with incredible zeal.
Gamaliel’s speech was persuasive enough to dissuade the Sanhedrin from doing anything more than a punitive whipping and another threat to stop their preaching about the resurrection and life of Christ that was available to those who would repent and die to self and have faith in his life. The whipping had the opposite from the desired effect, though. Rather than frightening or intimidating the disciples, they rejoiced in the suffering which is a family characteristic of a Christian in such a condition (Jam. 1:1-3: 1 Pet. 1:6; 4:13; Matt. 5:11; Rom. 5:3; 2 Cor. 6:10). It is only when we are focused hard and fast on being on God’s side will we be unconcerned with whatever the world might throw at us and rejoice in good time and in suffering. A church that is more focused on being on God’s side than in anything else is a church that cannot be stopped. In the end, we must remember that God doesn’t choose sides but we must.
Devotional Thought
Can you think of anyone who is more concerned with God being on their side than with actually being on God’s side? What are you more concerned with? Are you more interested in justifying your own behaviors and beliefs and covering them over with a God-veneer or have you been willing to racially question your own beliefs and do your best to ensure that you are on God’s side?
29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! 30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. 42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
Dig Deeper
During the American Civil War there was a great deal of arguing back and forth between the North and the South as to who was on the side of right. We might look back now from the vantage point of the twenty-first century and think that it is pretty clear that the North was right in their eventual attempts to end slavery within the United States and that the South was wrong in their desire to keep the system of slavery viable, yet the issue was not so clear in the minds of those who lived at the time. In fact, both sides claimed quite boldly that God was on their side during the war. Both sides felt justified in their positions of arguing for freedom. The North argued for freedom of all men, and the South argued for freedom from government control. Whenever one side or the other won a major battle they would immediately give the credit to God and use their victory to put forth their argument that this was proof that God was on their side. Near the end of the war, however, Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief of the Northern Army, was asked if the recent success that the Union had been having in the war was a clear sign that God was on the side of the North. Lincoln responded by saying, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” Lincoln understood that any human being can make a claim that God is on their side but that is not really of any importance unless one is more interested in being justified in their behavior than they are with being truly right. In the end, we must remember that God doesn’t choose sides but we must.
I don’t think that there are any human beings who believe in God who are unconcerned with God being on their side or being with them. Yet, there seems to be a strong human urge to work God into their beliefs to justify them rather than actually and seriously examining what they believe to see if they match up with God’s will. In the first century for those who were speaking about the resurrection and the life of Christ, and the Jewish leadership, the issue of whose side God was on was very much at the forefront. When it came down to it, however, the real issue was not who could make the best case that God was for them to justify their own beliefs and practices. Far more important was which group was on God’s side and which group would find themselves fighting against God and his true people.
As the apostles were brought in once again (at least for Peter and John) before the Sanhedrin, it is clear to see that the Sanhedrin were rather annoyed that their first instructions to stop speaking about Jesus were not heeded. This begins with the apostles standing before the Sanhedrin and being scolded and threatened, yet we see no fear on their part. The Sanhedrin were the most influential and powerful spiritual group in Jerusalem and the normal response of people being brought before them was to be filled with fear and intimidation. But these men were different. They were of no account and no impressive training and yet they had a boldness and wisdom about them that was striking. So much so, that they quickly seemed able to turn the tables in the hearing and put the Sanhedrin themselves on trial.
The real issue wasn’t whether or not the Sanhedrin had the power or authority to silence them; or in other words, whether God was on the side of the Sanhedrin. The real issue was their actions. Peter and the other disciples were not, in their opinion, trying to justify their own behaviors by saying that God was on their side. Their argument was far more significant than that. They were not using God to justify themselves, they were simply obeying God. God had sent one who claimed to be his promised Messiah but the Jewish leadership would not consider that. He had performed many signs and wonders but they would not see. He had spoken the words of God but they would not listen.
Instead they responded by conspiring with the Romans to hang Jesus on a cross. The literal word that Peter used in verse 30 is translated “tree,” which makes clear that he was making an obvious allusion to Deuteronomy 21:23 which declares a curse for anyone who is hung on a tree to die. What seems like a bad thing, though, was actually good news for all people because through the mercy of God “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us; for it is written ‘cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” (Gal. 3:13; see also Acts 13:29). This man that they thought was accursed by God because he died on a cross was actually God’s Messiah who became a curse for all so that they might have access to God’s kingdom. God had proven Jesus to be in the right by resurrecting him from the dead and exalting him to his right hand as Prince and Savior. The exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God was a key element in the early preaching of Jesus to the Jewish people because, in part at least, it showed him to be the one like the son of man of Daniel 7 (see Acts 2:33-35; 3:20-21; 4:11).
The apostles were not trying to defend their own actions, per se. They were demonstrating that Jesus really was God’s Messiah and they, therefore, had no choice in the matter except to obey God. Jesus had promised them that the Spirit would come and enable them to be his witnesses and in verse 32, Peter confirmed that they were partnering with that same Holy Spirit to be just that. They were not concerned with whether or not God was on their side. They were claiming undeniable proof that they were on God’s side; that they had done the only thing that they could have done under the circumstances. And now it was the Sanhedrin’s choice. They had stood in judgment and been responsible for Jesus’ death but the apostles were shockingly offering salvation to the very group that had crucified the Messiah.
One man that seemed to grasp at least some of what was going on in the midst of this incredible scene was the great Rabbi Gamaliel the elder. Gamaliel was a deeply respected man, perhaps the most highly respected man of his time. It was said of him when he died that “the glory of the Law ceased and purity and abstinence died.” At the time of Gamaliel there were two basic camps of interpretation of the Law amongst the Pharisees and Rabbis. There was the school of Shammai which tended to be very zealous for God and the Law. They were hard-lined and were more than willing to engage in violence in order to protect one or the other or both. Then there was the school of Hillel which included the more moderate faction that believed that the real issue when it came to God was the heart so violence wasn’t necessary. They believed that God would work it out. Most commentators have speculated that Gamaliel belonged to the school of Hillel, but there is evidence to support the notion that he was so highly revered that he may have had his own school and followers (later traditions cite Gamaliel as a member of the school of Hillel but early writings indicate that he did not belong to Hillel and had his own school, the school of Gamaliel). It is simply not known for sure where Gamaliel fell on the spectrum of zeal for the Law but it is clear that he had a student named Saul (Acts 22:3) who was quite zealous (Phil. 3:6) and more than willing to kill Christians to preserve the honor of God, which would lead us to believe that at some level, Gamaliel would not completely fall in the camp of Hillel (Saul, of course, would later be known as the apostle Paul).
Gamaliel’s point was stunning and insightful and he offered two examples from history to prove his point. He referred to two rebellions that likely took place shortly after the death of Herod the Great. The rebellion of Judas was fairly well documented in history but that of Theudas has been lost outside of this reference. His point was that both of these rebellions must have taken on some sort of Messianic tones or claims but they both amounted to nothing. It wasn’t necessary to determine whether or not God was on their side, the very fact that they had amounted to nothing following the death of their leader demonstrated that they were not of God at all.
Gamaliel made it clear that the Sanhedrin should tread carefully. Perhaps he had noticed the fantastic nature of the signs and wonders surrounding the Christian community and could not explain it away so simply. In this moment of deep wisdom, Gamaliel argued that fighting against this new movement was largely unnecessary. If they left them alone they could see what would happen. If they were not from God, then the movement would surely fail. But if they were to try to extinguish these believers and they really were a movement that was being powered by God himself, in other words, if they were truly on God’s side, then the Jewish leaders would find themselves in the unenviable position of fighting God. Thus, persecuting these people would serve no purpose.
Luke doesn’t tell us how he learned of this conversation among the Sanhedrin but it is possible that Gamaliel’s student, the young Saul, was present and later reported these events to Luke. If that was the case, Gamaliel’s words were evidently lost on Saul as he would go on to persecute the church with incredible zeal.
Gamaliel’s speech was persuasive enough to dissuade the Sanhedrin from doing anything more than a punitive whipping and another threat to stop their preaching about the resurrection and life of Christ that was available to those who would repent and die to self and have faith in his life. The whipping had the opposite from the desired effect, though. Rather than frightening or intimidating the disciples, they rejoiced in the suffering which is a family characteristic of a Christian in such a condition (Jam. 1:1-3: 1 Pet. 1:6; 4:13; Matt. 5:11; Rom. 5:3; 2 Cor. 6:10). It is only when we are focused hard and fast on being on God’s side will we be unconcerned with whatever the world might throw at us and rejoice in good time and in suffering. A church that is more focused on being on God’s side than in anything else is a church that cannot be stopped. In the end, we must remember that God doesn’t choose sides but we must.
Devotional Thought
Can you think of anyone who is more concerned with God being on their side than with actually being on God’s side? What are you more concerned with? Are you more interested in justifying your own behaviors and beliefs and covering them over with a God-veneer or have you been willing to racially question your own beliefs and do your best to ensure that you are on God’s side?
Friday, December 17, 2010
Acts 5:17-26
The Apostles Persecuted
17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18 They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. 20 “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people all about this new life.”
21 At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles. 22 But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, 23 “We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” 24 On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to.
25 Then someone came and said, “Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people.” 26 At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.
Dig Deeper
Over the years I have found a great deal of relaxation, health, and enjoyment in running. I prefer to run outside but as the weather turns cold, snowy, and rather unfriendly during the winter, it becomes easier to go to the indoor running track at our nearby YMCA and run there. During those winter times I have noticed what seems to be an annual pattern. Through the month of December, the place is almost deserted. I can often go run on the track alone or with just one or two other people walking or running. The rest of the YMCA is much the same. But as soon as January rolls around, the place becomes packed. The track is full, the spinning classes are bursting at the seams, and the weight room is strong with people as well. It took me a while to figure out what would cause such a big difference in attendance between December and January but I have it pegged now. It is all of the people making New Year’s resolutions. Hundreds of people resolve at the new year that they are going to get into shape and they show up at the YMCA and other workout establishments bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go. But, sadly, it usually doesn’t last very long. As early as February the crowding starts to ease up and by March or April things are back to normal. I think the reason that so many people resolve to get into shape and don’t stick with it is because they make working out an activity that has to be done at certain intervals. Someone who has that mindset will never stick with it. Being fit is a way of life. It must become your life or you will never stick with it over the course of months and more importantly, years.
In many ways that’s the big difference between religion (any religion whether it be a non-Christian religion or a religious version of Christianity) and true Christianity. Religion is all about doing. It is about doing the right things at the right times in the right ways. But it’s not about truly transforming one’s life. True Christianity is a life not a series of actions. Religion is about conforming but true Christianity is about transforming.
In many ways the dichotomy between religion and a new way of life is the cause of the tension that we see in this passage between the Jewish leadership and the followers of Jesus. They were clinging to their old way, the religion of the law that God always said would be a temporary measure until the coming of his new and eternal covenant with his Messiah family. But the Jewish leadership seemed far more interested in keeping up their positions of power within the traditional structure of the Temple system. Probably without even fully realizing it, they had begun to exalt their own status over truly doing God’s will but had confused one with the other so that in defending their own positions, they had convinced themselves that they were doing God’s will.
This is why Luke tells us that they had the apostles arrested as a result of their “jealousy.” The word “zelos,” used in verse 17 has been alternately translated as jealous, zealous, indignant, and contentious. Probably the most helpful translation would be “zealous,” but only if we understand what Jews of the first century meant by “zeal.” It was not just to be intense about something. To have zeal meant that one was ready and willing to defend God’s cause by any means necessary. The more willing one was to go to extreme measures, the more “zelos” they were said to have. The apostle Paul defined his own “zelos” as a Pharisee by his willingness to persecute the church (Phi. 3:6). The high priest and his Sadduccean friends were fierce in their rejection of any resurrection talk and they were willing to act with great “zelos” in order to put down the early church as quickly as they possibly could.
The apostles knew from the last time that they had been dragged before the Sanhedrin that they were running a risk by continuing to preach publicly about what they had seen and heard. But they had seen the risen Christ and simply would not be swayed by human opinion or human threats no matter how serious they might be. When you have met the true king, the court jesters aren’t gong to intimidate you no matter how much they yell and scream. The point is that there were going to be consequences for their actions and they knew that. They did not care. After being released the last time, they prayed not for relief but boldness in carrying out their mission. God had answered that prayer and would continue to answer it.
It might appear, at first glance, that God, in sending an angel to release them, had finally given them some relief but that is really not the case at all. As the angel came to them, he came with specific orders. They were not to escape and be spirited off into hiding so that they could escape the persecution of the Jewish leadership. They were being released for a very specific purpose. They were to go and tell people of the new life that was available within the body of Christ. They were to proclaim “this new life” not just another set of religious mantras, beliefs, and rules. The angel wasn’t helping them escape the lion but was guiding them right back into the lion’s teeth.
Preaching and explaining to people in words the truth of the life of Christ has always and will continue to be an important aspect of Christianity. But it is not something that can be completely defined by words. It is precisely not what all other religions are at a core level which is a set of beliefs, guidelines, principles, or ultimately rules. It is unique among religions in that it is a life. The great declaration of the gospel is that something entirely new has broken into the unrelenting darkness of the present age. It is not simply a system of making the best of the mess in which we find ourselves or doing the best we can to bring a little order to the chaos until such time as God comes back and fixes it all. That’s the view of many religions and of most versions of Christianity that are much closer to a pale shadow of the real thing than they are full and vibrant manifestations of the true life that God wants for his people.
The true gospel declaration is that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the life of God’s new creation, the time of the light, has opened up a wormhole into the present darkness. Those who are willing to recognize their own place and culpability in the darkness can denounce that life, lay it down, and enter into the new identity of the Messiah’s family and receive the life of that family. It is a family that is enabled by the power of the Spirit to live by the values of that future age of light rather than the present age of darkness. Christians are called to love in the face of hate, bless in the face of cursing, and so on, because we are people who live in the strange reality of belonging to the new creation while still residing in the old creation. The job the angel gave the apostles is the same job that we still have today. To go and share about the victory of Christ over death and the breaking in of the new age in the life of the Messiah’s people. Of course, it is worth pointing out that declaring such a thing falls rather flat if there are not constant and vibrant attempts on the part of the Messiah’s family to actually live the fullness of that life to the best of our ability by allowing the Spirit to guide us in our pursuit of that new life.
