Peter and John before the Sanhedrin Acts 4
In recent days I’ve been reading the early chapters of Acts.
There is the thrilling account of Pentecost when nervous disciples cowering behind closed doors went out on the streets. Empowered by the Holy Spirit they proclaimed the God News of Jesus Christ – not just boldly and clearly – but in every heart language of their listeners gathered from the known world in Jerusalem.
On that day 3,000 people joined the church. A few verses later we read that:
… the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Soon we are reading the story of the sharing church in Acts 4:32–37 and we’re thinking – wouldn’t it be great if our church was like that!
But then we get a different perspective as illustrated by the picture above – Peter and John thrown in prison, hauled before the Jewish religious hierarchy, warned off from preaching about Jesus, given a flogging just to emphasise the point… read all about it in Acts 5.
Not that the flogging seemed to have much effect. You can imprison a person, but you can’t contain the Holy Spirit. Wise Gamaliel knew that if God was with these crazy people they would be unstoppable. SU WordLive
Is not this picture of the suffering church just as challenging as the depiction of the sharing church in 4:32–37?
Why aren’t we thinking – wouldn’t it be great if our church was like that?
Here are some thoughts from David Smith writing in SU WordLive a few days ago
Why did the new community, so admired by ‘the people’, come to be loathed and feared by those who held power? The answer is that Jesus’ alternative way of living together, based on love, sharing and justice, threatened powerful leaders who benefited from the existing system. If not contained, it would bring the wrath of the Romans whose domination forms the background to these narratives
Once we understand this, the apparent gulf between our world and that of the first century begins to shrink. We too live in a system that extends its power and influence to every part of the globe, challenging us to recognise how the preaching of Christ, crucified and risen, impacts upon this world, and to recover the apostolic boldness and joy that will enable us to endure ‘disgrace for the Name’
It’s easy to get excited about the thrilling bits, but then there are the hard bits we wish the Bible didn’t challenge us with… and yet, it’s all part of God’s Story, then and now and into the future.
It’s all in the Bible: the Story everybody needs... and that so many still cannot access in their heart languages.
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