By Rony Kozman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies, Samford University
A Mission Met with Courage
Acts 4:1–3, 8–12, 19–20
Speaking about Christ can lead to confrontation. (1–3)
As we saw when we discussed Acts 3, Peter and John healed a man who was born lame and then exhorted their fellow Israelites to repent from their sins and from their rejection of Israel’s Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.
Instead, Peter preaches, they need to turn to — and listen to — Jesus.
Acts 4 picks up from here and explains how the leaders of the people responded to Peter and John. We are told that Peter and John were speaking, and they were arrested because “the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees” were irritated by their preaching.
The following day the “rulers, elders and scribes” along “with Annas the high Priest, Caiaphas, John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family” all gathered in Jerusalem (vv. 5–6).
When Peter addresses them, he says “Rulers of the people and elders” (v. 7).
Acts is showing us that Peter and John are questioned by the political-religious rulers of the people, but we also read that when they preached prior to being arrested that “many of those who heard the word believed, and they numbered about five thousand” (v. 3). A good number of their fellow Israelites believed the preaching of the apostles, even as the leaders of the people rejected their teaching.
This is similar to the picture the gospels paint of the reception of Jesus’ teaching, which was not uniformly rejected by the people of Israel but received special resistance from the leaders and teachers of the people.
Proclaim faith in Christ as the only way to receive eternal life. (8–12)
When the leaders of the people question Peter and John, Peter responds that the man was healed “through the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.” Peter continues his prophetic chastisement in criticizing the leaders of the people for their role in rejecting their Messiah.
This same name through whom the lame man was healed and restored is the same name in whom there is salvation: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (v. 12). Peter and John repeat to the leaders the message that they preached in Acts 3 to their fellow Israelites.
And still, the leaders of the people do not receive the apostolic appeal to trust in the name of Jesus. Instead, they instruct Peter and John to no longer “speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” (v. 18).
Speak boldly about Christ despite opposition. (19–20)
Peter and John refuse their request and say they “cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard” — to keep silent would be to listen to them rather than God.
The apostles have been commissioned by Jesus and filled by the Spirit of God to bear witness to what they have seen and heard as apostles who witnessed Jesus’ ministry (Acts 1:8, 21–22).
Here in Acts 4, we see the boldness the Holy Spirit produced in the apostles to bear witness to what they had seen even in the face of persecution and opposition from people with power.
This is precisely what Jesus said in the Gospel of John would happen when He departed, that He would send the advocate, the Holy Spirit, to help them bear witness to His teachings (John 14:15–17, 26; 15:26–27). The power of the Holy Spirit is accentuated in that Peter and John, we are told, are “unschooled, ordinary men” (Acts 4:13).
They have been instructed by Jesus, as witnesses who were with Jesus, and they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to bear powerful and effective testimony.
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