Clearly a miracle had transpired as the angel led them out of a jail that was subsequently found to be locked. No matter how hard the world might try, the world simply cannot lock in the kingdom of God when the Spirit is at work. Upon their release, they understood that their mission had not changed in the slightest. They were still to go out and boldly testify to the resurrection of Jesus and the life that this had opened up to those who wished to no longer live for themselves but for the one who died for them (see 2 Cor. 5:14-17). That’s the job of the people of the age of light, though, and it will never change in this present age. We are never called to be concerned about the threats and intimidations of the darkness but to follow the Spirit where he leads and testify to the life of the light. This is precisely what Peter and the other apostles did without apology.
On hearing that the apostles were right back doing what they had been warned not to do, the Sadducees had to have been quite flabbergasted. They clearly understood that although they had the power, they did not have public opinion on their side. They could not just go out publicly and forcefully seize these men. Luke gives us the impression that the apostles were really the ones with the power at this point. Had they resisted and made a scene the crowd would have been on their side and they undoubtedly would have triumphed. But that’s the strange vocation of the light. The life that they were preaching about also needed to be lived. So they would not play by the rules of power and might of the darkness. They would go with the guards willingly and would continue to be the light. That’s the challenging call for the Messiah’s people down through the ages; we are called to be more concerned with being the people of the life and the light than we are with exercising our rights or freedom. When the church realizes and embraces this once again, it will shine as brightly as it ever has.
Devotional Thought
How have you been called by the Spirit to witness to “this new life” in your own world and life right now? Have you embraced that vocation or shrunk back from it in some ways? What can you do today to go proclaim “this new life” to those around you?
17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18 They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. 20 “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people all about this new life.”
21 At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles. 22 But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, 23 “We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” 24 On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to.
25 Then someone came and said, “Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people.” 26 At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.
Dig Deeper
Over the years I have found a great deal of relaxation, health, and enjoyment in running. I prefer to run outside but as the weather turns cold, snowy, and rather unfriendly during the winter, it becomes easier to go to the indoor running track at our nearby YMCA and run there. During those winter times I have noticed what seems to be an annual pattern. Through the month of December, the place is almost deserted. I can often go run on the track alone or with just one or two other people walking or running. The rest of the YMCA is much the same. But as soon as January rolls around, the place becomes packed. The track is full, the spinning classes are bursting at the seams, and the weight room is strong with people as well. It took me a while to figure out what would cause such a big difference in attendance between December and January but I have it pegged now. It is all of the people making New Year’s resolutions. Hundreds of people resolve at the new year that they are going to get into shape and they show up at the YMCA and other workout establishments bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go. But, sadly, it usually doesn’t last very long. As early as February the crowding starts to ease up and by March or April things are back to normal. I think the reason that so many people resolve to get into shape and don’t stick with it is because they make working out an activity that has to be done at certain intervals. Someone who has that mindset will never stick with it. Being fit is a way of life. It must become your life or you will never stick with it over the course of months and more importantly, years.
In many ways that’s the big difference between religion (any religion whether it be a non-Christian religion or a religious version of Christianity) and true Christianity. Religion is all about doing. It is about doing the right things at the right times in the right ways. But it’s not about truly transforming one’s life. True Christianity is a life not a series of actions. Religion is about conforming but true Christianity is about transforming.
In many ways the dichotomy between religion and a new way of life is the cause of the tension that we see in this passage between the Jewish leadership and the followers of Jesus. They were clinging to their old way, the religion of the law that God always said would be a temporary measure until the coming of his new and eternal covenant with his Messiah family. But the Jewish leadership seemed far more interested in keeping up their positions of power within the traditional structure of the Temple system. Probably without even fully realizing it, they had begun to exalt their own status over truly doing God’s will but had confused one with the other so that in defending their own positions, they had convinced themselves that they were doing God’s will.
This is why Luke tells us that they had the apostles arrested as a result of their “jealousy.” The word “zelos,” used in verse 17 has been alternately translated as jealous, zealous, indignant, and contentious. Probably the most helpful translation would be “zealous,” but only if we understand what Jews of the first century meant by “zeal.” It was not just to be intense about something. To have zeal meant that one was ready and willing to defend God’s cause by any means necessary. The more willing one was to go to extreme measures, the more “zelos” they were said to have. The apostle Paul defined his own “zelos” as a Pharisee by his willingness to persecute the church (Phi. 3:6). The high priest and his Sadduccean friends were fierce in their rejection of any resurrection talk and they were willing to act with great “zelos” in order to put down the early church as quickly as they possibly could.
The apostles knew from the last time that they had been dragged before the Sanhedrin that they were running a risk by continuing to preach publicly about what they had seen and heard. But they had seen the risen Christ and simply would not be swayed by human opinion or human threats no matter how serious they might be. When you have met the true king, the court jesters aren’t gong to intimidate you no matter how much they yell and scream. The point is that there were going to be consequences for their actions and they knew that. They did not care. After being released the last time, they prayed not for relief but boldness in carrying out their mission. God had answered that prayer and would continue to answer it.
It might appear, at first glance, that God, in sending an angel to release them, had finally given them some relief but that is really not the case at all. As the angel came to them, he came with specific orders. They were not to escape and be spirited off into hiding so that they could escape the persecution of the Jewish leadership. They were being released for a very specific purpose. They were to go and tell people of the new life that was available within the body of Christ. They were to proclaim “this new life” not just another set of religious mantras, beliefs, and rules. The angel wasn’t helping them escape the lion but was guiding them right back into the lion’s teeth.
Preaching and explaining to people in words the truth of the life of Christ has always and will continue to be an important aspect of Christianity. But it is not something that can be completely defined by words. It is precisely not what all other religions are at a core level which is a set of beliefs, guidelines, principles, or ultimately rules. It is unique among religions in that it is a life. The great declaration of the gospel is that something entirely new has broken into the unrelenting darkness of the present age. It is not simply a system of making the best of the mess in which we find ourselves or doing the best we can to bring a little order to the chaos until such time as God comes back and fixes it all. That’s the view of many religions and of most versions of Christianity that are much closer to a pale shadow of the real thing than they are full and vibrant manifestations of the true life that God wants for his people.
The true gospel declaration is that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the life of God’s new creation, the time of the light, has opened up a wormhole into the present darkness. Those who are willing to recognize their own place and culpability in the darkness can denounce that life, lay it down, and enter into the new identity of the Messiah’s family and receive the life of that family. It is a family that is enabled by the power of the Spirit to live by the values of that future age of light rather than the present age of darkness. Christians are called to love in the face of hate, bless in the face of cursing, and so on, because we are people who live in the strange reality of belonging to the new creation while still residing in the old creation. The job the angel gave the apostles is the same job that we still have today. To go and share about the victory of Christ over death and the breaking in of the new age in the life of the Messiah’s people. Of course, it is worth pointing out that declaring such a thing falls rather flat if there are not constant and vibrant attempts on the part of the Messiah’s family to actually live the fullness of that life to the best of our ability by allowing the Spirit to guide us in our pursuit of that new life.
Clearly a miracle had transpired as the angel led them out of a jail that was subsequently found to be locked. No matter how hard the world might try, the world simply cannot lock in the kingdom of God when the Spirit is at work. Upon their release, they understood that their mission had not changed in the slightest. They were still to go out and boldly testify to the resurrection of Jesus and the life that this had opened up to those who wished to no longer live for themselves but for the one who died for them (see 2 Cor. 5:14-17). That’s the job of the people of the age of light, though, and it will never change in this present age. We are never called to be concerned about the threats and intimidations of the darkness but to follow the Spirit where he leads and testify to the life of the light. This is precisely what Peter and the other apostles did without apology.
On hearing that the apostles were right back doing what they had been warned not to do, the Sadducees had to have been quite flabbergasted. They clearly understood that although they had the power, they did not have public opinion on their side. They could not just go out publicly and forcefully seize these men. Luke gives us the impression that the apostles were really the ones with the power at this point. Had they resisted and made a scene the crowd would have been on their side and they undoubtedly would have triumphed. But that’s the strange vocation of the light. The life that they were preaching about also needed to be lived. So they would not play by the rules of power and might of the darkness. They would go with the guards willingly and would continue to be the light. That’s the challenging call for the Messiah’s people down through the ages; we are called to be more concerned with being the people of the life and the light than we are with exercising our rights or freedom. When the church realizes and embraces this once again, it will shine as brightly as it ever has.
Devotional Thought
How have you been called by the Spirit to witness to “this new life” in your own world and life right now? Have you embraced that vocation or shrunk back from it in some ways? What can you do today to go proclaim “this new life” to those around you?
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Acts 5:12-16
The Apostles Heal Many
12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.
Dig Deeper
Quite a few years ago in Milwaukee, a new wave of partnership and charter high schools began to take root. They were small schools with little money and not much to impress the outside observer. They began, in many respects, as a fresh alternative to the much more impressive, well-funded, and significantly larger and more established high schools in Milwaukee. I don’t think anyone thought much of these little schools as they began, but you can imagine the anger and opposition from the regular public school establishment when students began to flock to these new, little outposts. They came in such numbers that for awhile, it seemed that a new one was opening every month to accommodate all of those who had left the traditional schools.
It was disturbing to the establishment that such a thing was going on but let’s take that example to the extreme. Imagine if a tiny, rag-tag bunch of high school drop-outs who were short on formal education but long on practical life experience, set up a new school of learning right on the grounds of Harvard University. This group didn’t have any impressive buildings so they met in a small grove of trees right on campus. It wouldn’t seem like much of a threat until the Harvard authorities began to realize that their own students were flocking to this informal place of education and were beginning to become quite a problem in their own classes at Harvard because they were constantly challenging the learned professors with the new alternative information that they were receiving at this informal little gathering place. What is more, the students that were coming to class and creating problems, were constantly inviting others into this new gathering place that had become virtually an alternate lifestyle for those that had become part of the group. In this scenario, how long do you think it would be before the authorities at Harvard began to take serious steps to eradicate this group from their premises? This is something of what was going on as this small group of Christians continued to meet every day right there in the Temple grounds right under the noses of the high priests and religious leaders of the day. They were becoming quite a nuisance in fact.
In Acts 4:30, the disciples prayed fervently that God would “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” They wanted God to show a skeptical Jerusalem that he really had done something new through Jesus. They wanted him to demonstrate through miracles, just as he had in Jesus’ lifetime, that the creative power of God’s new age had broken into the present age and that those in Christ really were the fulfillment of the promised family of God. It would take more than mere words to convince many Jews that this movement truly was from God and that they were not guaranteed the status of being God’s family simply based on their birth status as physical descendants of Abraham and adherence to the law.
Luke gives us every indication that God had begun to answer that prayer in a powerful way. We should probably understand the previous incident with Ananias and Sapphira to be part of the answer to that prayer as God showed powerfully that this was no ordinary group of people; these people were functioning as the new Temple that housed the very presence of God. It would be like that small group of the untrained at Harvard university beginning to call themselves the real Harvard. This was a clear affront to the powers that be.
The sign of the death of Ananias and Sapphira also plays as an important connecting ligament with the present passage. God had answered their prayer for miraculous signs and wonders to be performed among the people so as to serve as a great testament to the Lord working among them through not just Ananias and Sapphira’s death but also on a daily basis at Solomon’s Colonnade in the Temple.
The signs had a powerful dual effect. On the one hand, it seems that Luke was indicating that the death of the married couple served as an incredible deterrent for those with marginal interest in the community. They were obviously duly impressed with the clear signs of God’s power that was manifesting in these great miracles. These were, in fact, the types of signs and wonders that most of them had only heard about through their study of the ancient Scriptures. That is, until Jesus and his followers emerged as conduits of God’s mighty power. Despite the persecution by the religious leadership, the Jewish people regarded the Christian community highly but at the same time most of them were afraid to join. Between the persecution and threats of more and the stories of the mighty holiness of God that had taken the life of two of their own group, those that were not serious about becoming part of God’s family were scared off. Thus, the signs of the married couple’s death and the ongoing miracles served both the purpose of attracting people to God’s kingdom while keeping away those who were not serious in their faith.
Many people were scared off by the over-powering presence of God among these people, similar to the type of fear we see in Exodus 20:18-19 after the Israelites saw the overwhelming presence of God among them. Yet, God continued to add constantly to their numbers. Those who came were not dissuaded by the prospect of persecution and they embraced the idea of the responsibility and risk that came with being the Temples of God’s holiness. The important detail is that it was God who added to their number. The Christian community was not going out of their way to attract people by watering down the message or sugar-coating it. They were functioning as God’s holy Temple and those who truly desired to be a part of it came and joined them. Those that were more impressed by the show of power than they were by God’s holiness simply admired them from afar but dared not enter in. In short, the death of Ananias and Sapphira scared off all those that were not totally committed to being disciples of Jesus Christ.
A balancing measure was surely needed to keep the church in Jerusalem focused in those early days. It could have been quiet damaging had the church been overrun with those who merely went along with the growing church for the excitement, the healing, or the show. The miracles were important but the weren’t the point in and of themselves. They were demonstrations that God’s new age of the new creation really was breaking into the present realm. This would have been incredibly attractive to people, so the counter-measure of the death of Ananias and Sapphira was important. There is always a danger in the church of people coming to it for the personal benefits without truly desiring or respecting the holiness of the God who is at the center of the community.
As a result of these great miracles and the attention that came with so many people streaming into the ranks of the this new people of god, people began flocking to Peter in a similar fashion to the way that people had come to Jesus in droves (see the similarity between verses 15-16 and Mark 6:55-56). The same power that had manifested through the ministry of Jesus was now breaking out in this group of Jesus’ followers. The attraction for the sick and the lame became so intense that people were brought to them in high numbers and they began to believe that even Peter’s shadow falling on them might have the power to heal them. Luke does not say directly here whether people just believed that Peter’s shadow would heal them or if it really did but it should not be surprising if it did. We certainly don’t see anything like this before this nor after in any biblical account, but it is one of the recurring realities of Acts that God was not acting in ways that could be squeezed into a pattern.
A word of caution is necessary, however. This was a unique time of specific manifestation of God’s miraculous power so as to verify the truth of the early Christian community as the people of God. Once the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and the New Testament Scriptures came together over the coming decades, the need for the specific gift of miracles to verify the message became increasingly unnecessary (and arguably undesirable based on the tendency of humans to be drawn to miracles for the wrong reasons and the potential abuse of such things). Thus, any modern claims for the necessity of miraculous powers amongst God’s people falls short. That is not to argue that miracles from God do not still happen. They certainly do. God performing miracles independently or through the persistent prayer of his people is quite a different thing, though, than certain individuals being given the power to perform miracles independently and on an ongoing basis.
What we see hear, though, is that the church through much prayer and reliance on the Holy Spirit, acting in bold opposition to the world of darkness around them. When the God’s people really begin to do that, to take on the powers of darkness in real ways in their own time, context, and communities, that’s when people will take the message seriously and begin to come to see what is going on and to be brought into God’s community. That usually brings opposition as it did the early church but is it more important to fear men or fear the Holy God who dwells among us?
Devotional Thought
Think of one specific way today that you can begin to boldly stand up to the powers of darkness in your local context whether it be at work, school, or in your neighborhood? What can you do to demonstrate that the power of the age of the new creation really has broken into the present age and can continue to break down the strongholds of darkness?
12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.
Dig Deeper
Quite a few years ago in Milwaukee, a new wave of partnership and charter high schools began to take root. They were small schools with little money and not much to impress the outside observer. They began, in many respects, as a fresh alternative to the much more impressive, well-funded, and significantly larger and more established high schools in Milwaukee. I don’t think anyone thought much of these little schools as they began, but you can imagine the anger and opposition from the regular public school establishment when students began to flock to these new, little outposts. They came in such numbers that for awhile, it seemed that a new one was opening every month to accommodate all of those who had left the traditional schools.
It was disturbing to the establishment that such a thing was going on but let’s take that example to the extreme. Imagine if a tiny, rag-tag bunch of high school drop-outs who were short on formal education but long on practical life experience, set up a new school of learning right on the grounds of Harvard University. This group didn’t have any impressive buildings so they met in a small grove of trees right on campus. It wouldn’t seem like much of a threat until the Harvard authorities began to realize that their own students were flocking to this informal place of education and were beginning to become quite a problem in their own classes at Harvard because they were constantly challenging the learned professors with the new alternative information that they were receiving at this informal little gathering place. What is more, the students that were coming to class and creating problems, were constantly inviting others into this new gathering place that had become virtually an alternate lifestyle for those that had become part of the group. In this scenario, how long do you think it would be before the authorities at Harvard began to take serious steps to eradicate this group from their premises? This is something of what was going on as this small group of Christians continued to meet every day right there in the Temple grounds right under the noses of the high priests and religious leaders of the day. They were becoming quite a nuisance in fact.
In Acts 4:30, the disciples prayed fervently that God would “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” They wanted God to show a skeptical Jerusalem that he really had done something new through Jesus. They wanted him to demonstrate through miracles, just as he had in Jesus’ lifetime, that the creative power of God’s new age had broken into the present age and that those in Christ really were the fulfillment of the promised family of God. It would take more than mere words to convince many Jews that this movement truly was from God and that they were not guaranteed the status of being God’s family simply based on their birth status as physical descendants of Abraham and adherence to the law.
Luke gives us every indication that God had begun to answer that prayer in a powerful way. We should probably understand the previous incident with Ananias and Sapphira to be part of the answer to that prayer as God showed powerfully that this was no ordinary group of people; these people were functioning as the new Temple that housed the very presence of God. It would be like that small group of the untrained at Harvard university beginning to call themselves the real Harvard. This was a clear affront to the powers that be.
The sign of the death of Ananias and Sapphira also plays as an important connecting ligament with the present passage. God had answered their prayer for miraculous signs and wonders to be performed among the people so as to serve as a great testament to the Lord working among them through not just Ananias and Sapphira’s death but also on a daily basis at Solomon’s Colonnade in the Temple.
The signs had a powerful dual effect. On the one hand, it seems that Luke was indicating that the death of the married couple served as an incredible deterrent for those with marginal interest in the community. They were obviously duly impressed with the clear signs of God’s power that was manifesting in these great miracles. These were, in fact, the types of signs and wonders that most of them had only heard about through their study of the ancient Scriptures. That is, until Jesus and his followers emerged as conduits of God’s mighty power. Despite the persecution by the religious leadership, the Jewish people regarded the Christian community highly but at the same time most of them were afraid to join. Between the persecution and threats of more and the stories of the mighty holiness of God that had taken the life of two of their own group, those that were not serious about becoming part of God’s family were scared off. Thus, the signs of the married couple’s death and the ongoing miracles served both the purpose of attracting people to God’s kingdom while keeping away those who were not serious in their faith.
Many people were scared off by the over-powering presence of God among these people, similar to the type of fear we see in Exodus 20:18-19 after the Israelites saw the overwhelming presence of God among them. Yet, God continued to add constantly to their numbers. Those who came were not dissuaded by the prospect of persecution and they embraced the idea of the responsibility and risk that came with being the Temples of God’s holiness. The important detail is that it was God who added to their number. The Christian community was not going out of their way to attract people by watering down the message or sugar-coating it. They were functioning as God’s holy Temple and those who truly desired to be a part of it came and joined them. Those that were more impressed by the show of power than they were by God’s holiness simply admired them from afar but dared not enter in. In short, the death of Ananias and Sapphira scared off all those that were not totally committed to being disciples of Jesus Christ.
A balancing measure was surely needed to keep the church in Jerusalem focused in those early days. It could have been quiet damaging had the church been overrun with those who merely went along with the growing church for the excitement, the healing, or the show. The miracles were important but the weren’t the point in and of themselves. They were demonstrations that God’s new age of the new creation really was breaking into the present realm. This would have been incredibly attractive to people, so the counter-measure of the death of Ananias and Sapphira was important. There is always a danger in the church of people coming to it for the personal benefits without truly desiring or respecting the holiness of the God who is at the center of the community.
As a result of these great miracles and the attention that came with so many people streaming into the ranks of the this new people of god, people began flocking to Peter in a similar fashion to the way that people had come to Jesus in droves (see the similarity between verses 15-16 and Mark 6:55-56). The same power that had manifested through the ministry of Jesus was now breaking out in this group of Jesus’ followers. The attraction for the sick and the lame became so intense that people were brought to them in high numbers and they began to believe that even Peter’s shadow falling on them might have the power to heal them. Luke does not say directly here whether people just believed that Peter’s shadow would heal them or if it really did but it should not be surprising if it did. We certainly don’t see anything like this before this nor after in any biblical account, but it is one of the recurring realities of Acts that God was not acting in ways that could be squeezed into a pattern.
A word of caution is necessary, however. This was a unique time of specific manifestation of God’s miraculous power so as to verify the truth of the early Christian community as the people of God. Once the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and the New Testament Scriptures came together over the coming decades, the need for the specific gift of miracles to verify the message became increasingly unnecessary (and arguably undesirable based on the tendency of humans to be drawn to miracles for the wrong reasons and the potential abuse of such things). Thus, any modern claims for the necessity of miraculous powers amongst God’s people falls short. That is not to argue that miracles from God do not still happen. They certainly do. God performing miracles independently or through the persistent prayer of his people is quite a different thing, though, than certain individuals being given the power to perform miracles independently and on an ongoing basis.
What we see hear, though, is that the church through much prayer and reliance on the Holy Spirit, acting in bold opposition to the world of darkness around them. When the God’s people really begin to do that, to take on the powers of darkness in real ways in their own time, context, and communities, that’s when people will take the message seriously and begin to come to see what is going on and to be brought into God’s community. That usually brings opposition as it did the early church but is it more important to fear men or fear the Holy God who dwells among us?
Devotional Thought
Think of one specific way today that you can begin to boldly stand up to the powers of darkness in your local context whether it be at work, school, or in your neighborhood? What can you do to demonstrate that the power of the age of the new creation really has broken into the present age and can continue to break down the strongholds of darkness?
Monday, December 13, 2010
Acts 5:1-11
Ananias and Sapphira
1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
Dig Deeper
I really don’t know why, but I always kind of enjoy at the end of a television show or movie when they show some of the blooper out takes that took place during filming. If nothing else it is always a great reminder that the actors are not perfect. They are real human beings who make mistakes and fall short.
In the book of Acts, Luke was attempting to give a photo album, so to speak, of the family of God as it came together and was formed into the kingdom people that God desired for them to be. Incredible things happened and these ordinary people experienced amazing things and did unbelievable things themselves. But Luke was a realist. He was not trying to present a glossed-over picture of unrealistically perfect people. This was an amazing community that was coming together as God’s family but not everything was perfect. Just as Luke did not shy away from writing about embarrassing details in the Gospel of Luke such as the failures of the apostles and the fact that a group of women were the first and best witnesses of the resurrection (an embarrassing fact in the first century), so he will not shy away from the true, albeit less-than-perfect details of the formative days of God’s family.
In the previous passage, Luke wanted us to see that, whether they realized it at the time or not, the new Christian community had become a living breathing fulfillment of passages like Isaiah 56:3-7. Isaiah declared, “Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely exclude me from his people’. . . to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants. . . these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. . . for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (see also Isa. 61:1 for another important passage that the Christian community was emboyding). The time of bringing in the Gentiles to the family of God had not yet fully begun but they had already begun to become that house of prayer for all nations where any and everyone could join God’s household and no longer be excluded (see Eph. 2:19).
In a sense, what Luke is telling us is that in becoming the fulfillment of passages like this, the people of God had become the Temple of the Lord. The Temple, after all, was a symbol for the place where God’s presence was being made manifest. During the Old Testament era, that was in the physical structure of the building called the Temple (the Tabernacle before the Temple was built). During Jesus’ life, he had declared himself to be the Temple of God (Jn. 2:19), and eventually Paul would take to specifically calling the church the Temple of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 6:16).
But as we come to this passage, we have to wonder what on earth is going on. Admittedly, at first glance, this is one of the most confusing and difficult passages in the entire New Testament. Why would Luke record this? Why would Ananias and Sapphira have dropped dead right on the spot? It is so confusing, in fact, that some biblical commentators have chalked it up to being a mere legend that was invented by Luke or by the early church in order to scare the community into right behavior.
This story almost seems a little harsh and pointless. That is unless, we understand what was truly going and what Luke wants his readers to really see about God’s people.
To fully understand this scene we have to go back to few scenes in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 10:1-3 we find the description of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu at the begin of the priestly ministry of the Tabernacle. After offering an unauthorized fire before the Lord, they were immediately struck dead by the consuming fire of the Lord. In 2 Samuel 6:6-9 we are told of the important moment when the Ark of the Covenant was finally being brought into Jerusalem. The people had been told not to touch the Ark but as it rocked a bit as it was being carried, Uzzah disobediently reached out and grabbed the Ark, immediately falling dead. Then there is the incident when Uzziah the king of Judah pridefully strode into the Temple and offered up incense on the Lord’s altar. Those around him rebuked him for such an impudent act but as he was raging at them, he broke out into leprosy and, says the book of Samuel, had leprosy until he died (2 Chron. 26:16-21).
These incidents were rare but important. There were certain significant moments when people violated the Temple and the holy presence of the Lord and put themselves and the entire nation at risk. They were dealt with justly but swiftly to serve as a warning for the rest of the nation to keep them from taking the Lord lightly. This doesn’t mean that every time the Temple was violated or the Lord disregarded that the punishment was immediate death. These were cases that happened as examples so that all people could see the serious effects of disobedience and sin towards God. They were not normative events but were specific warnings to the people. If they wanted to be the people of God and be the people of the Temple of God’s presence then that was no small thing. The presence of God is powerful beyond imagination and dangerous to those who take it lightly. They could not have the benefits of being God’s people without the responsibility of it.
It would appear that what Luke wants us to see in this historical incident is that this newly forming church was functioning as the Temple of God. They had become the house of prayer that God had promised through the prophet Isaiah and in so doing they had become the dwelling place of the presence of the Lord. This is precisely what Paul would later confirm when writing the church in Corinth: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).
The issue of Ananias and Sapphira’s actions was not in that they kept some of the money of their land sale. It was in that they lied. The sharing of possessions as family was certainly the ethic of the early church and the common practice but it was never required. It couldn’t be required for as soon as it was a requirement it would cease to be from the heart and out of gratitude for what God had done for them through the resurrection of Jesus as he shared his inheritance with those who would enter into Christ. That’s why giving for Christians is never required in the New Testament (sorry, but the “tithe” is never listed as a requirement for the New Testament people). Rather than a required giving or a tithe, the new family of God is called to an entirely different view of wealth and possessions (see yesterday for a fuller discussion of that) and to a giving and generosity far different and far beyond simply giving a weekly tithe.
Ananias and Sapphira had every right to sell their land and give some to the church. But they chose another way. No doubt impressed by others such as Barnabas who were selling their lands and possessions and giving all they had to the church (Acts 4:32-37), Ananias and Sapphira apparently wanted the recognition of being so deeply and fully committed to God’s people, the Temple of the living God. They wanted to appear to be part of God’s family where people were being called to live for one another but instead they would actually continue to live for themselves and think of themselves as separate from the body. In other words, they were working against the very thing that the Holy Spirit was at work to create them to be. It is the role of the Spirit to bind together the people of God as a family (see Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6; 2 Cor. 13:14) and this married couple wanted to pretend to be part of that family while still living their lives for themselves first. Some have wondered about the fairness of this scene as the married couple had no apparent opportunity for repentance. We must defer to God’s perfect knowledge and justice here and the fact that God knows if someone will repent or not and has every right as God of when and how to punish someone for their sin. In addition, the meeting with Peter was their chance to come clean and repent and they continued to lie.
They had quite literally lied to the church, but the church was the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit so it was really God that they had lied to. This shows us two important truths. The first is a theological one. Luke makes no distinction between the Holy Spirit and God. They are separate beings but one in essence as he gives early voice to the Trinitarian concept of the Holy Spirit and God by referring interchangeably to them being lied to in verses 3 and 4. The second truth is that it was a serious thing to lie to the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, the church. To pretend to be part of the family but not really be committed to that was a dangerous thing. So, just as he had in the Old Covenant days, God would allow an example to be experienced by some so that a warning could stand to the entire community. Attempts to misuse or denigrate the Temple of the living God would do spiritually to them what had happened physically to Ananias and Sapphira as an example. They were becoming the dwelling place of the Living God and there were obvious advantages and incredible things that came along with that, but there was also a terrible responsibility. They had better tread lightly.
As we read this account and see the incredible reverence that we are to have for God’s Temple, it is easy to become somewhat frightened. In fact, many people find this passage to be rather frightening. If you find that to be true, then Luke would likely say “good.” That’s why he included this passage. One should know the power that they are encountering. The early Christian community trembled in fear when they realized how powerful was the God that was living among and within them. Our response should be no less.
Devotional Thought
What does this passage tell us about how we should view the community of God’s people? Do you truly view the body of Christ as the Temple of the living God and act that way towards it?
1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
Dig Deeper
I really don’t know why, but I always kind of enjoy at the end of a television show or movie when they show some of the blooper out takes that took place during filming. If nothing else it is always a great reminder that the actors are not perfect. They are real human beings who make mistakes and fall short.
In the book of Acts, Luke was attempting to give a photo album, so to speak, of the family of God as it came together and was formed into the kingdom people that God desired for them to be. Incredible things happened and these ordinary people experienced amazing things and did unbelievable things themselves. But Luke was a realist. He was not trying to present a glossed-over picture of unrealistically perfect people. This was an amazing community that was coming together as God’s family but not everything was perfect. Just as Luke did not shy away from writing about embarrassing details in the Gospel of Luke such as the failures of the apostles and the fact that a group of women were the first and best witnesses of the resurrection (an embarrassing fact in the first century), so he will not shy away from the true, albeit less-than-perfect details of the formative days of God’s family.
In the previous passage, Luke wanted us to see that, whether they realized it at the time or not, the new Christian community had become a living breathing fulfillment of passages like Isaiah 56:3-7. Isaiah declared, “Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely exclude me from his people’. . . to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants. . . these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. . . for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (see also Isa. 61:1 for another important passage that the Christian community was emboyding). The time of bringing in the Gentiles to the family of God had not yet fully begun but they had already begun to become that house of prayer for all nations where any and everyone could join God’s household and no longer be excluded (see Eph. 2:19).
In a sense, what Luke is telling us is that in becoming the fulfillment of passages like this, the people of God had become the Temple of the Lord. The Temple, after all, was a symbol for the place where God’s presence was being made manifest. During the Old Testament era, that was in the physical structure of the building called the Temple (the Tabernacle before the Temple was built). During Jesus’ life, he had declared himself to be the Temple of God (Jn. 2:19), and eventually Paul would take to specifically calling the church the Temple of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 6:16).
But as we come to this passage, we have to wonder what on earth is going on. Admittedly, at first glance, this is one of the most confusing and difficult passages in the entire New Testament. Why would Luke record this? Why would Ananias and Sapphira have dropped dead right on the spot? It is so confusing, in fact, that some biblical commentators have chalked it up to being a mere legend that was invented by Luke or by the early church in order to scare the community into right behavior.
This story almost seems a little harsh and pointless. That is unless, we understand what was truly going and what Luke wants his readers to really see about God’s people.
To fully understand this scene we have to go back to few scenes in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 10:1-3 we find the description of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu at the begin of the priestly ministry of the Tabernacle. After offering an unauthorized fire before the Lord, they were immediately struck dead by the consuming fire of the Lord. In 2 Samuel 6:6-9 we are told of the important moment when the Ark of the Covenant was finally being brought into Jerusalem. The people had been told not to touch the Ark but as it rocked a bit as it was being carried, Uzzah disobediently reached out and grabbed the Ark, immediately falling dead. Then there is the incident when Uzziah the king of Judah pridefully strode into the Temple and offered up incense on the Lord’s altar. Those around him rebuked him for such an impudent act but as he was raging at them, he broke out into leprosy and, says the book of Samuel, had leprosy until he died (2 Chron. 26:16-21).
These incidents were rare but important. There were certain significant moments when people violated the Temple and the holy presence of the Lord and put themselves and the entire nation at risk. They were dealt with justly but swiftly to serve as a warning for the rest of the nation to keep them from taking the Lord lightly. This doesn’t mean that every time the Temple was violated or the Lord disregarded that the punishment was immediate death. These were cases that happened as examples so that all people could see the serious effects of disobedience and sin towards God. They were not normative events but were specific warnings to the people. If they wanted to be the people of God and be the people of the Temple of God’s presence then that was no small thing. The presence of God is powerful beyond imagination and dangerous to those who take it lightly. They could not have the benefits of being God’s people without the responsibility of it.
It would appear that what Luke wants us to see in this historical incident is that this newly forming church was functioning as the Temple of God. They had become the house of prayer that God had promised through the prophet Isaiah and in so doing they had become the dwelling place of the presence of the Lord. This is precisely what Paul would later confirm when writing the church in Corinth: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).
The issue of Ananias and Sapphira’s actions was not in that they kept some of the money of their land sale. It was in that they lied. The sharing of possessions as family was certainly the ethic of the early church and the common practice but it was never required. It couldn’t be required for as soon as it was a requirement it would cease to be from the heart and out of gratitude for what God had done for them through the resurrection of Jesus as he shared his inheritance with those who would enter into Christ. That’s why giving for Christians is never required in the New Testament (sorry, but the “tithe” is never listed as a requirement for the New Testament people). Rather than a required giving or a tithe, the new family of God is called to an entirely different view of wealth and possessions (see yesterday for a fuller discussion of that) and to a giving and generosity far different and far beyond simply giving a weekly tithe.
Ananias and Sapphira had every right to sell their land and give some to the church. But they chose another way. No doubt impressed by others such as Barnabas who were selling their lands and possessions and giving all they had to the church (Acts 4:32-37), Ananias and Sapphira apparently wanted the recognition of being so deeply and fully committed to God’s people, the Temple of the living God. They wanted to appear to be part of God’s family where people were being called to live for one another but instead they would actually continue to live for themselves and think of themselves as separate from the body. In other words, they were working against the very thing that the Holy Spirit was at work to create them to be. It is the role of the Spirit to bind together the people of God as a family (see Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6; 2 Cor. 13:14) and this married couple wanted to pretend to be part of that family while still living their lives for themselves first. Some have wondered about the fairness of this scene as the married couple had no apparent opportunity for repentance. We must defer to God’s perfect knowledge and justice here and the fact that God knows if someone will repent or not and has every right as God of when and how to punish someone for their sin. In addition, the meeting with Peter was their chance to come clean and repent and they continued to lie.
They had quite literally lied to the church, but the church was the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit so it was really God that they had lied to. This shows us two important truths. The first is a theological one. Luke makes no distinction between the Holy Spirit and God. They are separate beings but one in essence as he gives early voice to the Trinitarian concept of the Holy Spirit and God by referring interchangeably to them being lied to in verses 3 and 4. The second truth is that it was a serious thing to lie to the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, the church. To pretend to be part of the family but not really be committed to that was a dangerous thing. So, just as he had in the Old Covenant days, God would allow an example to be experienced by some so that a warning could stand to the entire community. Attempts to misuse or denigrate the Temple of the living God would do spiritually to them what had happened physically to Ananias and Sapphira as an example. They were becoming the dwelling place of the Living God and there were obvious advantages and incredible things that came along with that, but there was also a terrible responsibility. They had better tread lightly.
As we read this account and see the incredible reverence that we are to have for God’s Temple, it is easy to become somewhat frightened. In fact, many people find this passage to be rather frightening. If you find that to be true, then Luke would likely say “good.” That’s why he included this passage. One should know the power that they are encountering. The early Christian community trembled in fear when they realized how powerful was the God that was living among and within them. Our response should be no less.
Devotional Thought
What does this passage tell us about how we should view the community of God’s people? Do you truly view the body of Christ as the Temple of the living God and act that way towards it?
Friday, December 10, 2010
Acts 4:32-37
The Believers Share Their Possessions
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Dig Deeper
One of the most beloved movies of all time is the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In that movie, the main character George Bailey, lives an almost mythic life of self-sacrifice as he constantly puts the needs of those around him ahead of himself. He often does this at great detriment to his own plans and desires but he believes in putting others first and he lives that way. During a particularly difficult time in his life he has a massive debt that has arisen due to the mistake of his Uncle that has left him in danger of losing his house. As a result, he begins to question his life decisions and wonder if his whole life has been for naught. He wishes that he had never been born, thinking that everyone around him would be better off if they had never known him. A somewhat bumbling angel comes to him to show him what the lives of those who know and love him would look like if he had indeed never been born. After realizing that he has had a major positive impact in the lives of all who know him, Bailey returns to his home. He still has major problems and massive debt facing him but he has a renewed energy for life and a new understanding that his life of service has not been for naught. When he arrives at home, though, he discovers that the whole town has turned out to chip in money to erase his debt. It is a delightful closing scene as person after person makes their way forward to put money in the pot and make sure that George is taken care of. It is certainly an idyllic scene but you get the felling while watching it that that is somehow the way things are supposed to be.
From time to time, different groups of people around the world have tried various forms of communal living. Several hippie and religious cult groups tried it in the United States in the 1960’s. Communist countries have tried it. Some religious groups in the 16th and 17th centuries gave it a go. Even the Qumran community that was responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls engaged in communal living and the common ownership of possessions. Some of these attempts have failed miserably from very early on. Others have survived to varying degrees for awhile. Most of them required one to relinquish their possessions in order to be in the group. The early Christian family was different, though.
As we saw back in Acts 2:42-47, Luke saw the sharing of possessions as an absolutely central aspect to the new Christian community. It was so central, in fact, that Luke saw it important to describe it in even further detail than he had in chapter 2. The early Christians absolutely believed that they had been called into God’s promised family and that they had become the restored humanity of God. They did not view salvation as an individual spiritual experience, rather they knew that individuals could die to themselves and enter into the new life of God’s family. They understood that God’s family was what was saved. People were not saved as individuals and then would choose to congregate together. God’s whole point of salvation was to create a community that would show his glory and wisdom to the world (see Eph. 3:10). People are placed into the family that is saved rather than being saved and then placed into a religious group.
This was a group that saw themselves as God’s family and they were determined to live that way. What set them apart, then, from almost every other group that has tried different forms of communal living was that they did see themselves truly as a family and, although the normal practice was to share everything they had with one another, it was not required. They lived as family because they wanted to and they were grateful to God from their hearts. In fact, technically speaking, the early Christians were not communal, in that they did not live together. They weren’t classically communal, but what they were was a community that was deeply committed to living like the family that they believed they had been formed as (Eph. 2:19).
This commitment to living a radically different lifestyle than the world around them came as a result of seeing themselves as people who were not of this age. They had truly been born (Jn. 3:5) into God’s new family and that made them children of the light (Eph. 5:8; 1 Thes. 5:5; Jn. 12:36) which was not a term that simply meant to live honest and good lives. By calling themselves children of the light, the Christians meant that they were the people of God’s future, the time when there would be no darkness or evil but only the brilliant light of God’s presence. They saw themselves as an entirely new portion of humanity, those who were dedicated to living by the values of God’s future age (alternately called heaven, the age to come, eternal life, the resurrection, etc.) right now. They would live by the values of an age in which love, the presence of God and sufficiency were the only realities so there was no room for hate, sin, or greed, poverty or surplus in the present age. They were the people of God’s future and would live as such in the present age.
Because they saw themselves as people of a different reality and age, the early Christians had a radically different view of wealth, one that, to be quite frank, most modern Christians would rather sweep under the rug than actually embrace. They believed that throughout his ministry Jesus had challenged people that a major aspect of his kingdom people, one that would be particularly difficult for the rich to embrace, was that people must be willing to share all of their surplus with the poor (see Lk. 18:22-30). They believed that a major aspect of the coming kingdom that was promised throughout the Old Testament was that it would be good news for the poor (Isa. 61:1). The early church believed strongly that unshared wealth and a community that was not committed to making sure everyone had sufficiency was contrary to a message of being good news to the powerless and poor (Lk. 4:18). They held strongly to the idea that the gathering of manna following the Exodus had offered a pattern of God’s people having sufficiency rather than surplus (Ex. 16:16-26) and that Jesus had called them to use their worldly gained wealth towards their brothers and sisters in God’s kingdom (and other people in general, although Galatians 6:10 gave the principle of providing first for the family of believers) rather than on themselves and things that people usually spend their money on (Lk. 16:9). They were genuinely and deeply committed to storing up their treasures in heaven, doing God’s will and providing for his family, rather than spending it on worldly items (Matt. 6:19-21).
They were to radically view wealth differently from the world which is why Paul could confidently urge Timothy to remind the believers that “we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Tim. 6:6-10).
Some have argued that this radically different view of wealth and commitment to live like a family that shared everything they had with one another was due to a bit of post-resurrection hysteria among the Christians that would quickly die out. That argument is accurate only if you belief about 250 to 300 years to be a period of quickly dying out. The church of the first several centuries held this extreme view of the purpose of wealth, including that they were a different family of people than all other humans that were part of the family of fallen humanity, and that they were called to live by different values of the age to come and to take care of one another as family. Although there are numerous quotations and instances in the early church that show their commitment to such values, Clement of Alexandria, writing in 195 AD, summed up the beliefs and practices of the early church when he wrote that “God brought our race into communion by first imparting what was his own, when he gave his own word common to all, and made all things for all. All things therefore are common, and not for the rich to appropriate an undue share. That expression, therefore, ‘possess and possess in abundance, why then should I not enjoy?’ is suitable neither to the man, nor to society. But more worthy of love is that: ‘I have, why should I not give to those who need?’ For such a one, one who fulfills the command, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ is perfect. For this is the true luxury, the treasured wealth. But that which is squandered on foolish lusts is to be reckoned waste, not expenditure. For God has given to us, I know well, the liberty of use, but only so far necessary; and he has determined that the use should be common. And it is monstrous for one to live in luxury, while many are in want. How much more glorious is it to do good to many, than to live sumptuously! How much wiser to spend money on human beings, than on jewels and gold! How much more useful to acquire decorous friends, than lifeless ornaments!”
Justin Martyr, a church leader writing about 30 years earlier, confirmed this as the common view amongst early Christians when he wrote “We who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate [share with] to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly [as a family] with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live comfortably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the Ruler of all.” Justin demonstrated that this lifestyle was every bit as unique, radical, and demanding for them as it is for us, but they did it anyway.
As Luke ably demonstrates here, this wasn’t just theoretical. This was a community that based itself as a reality on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In that act, Jesus had sacrificed his own life and shared lavishly with his brothers and sisters in the family of God so that they could rightly be called co-heirs. But the church didn’t just preach the resurrection, they lived it out in their own corporate life by in part, sharing their surplus with those in need just as Christ had shared radically with them. And they did it willingly out of gratitude rather than compulsion or requirement. They became a family of believers that felt that they had to do more than say they were family that cared about one another, they needed to actually become that (see James 2:15-17, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9). Even a 2nd century critic of early Christianity, Lucian of Samosata, confirmed that “their first lawgiver [Jesus] persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another . . . Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence.”
The early church was so committed to this as a normal way of life that Paul even had to warn them to watch out for those who would loaf and take advantage of the community’s belief in taking care of one another: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. . . For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat. We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat” (2 Thess. 3:6-10).
The early believers didn’t sell the homes that they lived in or share themselves into poverty but they realized that personal wealth would not matter in God’s coming future age so it did not matter to them in this present age. Sufficiency, not surplus, became the goal. So if others were in need then they made the challenging decision to sell off their extra possessions and share with their brothers and sisters so that none would lack. But Luke didn’t want this to be some generic belief that would be easy to dismiss. He put a human face and example on all of this by describing the sacrificed of Joseph, also called Barnabas. Barnabas was among those who was more than willing to give up his own personal wealth to provide for his brothers and sisters. Writing a few decades later, the same Barnabas would urge other Christians to “share all things with your neighbor. You will not call things your own. If you are partakers in common of things that are incorruptible [spiritual wealth and the age to come], how much more of those things which are corruptible [physical wealth].” Truly this was not just a fine sounding belief, they lived this and it became who they were. It certainly stands as a monumental challenge to Christians in the 21st century. Are we really willing to embrace this as our identity and become this kind of kingdom people?
Devotional Thought
What about the Christians action in this section, their way of life, and their radical view of wealth is most challenging to you? Are you truly willing to embrace the radical shift in the view of wealth that Jesus gave to his new community of people?
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Dig Deeper
One of the most beloved movies of all time is the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In that movie, the main character George Bailey, lives an almost mythic life of self-sacrifice as he constantly puts the needs of those around him ahead of himself. He often does this at great detriment to his own plans and desires but he believes in putting others first and he lives that way. During a particularly difficult time in his life he has a massive debt that has arisen due to the mistake of his Uncle that has left him in danger of losing his house. As a result, he begins to question his life decisions and wonder if his whole life has been for naught. He wishes that he had never been born, thinking that everyone around him would be better off if they had never known him. A somewhat bumbling angel comes to him to show him what the lives of those who know and love him would look like if he had indeed never been born. After realizing that he has had a major positive impact in the lives of all who know him, Bailey returns to his home. He still has major problems and massive debt facing him but he has a renewed energy for life and a new understanding that his life of service has not been for naught. When he arrives at home, though, he discovers that the whole town has turned out to chip in money to erase his debt. It is a delightful closing scene as person after person makes their way forward to put money in the pot and make sure that George is taken care of. It is certainly an idyllic scene but you get the felling while watching it that that is somehow the way things are supposed to be.
From time to time, different groups of people around the world have tried various forms of communal living. Several hippie and religious cult groups tried it in the United States in the 1960’s. Communist countries have tried it. Some religious groups in the 16th and 17th centuries gave it a go. Even the Qumran community that was responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls engaged in communal living and the common ownership of possessions. Some of these attempts have failed miserably from very early on. Others have survived to varying degrees for awhile. Most of them required one to relinquish their possessions in order to be in the group. The early Christian family was different, though.
As we saw back in Acts 2:42-47, Luke saw the sharing of possessions as an absolutely central aspect to the new Christian community. It was so central, in fact, that Luke saw it important to describe it in even further detail than he had in chapter 2. The early Christians absolutely believed that they had been called into God’s promised family and that they had become the restored humanity of God. They did not view salvation as an individual spiritual experience, rather they knew that individuals could die to themselves and enter into the new life of God’s family. They understood that God’s family was what was saved. People were not saved as individuals and then would choose to congregate together. God’s whole point of salvation was to create a community that would show his glory and wisdom to the world (see Eph. 3:10). People are placed into the family that is saved rather than being saved and then placed into a religious group.
This was a group that saw themselves as God’s family and they were determined to live that way. What set them apart, then, from almost every other group that has tried different forms of communal living was that they did see themselves truly as a family and, although the normal practice was to share everything they had with one another, it was not required. They lived as family because they wanted to and they were grateful to God from their hearts. In fact, technically speaking, the early Christians were not communal, in that they did not live together. They weren’t classically communal, but what they were was a community that was deeply committed to living like the family that they believed they had been formed as (Eph. 2:19).
This commitment to living a radically different lifestyle than the world around them came as a result of seeing themselves as people who were not of this age. They had truly been born (Jn. 3:5) into God’s new family and that made them children of the light (Eph. 5:8; 1 Thes. 5:5; Jn. 12:36) which was not a term that simply meant to live honest and good lives. By calling themselves children of the light, the Christians meant that they were the people of God’s future, the time when there would be no darkness or evil but only the brilliant light of God’s presence. They saw themselves as an entirely new portion of humanity, those who were dedicated to living by the values of God’s future age (alternately called heaven, the age to come, eternal life, the resurrection, etc.) right now. They would live by the values of an age in which love, the presence of God and sufficiency were the only realities so there was no room for hate, sin, or greed, poverty or surplus in the present age. They were the people of God’s future and would live as such in the present age.
Because they saw themselves as people of a different reality and age, the early Christians had a radically different view of wealth, one that, to be quite frank, most modern Christians would rather sweep under the rug than actually embrace. They believed that throughout his ministry Jesus had challenged people that a major aspect of his kingdom people, one that would be particularly difficult for the rich to embrace, was that people must be willing to share all of their surplus with the poor (see Lk. 18:22-30). They believed that a major aspect of the coming kingdom that was promised throughout the Old Testament was that it would be good news for the poor (Isa. 61:1). The early church believed strongly that unshared wealth and a community that was not committed to making sure everyone had sufficiency was contrary to a message of being good news to the powerless and poor (Lk. 4:18). They held strongly to the idea that the gathering of manna following the Exodus had offered a pattern of God’s people having sufficiency rather than surplus (Ex. 16:16-26) and that Jesus had called them to use their worldly gained wealth towards their brothers and sisters in God’s kingdom (and other people in general, although Galatians 6:10 gave the principle of providing first for the family of believers) rather than on themselves and things that people usually spend their money on (Lk. 16:9). They were genuinely and deeply committed to storing up their treasures in heaven, doing God’s will and providing for his family, rather than spending it on worldly items (Matt. 6:19-21).
They were to radically view wealth differently from the world which is why Paul could confidently urge Timothy to remind the believers that “we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Tim. 6:6-10).
Some have argued that this radically different view of wealth and commitment to live like a family that shared everything they had with one another was due to a bit of post-resurrection hysteria among the Christians that would quickly die out. That argument is accurate only if you belief about 250 to 300 years to be a period of quickly dying out. The church of the first several centuries held this extreme view of the purpose of wealth, including that they were a different family of people than all other humans that were part of the family of fallen humanity, and that they were called to live by different values of the age to come and to take care of one another as family. Although there are numerous quotations and instances in the early church that show their commitment to such values, Clement of Alexandria, writing in 195 AD, summed up the beliefs and practices of the early church when he wrote that “God brought our race into communion by first imparting what was his own, when he gave his own word common to all, and made all things for all. All things therefore are common, and not for the rich to appropriate an undue share. That expression, therefore, ‘possess and possess in abundance, why then should I not enjoy?’ is suitable neither to the man, nor to society. But more worthy of love is that: ‘I have, why should I not give to those who need?’ For such a one, one who fulfills the command, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ is perfect. For this is the true luxury, the treasured wealth. But that which is squandered on foolish lusts is to be reckoned waste, not expenditure. For God has given to us, I know well, the liberty of use, but only so far necessary; and he has determined that the use should be common. And it is monstrous for one to live in luxury, while many are in want. How much more glorious is it to do good to many, than to live sumptuously! How much wiser to spend money on human beings, than on jewels and gold! How much more useful to acquire decorous friends, than lifeless ornaments!”
Justin Martyr, a church leader writing about 30 years earlier, confirmed this as the common view amongst early Christians when he wrote “We who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate [share with] to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly [as a family] with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live comfortably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the Ruler of all.” Justin demonstrated that this lifestyle was every bit as unique, radical, and demanding for them as it is for us, but they did it anyway.
As Luke ably demonstrates here, this wasn’t just theoretical. This was a community that based itself as a reality on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In that act, Jesus had sacrificed his own life and shared lavishly with his brothers and sisters in the family of God so that they could rightly be called co-heirs. But the church didn’t just preach the resurrection, they lived it out in their own corporate life by in part, sharing their surplus with those in need just as Christ had shared radically with them. And they did it willingly out of gratitude rather than compulsion or requirement. They became a family of believers that felt that they had to do more than say they were family that cared about one another, they needed to actually become that (see James 2:15-17, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9). Even a 2nd century critic of early Christianity, Lucian of Samosata, confirmed that “their first lawgiver [Jesus] persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another . . . Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence.”
The early church was so committed to this as a normal way of life that Paul even had to warn them to watch out for those who would loaf and take advantage of the community’s belief in taking care of one another: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. . . For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat. We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat” (2 Thess. 3:6-10).
The early believers didn’t sell the homes that they lived in or share themselves into poverty but they realized that personal wealth would not matter in God’s coming future age so it did not matter to them in this present age. Sufficiency, not surplus, became the goal. So if others were in need then they made the challenging decision to sell off their extra possessions and share with their brothers and sisters so that none would lack. But Luke didn’t want this to be some generic belief that would be easy to dismiss. He put a human face and example on all of this by describing the sacrificed of Joseph, also called Barnabas. Barnabas was among those who was more than willing to give up his own personal wealth to provide for his brothers and sisters. Writing a few decades later, the same Barnabas would urge other Christians to “share all things with your neighbor. You will not call things your own. If you are partakers in common of things that are incorruptible [spiritual wealth and the age to come], how much more of those things which are corruptible [physical wealth].” Truly this was not just a fine sounding belief, they lived this and it became who they were. It certainly stands as a monumental challenge to Christians in the 21st century. Are we really willing to embrace this as our identity and become this kind of kingdom people?
Devotional Thought
What about the Christians action in this section, their way of life, and their radical view of wealth is most challenging to you? Are you truly willing to embrace the radical shift in the view of wealth that Jesus gave to his new community of people?
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Acts 4:23-31
The Believers Pray
23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.[b]’[c]
27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Dig Deeper
If you have ever spent much time watching popular television preachers you have probably encountered what is often referred to as the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is one of the modern versions of Christianity that purports that all believers are “kids of the king” and should expect to have the very best that God has to offer. The normal course of life for a Christian, according to this twist on the gospel, is to be wealthy, healthy, and to live like a kid of the king. This teaching has become wildly popular over the last four or five decades in the United States behind such well known moguls as Kenneth Copeland, Frederick KC Price, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Joseph Prince, Robert Tilton, and many others. Sadly, this twisted gospel is quickly becoming popular outside of the United States as well and has seemingly become the United States’ leading spiritual export of late. At the heart of this version of the gospel is the idea that the Christian who is living faithfully will have only good things come to then, including wealth. Those who experience anything less than constant victories and wealth are those who lack in faith. These teachers, then, encourage people to pray constantly for deliverance from difficult times and for victories in every area of life. They appeal to the idea that “God wouldn’t want his children to fail would he?”
As logical as that may seem it does presume that difficulties or trials or always bad and undesirable. Yet, the Bible seems to contradict that fundamental idea with passages like James 1:2-4 that urges believers to consider trials as “pure joy” because they produce perseverance in us and allow Christians to go through the transforming process and become the people that God wants us to become. We certainly don’t have time here to thoroughly refute what theologian Gordon Fee calls the “disease of the health and wealth gospel.” But a look at passages such as this one in Acts certainly demonstrate a very different mindset among the early church. When faced with hardships, they did not appeal to God for relief and victory. In fact, they did something that would be almost unimaginable to most Christians in our world today.
After being threatened with dire consequences and then released, Peter and John returned to “their own people.” This was a phrase that normally would have referred to someone’s family group or tribe and is no coincidence that Luke used it to describe the Christian community. Acts is Luke’s attempt to show the formation of the promised family of God. It is phrases like “their own people” that continue to demonstrate that the early Christians saw themselves as God’s new family, the new and restored humanity that were created by God to fulfill his will in the world (see passages like John 20:22 which is a clear echo of the original creation account in Genesis 2:7 and Matthew 28:18-20 which bears strong allusions to the great commission of the creation account in Genesis 1:28). Early church leader Clement of Alexandria demonstrated this belief that God was creating a new humanity, formed to do God’s will, when he stated that “God brought our race into communion by first imparting what was his own.” The early church did not denigrate other human beings or see them as lesser, but they did believe that sin was dehumanizing and that by being brought into God’s family, the people who had their sins dealt with and would be blessed, and that they were being created into the people that would be able to be God’s true image bearers and fulfill the purpose for which God made humanity. They were, thus, a new “race.”
What Luke gives us a clear picture of is two men who were threatened with certain persecution if they continued to speak and act in the name of Jesus but who were hardly dissuaded by that. Rather than cowering in fear as they had before the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, they returned to their family of believers where they lifted their voices in unity to praise their Father.
The same Holy Spirit that was directing their community and giving them strength was the one who inspired David, they believed, to write Psalm 2, which they turned to in verses 25-26 as part of their prayer. Psalm 2 was one of a handful of Psalms that had particular importance for the early church. The Psalm wonders why the people of the earth would reject and fight against the Messiah, and of course, the early church would add to that the Messiah’s people. Why would they do such a thing when God had clearly declared the Messiah to be his true Son, the one that he had enthroned. God would scoff and deal with those who opposed his Son, said David, so the only wise course of events would be to join those who numbered themselves among the Messiah’s people rather than fighting against them. David ends the Psalm by declaring that the kings of the world had better “Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”
They had met up with those who would fight the Messiah in vain and would persecute his people but rather than complaining about it or decrying it as something that should not be, they recognized that this was part of God’s plan all along. The kings would rage against God’s Son and they, as his disciples, would feel the brunt of that rage, just as Jesus had during his life. That did not mean that he was not the anointed one or that they were not his people, quite the opposite, in fact.
As they continued in prayer and praise of God, the disciples pointed out that what was happening to them was indeed nothing new. Herod and Pilate were kings, in a sense, that had conspired against Jesus and that raging against the Messiah and his people would only continue and get worse. But none of this was of any surprise to God and so it shouldn’t be shocking to the believing community. The opposition that Jesus and his people would face at every turn was part of God’s plan not unfortunate opposition to it. That doesn’t mean that God has predestined or forced some to oppose him but he certainly allows it and it serves a purpose. Just as one is limited in their strength if they don’t ever have resistance or weights to work with, so would God’s people be limited in their growth and development without opposition. The idea that God’s people should have nothing but blessing come into their life is completely foreign to the true gospel.
As we examine this prayer following the threatened persecution from the Jewish leaders, let’s stop and really think about it for a moment. What would you pray for in this situation. Two of your most important leaders had just been taken into custody and warned by the leaders of your land to stop speaking publicly about Jesus or anyone who did would face dire consequences. Would you pray for protection and deliverance? Would you pray that God would provide blessing for the community so that you would not be persecuted but would instead experience great material and spiritual success on every level? Of course, the question must be asked what real success is in the eyes of God. Whatever we might pray in that situation, the prayer of the early church is inspiring and challenging, for they prayed for none of those things.
They did not pray for deliverance. They did not pray for safety. They did not pray for prosperity. They prayed for boldness. Can you believe that? They didn’t pray that God would put out the fire but that he would give them courage as they ran into it. They knew that the way of the Messiah was the path of rejection, persecution, and suffering for the benefit of others. They knew that when the nations began to rage the way of life they had chosen was to die to their desires and will and living life for their own benefit and to allow God to work through them. They understood that God’s plan to bless them was to call them into his family of all nations that had had their sins dealt with in the Messiah. The obligation of that family would be to live as the king lived which was not a life of prestige, popularity, and prosperity, but a life of suffering, seclusion, and sacrifice.
There is another important element in this section that we should not miss, though. They did not just pray and then sit back and wait for God to do it all. I wonder how many of us can identify with that? How many times have we prayed for victory over a sin and then taken little to no action to actually overcome it? How many times have we prayed to be evangelistically successful but then taken no steps to partner with God to make that happen? I’m sure that the list of examples could go on and on. They did not just pray for boldness in the face of persecution and opposition, they gave God something to bless. They prayed until the Holy Spirit had empowered them afresh and anew and given them the strength because they knew that they could not accomplish the task on their own. But they also knew that this would be a partnership. The text tells us that they prayed AND spoke the work of God boldly. They acted on their prayers. They partnered with the Holy Spirit. They walked the way that Jesus did (cf. 1 Jn. 2:6). They gave God obedient actions so that he actually had something in their life to bless. They did not fear the authorities. They went out and spoke so that through the power of the Spirit, their speaking would be bold words of the kingdom.
God is always in control no matter how dire the situation may seem for his people. What we must always remember is to not be swayed by fine sounding human arguments that beckon us to comfort and physical blessing. God called his Son to sacrifice and die for the benefit of others and he calls us to do the same. When God’s people truly give God something to bless, we will find out that he will do just that, not in blessings of this material age but in the blessings of his kingdom.
Devotional Thought
God certainly did call his Son to sacrifice and die for the benefit of others and he calls us to do the same. For us, though, that usually involves dying to ourselves and truly embracing the will of God as our life’s calling. Can you honestly say that you have embraced this as your way of life? When faced with difficult circumstances do you pray for deliverance or for boldness in advancing God’s kingdom?
23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.[b]’[c]
27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Dig Deeper
If you have ever spent much time watching popular television preachers you have probably encountered what is often referred to as the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is one of the modern versions of Christianity that purports that all believers are “kids of the king” and should expect to have the very best that God has to offer. The normal course of life for a Christian, according to this twist on the gospel, is to be wealthy, healthy, and to live like a kid of the king. This teaching has become wildly popular over the last four or five decades in the United States behind such well known moguls as Kenneth Copeland, Frederick KC Price, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Joseph Prince, Robert Tilton, and many others. Sadly, this twisted gospel is quickly becoming popular outside of the United States as well and has seemingly become the United States’ leading spiritual export of late. At the heart of this version of the gospel is the idea that the Christian who is living faithfully will have only good things come to then, including wealth. Those who experience anything less than constant victories and wealth are those who lack in faith. These teachers, then, encourage people to pray constantly for deliverance from difficult times and for victories in every area of life. They appeal to the idea that “God wouldn’t want his children to fail would he?”
As logical as that may seem it does presume that difficulties or trials or always bad and undesirable. Yet, the Bible seems to contradict that fundamental idea with passages like James 1:2-4 that urges believers to consider trials as “pure joy” because they produce perseverance in us and allow Christians to go through the transforming process and become the people that God wants us to become. We certainly don’t have time here to thoroughly refute what theologian Gordon Fee calls the “disease of the health and wealth gospel.” But a look at passages such as this one in Acts certainly demonstrate a very different mindset among the early church. When faced with hardships, they did not appeal to God for relief and victory. In fact, they did something that would be almost unimaginable to most Christians in our world today.
After being threatened with dire consequences and then released, Peter and John returned to “their own people.” This was a phrase that normally would have referred to someone’s family group or tribe and is no coincidence that Luke used it to describe the Christian community. Acts is Luke’s attempt to show the formation of the promised family of God. It is phrases like “their own people” that continue to demonstrate that the early Christians saw themselves as God’s new family, the new and restored humanity that were created by God to fulfill his will in the world (see passages like John 20:22 which is a clear echo of the original creation account in Genesis 2:7 and Matthew 28:18-20 which bears strong allusions to the great commission of the creation account in Genesis 1:28). Early church leader Clement of Alexandria demonstrated this belief that God was creating a new humanity, formed to do God’s will, when he stated that “God brought our race into communion by first imparting what was his own.” The early church did not denigrate other human beings or see them as lesser, but they did believe that sin was dehumanizing and that by being brought into God’s family, the people who had their sins dealt with and would be blessed, and that they were being created into the people that would be able to be God’s true image bearers and fulfill the purpose for which God made humanity. They were, thus, a new “race.”
What Luke gives us a clear picture of is two men who were threatened with certain persecution if they continued to speak and act in the name of Jesus but who were hardly dissuaded by that. Rather than cowering in fear as they had before the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, they returned to their family of believers where they lifted their voices in unity to praise their Father.
The same Holy Spirit that was directing their community and giving them strength was the one who inspired David, they believed, to write Psalm 2, which they turned to in verses 25-26 as part of their prayer. Psalm 2 was one of a handful of Psalms that had particular importance for the early church. The Psalm wonders why the people of the earth would reject and fight against the Messiah, and of course, the early church would add to that the Messiah’s people. Why would they do such a thing when God had clearly declared the Messiah to be his true Son, the one that he had enthroned. God would scoff and deal with those who opposed his Son, said David, so the only wise course of events would be to join those who numbered themselves among the Messiah’s people rather than fighting against them. David ends the Psalm by declaring that the kings of the world had better “Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”
They had met up with those who would fight the Messiah in vain and would persecute his people but rather than complaining about it or decrying it as something that should not be, they recognized that this was part of God’s plan all along. The kings would rage against God’s Son and they, as his disciples, would feel the brunt of that rage, just as Jesus had during his life. That did not mean that he was not the anointed one or that they were not his people, quite the opposite, in fact.
As they continued in prayer and praise of God, the disciples pointed out that what was happening to them was indeed nothing new. Herod and Pilate were kings, in a sense, that had conspired against Jesus and that raging against the Messiah and his people would only continue and get worse. But none of this was of any surprise to God and so it shouldn’t be shocking to the believing community. The opposition that Jesus and his people would face at every turn was part of God’s plan not unfortunate opposition to it. That doesn’t mean that God has predestined or forced some to oppose him but he certainly allows it and it serves a purpose. Just as one is limited in their strength if they don’t ever have resistance or weights to work with, so would God’s people be limited in their growth and development without opposition. The idea that God’s people should have nothing but blessing come into their life is completely foreign to the true gospel.
As we examine this prayer following the threatened persecution from the Jewish leaders, let’s stop and really think about it for a moment. What would you pray for in this situation. Two of your most important leaders had just been taken into custody and warned by the leaders of your land to stop speaking publicly about Jesus or anyone who did would face dire consequences. Would you pray for protection and deliverance? Would you pray that God would provide blessing for the community so that you would not be persecuted but would instead experience great material and spiritual success on every level? Of course, the question must be asked what real success is in the eyes of God. Whatever we might pray in that situation, the prayer of the early church is inspiring and challenging, for they prayed for none of those things.
They did not pray for deliverance. They did not pray for safety. They did not pray for prosperity. They prayed for boldness. Can you believe that? They didn’t pray that God would put out the fire but that he would give them courage as they ran into it. They knew that the way of the Messiah was the path of rejection, persecution, and suffering for the benefit of others. They knew that when the nations began to rage the way of life they had chosen was to die to their desires and will and living life for their own benefit and to allow God to work through them. They understood that God’s plan to bless them was to call them into his family of all nations that had had their sins dealt with in the Messiah. The obligation of that family would be to live as the king lived which was not a life of prestige, popularity, and prosperity, but a life of suffering, seclusion, and sacrifice.
There is another important element in this section that we should not miss, though. They did not just pray and then sit back and wait for God to do it all. I wonder how many of us can identify with that? How many times have we prayed for victory over a sin and then taken little to no action to actually overcome it? How many times have we prayed to be evangelistically successful but then taken no steps to partner with God to make that happen? I’m sure that the list of examples could go on and on. They did not just pray for boldness in the face of persecution and opposition, they gave God something to bless. They prayed until the Holy Spirit had empowered them afresh and anew and given them the strength because they knew that they could not accomplish the task on their own. But they also knew that this would be a partnership. The text tells us that they prayed AND spoke the work of God boldly. They acted on their prayers. They partnered with the Holy Spirit. They walked the way that Jesus did (cf. 1 Jn. 2:6). They gave God obedient actions so that he actually had something in their life to bless. They did not fear the authorities. They went out and spoke so that through the power of the Spirit, their speaking would be bold words of the kingdom.
God is always in control no matter how dire the situation may seem for his people. What we must always remember is to not be swayed by fine sounding human arguments that beckon us to comfort and physical blessing. God called his Son to sacrifice and die for the benefit of others and he calls us to do the same. When God’s people truly give God something to bless, we will find out that he will do just that, not in blessings of this material age but in the blessings of his kingdom.
Devotional Thought
God certainly did call his Son to sacrifice and die for the benefit of others and he calls us to do the same. For us, though, that usually involves dying to ourselves and truly embracing the will of God as our life’s calling. Can you honestly say that you have embraced this as your way of life? When faced with difficult circumstances do you pray for deliverance or for boldness in advancing God’s kingdom?
Monday, December 06, 2010
Acts 4:13-22
13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.
Dig Deeper
One of my favorite individuals in all of history is Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States of America. Lincoln is unique in many ways among American presidents, not the least of those ways being his education. When Lincoln was running for the office of President he was asked to provide a brief auto-biography so that more Americans could learn a little about him. In that brief summary of his life, Lincoln spent more time discussing his lack of education than anything else. It was an odd choice of things to highlight for someone who was trying to be elected to the top office in the land, but it was something of which Lincoln was not ashamed. He did not have the best education at the most prestigious private schools and universities like most of his other opponents.
The fact is that Lincoln had very little schooling at the primary education level, no formal education at the secondary level, and never went to a college or university. Because of that lack of education, most people assumed that he was not an intellectual heavyweight or someone to be reckoned with but they would quickly find out that they were wrong. Nearly everyone who spoke of Lincoln, in looking backing on his life, realized that he was always the brightest man in the room. He turned out to be one of the great intellects in the history of the world and school children still memorize his words and speeches. He was, in short, brilliant with a brilliance that did not come from the formal and regular means of training or education. To this day no one can truly explain Lincoln’s uncommon intelligence and abilities but once they were in his presence they knew that they were in the proximity of someone who was extraordinary.
The same could be said, only on a much grander scale, of Jesus Christ. Jesus apparently did not go through the best of the rabbinic training of his day nor did he sit under any great teachers of the law that taught him how to craft an argument and how to properly interpret Scripture. It has became popular in some circles today to talk of all of the rabbinic training that went on in the first century (although much of the information given about the way that Jewish people trained young boys actually began in the 2nd century and was not, in large part, available in Jesus’ time) and to claim that Jesus was a formally trained rabbi. That simply doesn’t match up with the facts as we find them in the Bible. It is true that, on occasion, people addressed Jesus as “rabbi,” but that was more of a term of respect than a formal position in the first century.
The reality is that Jesus was not a classically trained rabbi or scholar. Yet, whenever he spoke, people became immediately aware that they were in the presence of someone quite unique and special. Whenever they heard him speak, “The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” (Jn. 7:15) People recognized him as different “because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law” (Matt. 7:29). Jesus did not appeal to the authority or teaching of another as all rabbis and teachers of the law did. He spoke with his own authority and brought new vitality and life to the Scriptures as he explained them in ways that people had often never heard before. When Jesus explained the Scriptures they weren’t just rules or stories about the past, they were living breathing entities that were taking on new life, new meaning, and being embodied in new ways in his very ministry.
Jesus was gone but that was clearly not going to be the end of the trouble that he was going to cause for the Jewish leadership. His followers were going around performing the same kind of inexplicable miracles that Jesus had been known for. And worse yet, people were starting to flock to them by the thousands. This could be far more problematic for those in power than they could have ever anticipated when they pushed for Jesus’ death (see 1 Cor. 2:6-8). As the Jewish leaders brought John and Peter before them to answer for these troublesome happenings, they had, as we saw in the previous section, showed the same sort of incredible grasp of the Scriptures and the ability to interpret them in fresh and innovative ways as Jesus had. Yet they were just like Jesus in that they had not been through any formal rabbinic training or sat at the feet of any well-known scholar. They were unschooled and ordinary in that sense. These were not the kind of men from whom such boldness would be expected. They were not cowering in intimidation and fear as one might expect but they had a power and authority that was beyond understanding. Luke’s clear implication is that they were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:8). But the Jewish leadership didn’t recognize or understand that. All they knew is that these men had been with Jesus. Wise rabbis could train wise students but these men were doing extraordinary things and the only possible explanation was that they had been with Jesus.
On a practical level this offers us an important reminder and a warning. The reminder is the importance of being with Jesus. There are many things that we can learn and study and work at to become better disciples and we should do all of those things, but the real difference maker is experiencing Jesus. It is being with him and knowing him that truly sets us apart. But that’s where the warning comes in. This doesn’t mean that learning and education, especially in a spiritual and biblical context, is undesirable. This passage should not be taken out of context to argue against someone receiving more training or the like. The wise balance is to seek learning (and that can mean many different things from deeper biblical study to seeking higher formal education) but also to spend time in the presence of Christ.
The Jewish leaders were left with little wiggle room. Simply ignoring all that was going on was not a viable option to them. That could potentially lead to thousands more flocking to this new movement that was, in their opinion, leading people away from God. It would also render them powerless as they watched their own power slip away further. But they could not deny that nothing had happened either. This miracle was as undeniable as were Jesus’ many miracles. Arguments could be had over the source of the power of the miracles but the miracles themselves could not be denied.
The fact that the leadership was in such a difficult position is another powerful piece of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. The disciples were preaching that God’s new age and the resurrection of the dead had already begun in Christ Jesus and was available to all those who would enter into his life, guaranteeing them the full inheritance of resurrection when the age to come came in its fullness. Because this all rested on the truth of the resurrection, though, it would have been easy to simply pull the carpet out from under this movement by producing evidence that Jesus had not, in fact, raised from the dead. They couldn’t, however, and that left them with basically censuring Peter and John as their only option.
Accepting the preaching of the apostles was apparently not an option for the Jewish leadership so they discussed privately that their only option was to tell the apostles to keep quiet and no longer speak in the name of Christ. Luke was almost assuredly not present during that meeting so either he speculated what was discussed based on their subsequent declarations or another possibility (speculation as it might be) was that a young Saul (who would later become an apostle and change his name to Paul) was present at this meeting and would later recount the facts to Luke.
Although the public position of the Sanhedrin was to forbid them from speaking further about Jesus, it is unlikely that they seriously expected this to stop men who were making the sorts of claims that Peter and John were making. So, the response of the two men couldn’t have been that unexpected. Their response was, in fact, similar to the famous reply of Socrates when he was threatened and told to stop teaching philosophy. It was a matter of what was right in the eyes of men or of God. They had to put the fear of God ahead of man, something that God highly values and encourages (see Prov. 29:25; Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10). The irony in the situation was that the Sanhedrin saw themselves as being the spokesmen of God, but Peter and John clearly put them in their place. What they had seen and heard could have no other explanation than to have come from God and that meant that if the Sanhedrin would continue to oppose them, then they were exposing themselves as speaking the words of mere men. This reminds us of the fact that the apostles were not simply clinging to beliefs and willing to die or suffer for them as so many religious adherents are. They were basing their beliefs on things that they were claiming to have seen and witnessed for themselves. There was no room to claim that they were merely mistaken or misled. They either really saw what they claimed or they were liars (the specific nature of their claims and the sheer number of disciples that claimed to have seen the risen Jesus also rules out any thought of them merely being fooled).
The Jewish leadership could make all of the threats that they wanted but the facts were incontrovertible. This man had been lame his entire life and he was over forty, the length of a full generation in the Jewish culture. In other words, his condition had seemed irreversible. Yet, here he was walking around and praising God. Verses 21 and 22 give a clear snapshot of the reception of the gospel. Some, including many in the leadership of Israel, chose to reject the gospel and would work to quiet it, but many others would see what God was doing and embrace it. It seems a little late, though, for the Sanhedrin to really think that they could stop the gospel. It would be like trying to fix a dam after all the water has already drained out. That’s what it is always like, though, when one tries to hold back the kingdom of God.
Devotional Thought
What would be your response if you found yourself in the shoes of Peter and John? How often does fear of men deter you from doing what you feel God has called you to do? What is your response when you feel fear of intimidation in the opportunity to announce the kingdom of God?
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.
Dig Deeper
One of my favorite individuals in all of history is Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States of America. Lincoln is unique in many ways among American presidents, not the least of those ways being his education. When Lincoln was running for the office of President he was asked to provide a brief auto-biography so that more Americans could learn a little about him. In that brief summary of his life, Lincoln spent more time discussing his lack of education than anything else. It was an odd choice of things to highlight for someone who was trying to be elected to the top office in the land, but it was something of which Lincoln was not ashamed. He did not have the best education at the most prestigious private schools and universities like most of his other opponents.
The fact is that Lincoln had very little schooling at the primary education level, no formal education at the secondary level, and never went to a college or university. Because of that lack of education, most people assumed that he was not an intellectual heavyweight or someone to be reckoned with but they would quickly find out that they were wrong. Nearly everyone who spoke of Lincoln, in looking backing on his life, realized that he was always the brightest man in the room. He turned out to be one of the great intellects in the history of the world and school children still memorize his words and speeches. He was, in short, brilliant with a brilliance that did not come from the formal and regular means of training or education. To this day no one can truly explain Lincoln’s uncommon intelligence and abilities but once they were in his presence they knew that they were in the proximity of someone who was extraordinary.
The same could be said, only on a much grander scale, of Jesus Christ. Jesus apparently did not go through the best of the rabbinic training of his day nor did he sit under any great teachers of the law that taught him how to craft an argument and how to properly interpret Scripture. It has became popular in some circles today to talk of all of the rabbinic training that went on in the first century (although much of the information given about the way that Jewish people trained young boys actually began in the 2nd century and was not, in large part, available in Jesus’ time) and to claim that Jesus was a formally trained rabbi. That simply doesn’t match up with the facts as we find them in the Bible. It is true that, on occasion, people addressed Jesus as “rabbi,” but that was more of a term of respect than a formal position in the first century.
The reality is that Jesus was not a classically trained rabbi or scholar. Yet, whenever he spoke, people became immediately aware that they were in the presence of someone quite unique and special. Whenever they heard him speak, “The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” (Jn. 7:15) People recognized him as different “because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law” (Matt. 7:29). Jesus did not appeal to the authority or teaching of another as all rabbis and teachers of the law did. He spoke with his own authority and brought new vitality and life to the Scriptures as he explained them in ways that people had often never heard before. When Jesus explained the Scriptures they weren’t just rules or stories about the past, they were living breathing entities that were taking on new life, new meaning, and being embodied in new ways in his very ministry.
Jesus was gone but that was clearly not going to be the end of the trouble that he was going to cause for the Jewish leadership. His followers were going around performing the same kind of inexplicable miracles that Jesus had been known for. And worse yet, people were starting to flock to them by the thousands. This could be far more problematic for those in power than they could have ever anticipated when they pushed for Jesus’ death (see 1 Cor. 2:6-8). As the Jewish leaders brought John and Peter before them to answer for these troublesome happenings, they had, as we saw in the previous section, showed the same sort of incredible grasp of the Scriptures and the ability to interpret them in fresh and innovative ways as Jesus had. Yet they were just like Jesus in that they had not been through any formal rabbinic training or sat at the feet of any well-known scholar. They were unschooled and ordinary in that sense. These were not the kind of men from whom such boldness would be expected. They were not cowering in intimidation and fear as one might expect but they had a power and authority that was beyond understanding. Luke’s clear implication is that they were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:8). But the Jewish leadership didn’t recognize or understand that. All they knew is that these men had been with Jesus. Wise rabbis could train wise students but these men were doing extraordinary things and the only possible explanation was that they had been with Jesus.
On a practical level this offers us an important reminder and a warning. The reminder is the importance of being with Jesus. There are many things that we can learn and study and work at to become better disciples and we should do all of those things, but the real difference maker is experiencing Jesus. It is being with him and knowing him that truly sets us apart. But that’s where the warning comes in. This doesn’t mean that learning and education, especially in a spiritual and biblical context, is undesirable. This passage should not be taken out of context to argue against someone receiving more training or the like. The wise balance is to seek learning (and that can mean many different things from deeper biblical study to seeking higher formal education) but also to spend time in the presence of Christ.
The Jewish leaders were left with little wiggle room. Simply ignoring all that was going on was not a viable option to them. That could potentially lead to thousands more flocking to this new movement that was, in their opinion, leading people away from God. It would also render them powerless as they watched their own power slip away further. But they could not deny that nothing had happened either. This miracle was as undeniable as were Jesus’ many miracles. Arguments could be had over the source of the power of the miracles but the miracles themselves could not be denied.
The fact that the leadership was in such a difficult position is another powerful piece of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. The disciples were preaching that God’s new age and the resurrection of the dead had already begun in Christ Jesus and was available to all those who would enter into his life, guaranteeing them the full inheritance of resurrection when the age to come came in its fullness. Because this all rested on the truth of the resurrection, though, it would have been easy to simply pull the carpet out from under this movement by producing evidence that Jesus had not, in fact, raised from the dead. They couldn’t, however, and that left them with basically censuring Peter and John as their only option.
Accepting the preaching of the apostles was apparently not an option for the Jewish leadership so they discussed privately that their only option was to tell the apostles to keep quiet and no longer speak in the name of Christ. Luke was almost assuredly not present during that meeting so either he speculated what was discussed based on their subsequent declarations or another possibility (speculation as it might be) was that a young Saul (who would later become an apostle and change his name to Paul) was present at this meeting and would later recount the facts to Luke.
Although the public position of the Sanhedrin was to forbid them from speaking further about Jesus, it is unlikely that they seriously expected this to stop men who were making the sorts of claims that Peter and John were making. So, the response of the two men couldn’t have been that unexpected. Their response was, in fact, similar to the famous reply of Socrates when he was threatened and told to stop teaching philosophy. It was a matter of what was right in the eyes of men or of God. They had to put the fear of God ahead of man, something that God highly values and encourages (see Prov. 29:25; Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10). The irony in the situation was that the Sanhedrin saw themselves as being the spokesmen of God, but Peter and John clearly put them in their place. What they had seen and heard could have no other explanation than to have come from God and that meant that if the Sanhedrin would continue to oppose them, then they were exposing themselves as speaking the words of mere men. This reminds us of the fact that the apostles were not simply clinging to beliefs and willing to die or suffer for them as so many religious adherents are. They were basing their beliefs on things that they were claiming to have seen and witnessed for themselves. There was no room to claim that they were merely mistaken or misled. They either really saw what they claimed or they were liars (the specific nature of their claims and the sheer number of disciples that claimed to have seen the risen Jesus also rules out any thought of them merely being fooled).
The Jewish leadership could make all of the threats that they wanted but the facts were incontrovertible. This man had been lame his entire life and he was over forty, the length of a full generation in the Jewish culture. In other words, his condition had seemed irreversible. Yet, here he was walking around and praising God. Verses 21 and 22 give a clear snapshot of the reception of the gospel. Some, including many in the leadership of Israel, chose to reject the gospel and would work to quiet it, but many others would see what God was doing and embrace it. It seems a little late, though, for the Sanhedrin to really think that they could stop the gospel. It would be like trying to fix a dam after all the water has already drained out. That’s what it is always like, though, when one tries to hold back the kingdom of God.
Devotional Thought
What would be your response if you found yourself in the shoes of Peter and John? How often does fear of men deter you from doing what you feel God has called you to do? What is your response when you feel fear of intimidation in the opportunity to announce the kingdom of God?
Friday, December 03, 2010
Acts 4:1-12
Peter and John Before the Sanhedrin
1 The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4 But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.
5 The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is
“‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’[a]
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Dig Deeper
As I had the opportunity to see more of the world than the United States and learned more and more about politics not just in the States but around the world, I have learned that there is a certain commonality between politicians everywhere. They seem far more adept at protecting their own jobs and with poking holes in the ideas of others than they do in actually coming up with any solutions to the difficult and complex problems that most countries face. The reality is that they often seem rather uninterested in actually coming up with any long-term solutions themselves that actually work. It is far easier to make a lot of promises and then simply try to keep down the other side and constantly put down the ideas of the other side (which are usually little more than the same hollow promises they are making themselves) than to come up with actual solutions. In fact, most politicians are far more adept at proving that another idea is not the answer to a problem than they are in coming up with a solution themselves. Give a room of politicians long enough and they will make sure that all potential solutions are shot down so that the only really winner is their own careers and the status quo. They don’t have the answer but they’re sure that no one else does either. They’re far more concerned with keeping their own power than they are in finding the truth or in solving issues.
As we look at the world that the first century church faced it becomes quickly apparent that in many ways it was not as dissimilar from our own as we might at first guess. They faced a world that was without answers but were for absolute certain that the answer the early church offered couldn’t be it. They had proven quite nicely that they were without answers to the problems of the world but when the first Christians came to boldly declare that they had found the solution, those in power, those without any real solution of their own, quickly rejected it and tried to squelch it. They didn’t have answers but they were sure this wasn’t it.
The real problem of the early church, from the perspective of the Jewish leadership (and eventually the Roman Empire) was that it was dangerous. They weren’t just teaching that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. In fact, if that was all they were teaching, Christianity would still have been different from any other religion but it wouldn’t have been significantly more dangerous or bothersome than any other religion. It could have taken its place neatly beside other religions in the marketplace of ideas. What made early Christianity dangerous was the idea that Jesus was the firstfruits of resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). God hadn’t just broke into the present age and raised Jesus from the dead in one amazing act. Jesus’ resurrection was the first taste of what was to come. It was God breaking into the present age and showing the world what his coming future age would look like. That would be the time of the resurrection where God would set things straight and restore the heavens and earth to wholeness without death and evil. The reality of that future age meant that the present age had to change.
So the resurrection was more than an incredible historical event. It was a promise. It was a promise that those in Christ would have their own share in the world to come as well. But the promise of resurrection bent back in on itself because it wasn’t just a future promise either. It was not just a chance to share in Jesus’ resurrection life one day. It was a chance to die our own existence of living for self (a way of life that is the cause of all of the world’s greed, selfishness, hate, violence, evil etc.) and to live the life of Christ. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:15: “he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
Christians have been called to a series of earth-changing realities. First, we have been called to share in Christ’s death by dying to self. Second, we have been called to share in Christ’s burial by being baptized into Christ. Third, we have been called to share in his resurrection by being raised to a new existence as part of the body and family of Christ rather than an individual existence. Finally, we have been called to share in his resurrection life by beginning to work out the reality of the future resurrection age in new and fresh ways right now. Christians are to be the people that are living the life of the age to come in the here-and-now. Christianity is not something that we do when convenient or Sunday mornings that makes us feel better about the prospects of dying one day and maybe causes us to be a little nicer now and then to our fellow man. It means to make a radical change in life. It means to live by a completely different reality and be entirely unafraid of how the world may flail away and violently oppose this new life.
That is exactly the problem right there. Resurrection people are dangerous because when we begin to anticipate the time of God’s rule, a time when there is no injustice, no abuse of power, no violence, no hate, no evil, and of course no death. But when people begin to really actively work against such evil, that becomes a direct threat to those in power. As the Christians boldly declared that Jesus Christ was the true king of the world and that he held the true power to which they would live in allegiance, then at the same time they were declaring that those currently in power were just the pretenders. They weren’t the solution. They were part of the problem. This is a stern challenge to modern Christians who often don’t challenge the status quo at all. I wonder if we held as tightly to belief in resurrection and the call to be the people of God’s future age right here in the present with all that that meant to those who would abuse power and perpetrate injustices big and small, if we would find ourselves as dangerous to the powers-that-be as the first church was. My hunch is that we would. My questions is why we don’t become that.
This element of danger is why the powers of the time were so concerned about the actions of the early church. The Sadducees had much power at the time and they didn’t believe in any such notion as resurrection. Resurrection was a dangerous idea that would upset the delicate power balance that Rome allowed them to have. A movement of wild-eyed resurrection believers was the last thing that they needed. They didn’t understand exactly the direction that this Christian movement was headed but they knew enough to know that resurrection people are infinitely dangerous because if while brining about the anticipation of God’s future age of justice and holiness, they were to face death, they cared little because they knew they would be resurrected one day. You simply cannot control resurrection people. People by the thousands were listening to this message and converting to this group that claimed to be God’s new people. Something had to be done.
The real question that the Jewish leadership wanted to know was by what authority or in what name was this all being done. It wasn’t a real question, it was an implication. They were trying to smear the movement by implying that the incredible miracles that people were beginning to hear about were done under the authority of Satan not God. This same tactic had been tried against Jesus (Lk. 11;15-20). Jesus had refuted them by pointing out that the power of God was clearly at work in his ministry. Satan would not be fighting against evil but perpetrating it. It was God who fought evil, so if his work demonstrated the work of God then it could not be Satan. In the same way, this man had been healed and in this act of mercy of brining healing and wholeness to him, only the work of God himself could be seen. The authority from which this miracle came was none other than Jesus Christ.
Although Peter and John were on trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin and seemingly on the defensive, they turned to offense in verse 10. The Jewish leaders thought that they had done away with Jesus but here was incontrovertible proof that he was still active and alive. They had not performed this miracle on their own. It had come about as a result of the power and authority of the resurrected Jesus Christ. The power of God’s future age had come through Jesus Christ and had surged through Peter and John and into this man. If the idea of resurrection made them nervous and fearful about losing their grip on power then they had better be afraid, very afraid.
In the face of this opposition from those in power, Peter turned to one of the favorite Psalms of the biblical church. The odd-shaped stone that had been put to the side and rejected by the builders was now the only stone that could serve as the cornerstone. The old Temple was was being replaced by God’s true Temple, Jesus Christ. He was the cornerstone of God’s new building that was rising up to restore the world as God intended for it to be. But Israel had been warned. Those who continued to reject Christ would find themselves rejecting the very plan of God that they claimed to desire. Jesus was the stone, not just of Psalm 118, but the great stone of Daniel 2 that was not cut out by human hands (v. 34) but that filled the whole earth as a huge mountain (v. 35) that would crush all of the other kingdoms of human origin (v. 45) and endure forever (v. 45). This was a revolution of death. But this revolution was not coming through the death of those that stood in opposition to the Christians but rather through the death of the Christians themselves. It was the only way that God’s kingdom would come. Jesus had died and called those who would follow him to come die with him and share in his life.
Those who rejected Christ found themselves in the position of rejecting God’s solution without any answer of their own. They didn’t know what the answer to two plus two was, but they knew it wasn’t four. The great answer that is found in verse 12 is every bit as distasteful in our century as it was in the first century. It stands in bold opposition to other religions, philosophies, and even those that claim Christianity but say that to claim Jesus is the only way is arrogant and ignorant. There is no other road to salvation. There is no other name that has the power to usher in God’s great reconciliation project for the world. The Bible is clear on that and so should we be.
Devotional Thought
Do you and your spiritual community actively work out becoming a community that lives by the values and reality of the age to come in active opposition to the power and injustice of the present age? If not, what might that look like as you begin to do so?
1 The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4 But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.
5 The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is
“‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’[a]
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Dig Deeper
As I had the opportunity to see more of the world than the United States and learned more and more about politics not just in the States but around the world, I have learned that there is a certain commonality between politicians everywhere. They seem far more adept at protecting their own jobs and with poking holes in the ideas of others than they do in actually coming up with any solutions to the difficult and complex problems that most countries face. The reality is that they often seem rather uninterested in actually coming up with any long-term solutions themselves that actually work. It is far easier to make a lot of promises and then simply try to keep down the other side and constantly put down the ideas of the other side (which are usually little more than the same hollow promises they are making themselves) than to come up with actual solutions. In fact, most politicians are far more adept at proving that another idea is not the answer to a problem than they are in coming up with a solution themselves. Give a room of politicians long enough and they will make sure that all potential solutions are shot down so that the only really winner is their own careers and the status quo. They don’t have the answer but they’re sure that no one else does either. They’re far more concerned with keeping their own power than they are in finding the truth or in solving issues.
As we look at the world that the first century church faced it becomes quickly apparent that in many ways it was not as dissimilar from our own as we might at first guess. They faced a world that was without answers but were for absolute certain that the answer the early church offered couldn’t be it. They had proven quite nicely that they were without answers to the problems of the world but when the first Christians came to boldly declare that they had found the solution, those in power, those without any real solution of their own, quickly rejected it and tried to squelch it. They didn’t have answers but they were sure this wasn’t it.
The real problem of the early church, from the perspective of the Jewish leadership (and eventually the Roman Empire) was that it was dangerous. They weren’t just teaching that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. In fact, if that was all they were teaching, Christianity would still have been different from any other religion but it wouldn’t have been significantly more dangerous or bothersome than any other religion. It could have taken its place neatly beside other religions in the marketplace of ideas. What made early Christianity dangerous was the idea that Jesus was the firstfruits of resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). God hadn’t just broke into the present age and raised Jesus from the dead in one amazing act. Jesus’ resurrection was the first taste of what was to come. It was God breaking into the present age and showing the world what his coming future age would look like. That would be the time of the resurrection where God would set things straight and restore the heavens and earth to wholeness without death and evil. The reality of that future age meant that the present age had to change.
So the resurrection was more than an incredible historical event. It was a promise. It was a promise that those in Christ would have their own share in the world to come as well. But the promise of resurrection bent back in on itself because it wasn’t just a future promise either. It was not just a chance to share in Jesus’ resurrection life one day. It was a chance to die our own existence of living for self (a way of life that is the cause of all of the world’s greed, selfishness, hate, violence, evil etc.) and to live the life of Christ. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:15: “he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
Christians have been called to a series of earth-changing realities. First, we have been called to share in Christ’s death by dying to self. Second, we have been called to share in Christ’s burial by being baptized into Christ. Third, we have been called to share in his resurrection by being raised to a new existence as part of the body and family of Christ rather than an individual existence. Finally, we have been called to share in his resurrection life by beginning to work out the reality of the future resurrection age in new and fresh ways right now. Christians are to be the people that are living the life of the age to come in the here-and-now. Christianity is not something that we do when convenient or Sunday mornings that makes us feel better about the prospects of dying one day and maybe causes us to be a little nicer now and then to our fellow man. It means to make a radical change in life. It means to live by a completely different reality and be entirely unafraid of how the world may flail away and violently oppose this new life.
That is exactly the problem right there. Resurrection people are dangerous because when we begin to anticipate the time of God’s rule, a time when there is no injustice, no abuse of power, no violence, no hate, no evil, and of course no death. But when people begin to really actively work against such evil, that becomes a direct threat to those in power. As the Christians boldly declared that Jesus Christ was the true king of the world and that he held the true power to which they would live in allegiance, then at the same time they were declaring that those currently in power were just the pretenders. They weren’t the solution. They were part of the problem. This is a stern challenge to modern Christians who often don’t challenge the status quo at all. I wonder if we held as tightly to belief in resurrection and the call to be the people of God’s future age right here in the present with all that that meant to those who would abuse power and perpetrate injustices big and small, if we would find ourselves as dangerous to the powers-that-be as the first church was. My hunch is that we would. My questions is why we don’t become that.
This element of danger is why the powers of the time were so concerned about the actions of the early church. The Sadducees had much power at the time and they didn’t believe in any such notion as resurrection. Resurrection was a dangerous idea that would upset the delicate power balance that Rome allowed them to have. A movement of wild-eyed resurrection believers was the last thing that they needed. They didn’t understand exactly the direction that this Christian movement was headed but they knew enough to know that resurrection people are infinitely dangerous because if while brining about the anticipation of God’s future age of justice and holiness, they were to face death, they cared little because they knew they would be resurrected one day. You simply cannot control resurrection people. People by the thousands were listening to this message and converting to this group that claimed to be God’s new people. Something had to be done.
The real question that the Jewish leadership wanted to know was by what authority or in what name was this all being done. It wasn’t a real question, it was an implication. They were trying to smear the movement by implying that the incredible miracles that people were beginning to hear about were done under the authority of Satan not God. This same tactic had been tried against Jesus (Lk. 11;15-20). Jesus had refuted them by pointing out that the power of God was clearly at work in his ministry. Satan would not be fighting against evil but perpetrating it. It was God who fought evil, so if his work demonstrated the work of God then it could not be Satan. In the same way, this man had been healed and in this act of mercy of brining healing and wholeness to him, only the work of God himself could be seen. The authority from which this miracle came was none other than Jesus Christ.
Although Peter and John were on trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin and seemingly on the defensive, they turned to offense in verse 10. The Jewish leaders thought that they had done away with Jesus but here was incontrovertible proof that he was still active and alive. They had not performed this miracle on their own. It had come about as a result of the power and authority of the resurrected Jesus Christ. The power of God’s future age had come through Jesus Christ and had surged through Peter and John and into this man. If the idea of resurrection made them nervous and fearful about losing their grip on power then they had better be afraid, very afraid.
In the face of this opposition from those in power, Peter turned to one of the favorite Psalms of the biblical church. The odd-shaped stone that had been put to the side and rejected by the builders was now the only stone that could serve as the cornerstone. The old Temple was was being replaced by God’s true Temple, Jesus Christ. He was the cornerstone of God’s new building that was rising up to restore the world as God intended for it to be. But Israel had been warned. Those who continued to reject Christ would find themselves rejecting the very plan of God that they claimed to desire. Jesus was the stone, not just of Psalm 118, but the great stone of Daniel 2 that was not cut out by human hands (v. 34) but that filled the whole earth as a huge mountain (v. 35) that would crush all of the other kingdoms of human origin (v. 45) and endure forever (v. 45). This was a revolution of death. But this revolution was not coming through the death of those that stood in opposition to the Christians but rather through the death of the Christians themselves. It was the only way that God’s kingdom would come. Jesus had died and called those who would follow him to come die with him and share in his life.
Those who rejected Christ found themselves in the position of rejecting God’s solution without any answer of their own. They didn’t know what the answer to two plus two was, but they knew it wasn’t four. The great answer that is found in verse 12 is every bit as distasteful in our century as it was in the first century. It stands in bold opposition to other religions, philosophies, and even those that claim Christianity but say that to claim Jesus is the only way is arrogant and ignorant. There is no other road to salvation. There is no other name that has the power to usher in God’s great reconciliation project for the world. The Bible is clear on that and so should we be.
Devotional Thought
Do you and your spiritual community actively work out becoming a community that lives by the values and reality of the age to come in active opposition to the power and injustice of the present age? If not, what might that look like as you begin to do so?
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