Acts 4 Extracting - Expecting - Explaining (part 2)

In Acts 4, Peter has just finished explaining that the Jesus who healed the man standing in front of them stood ready to bless them too. His recurring theme when talking to the people about Jesus was to call them to repent; he was urging them to turn back from their apathy and rejection of Jesus and accept him as their Commander and Lord. He encouraged them with the promise of new, blossoming lives in direct personal relationship with Jesus himself. Repent therefore, and turn again that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, appointed for you, Jesus.(4.19,20).

Agitation

At that moment, the Temple police and Sadducee leaders (a religious sect that opposed Jesus and also did not believe in the possibility of resurrection from the dead) arrested Peter and John. They were very agitated that Peter and John were:

§ teaching the people

§ proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

They considered that it was their job to teach the people, not these uneducated upstarts’.

They objected strongly to the idea that Jesus was alive and at work when they had been instrumental in killing him. They held so strongly to their prejudice that dead people do not live again, that having these ‘uneducated, common men’ (4.13) teach otherwise, infuriated them.

Society seems to work like this: Certain experts acquire credibility and become the spokespersons for ideas that the majority of people are willing to accept as Truth. These ideas and the people that promote them monopolise the channels that disseminate information to people. This is one of the evidences that the ‘We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one’ (1 John 5.19) and that disconnected from Christ, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2.1,2). Evil forces control and blind people to the truth as it is in Jesus. The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4.4).

In this case, the Sadducees saw the Temple as ‘their’ forum or channel for broadcasting their ideas. They were very offended when Peter and John and the Christians lifted up their voices and broadcast a contradictory message. What hurt more, was that they seemed to have some irrefutable evidence (the lame man) that their message had authority.

Peter, John and the others were not trying to ‘take over’ the Temple or monopolise the main channel for discourse in Jerusalem. It was not a struggle over resources. It was a fight for the minds and hearts of people. This is why they used the weapons that have power to set people free. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10.3-6).

So, the Christian strategy is not to try and get control of a TV station or newspapers. We are to preach and teach and share God’s word wherever we find an opening, with our main focus on building up the body of Christ. At the same time, we are looking around for the individuals and groups in whom Jesus is drawing out a response. We jump in there by faith so wherever Christ is working we are, too. Then we explain who it is that transforms those (and our lives); Jesus Christ; and urge others to turn to him also.

Satan, working through Sadducees and current ‘experts’ does not want us to speak out the good news of Jesus Christ. These voices deny life beyond death and want to squeeze the expectations of human life into the few short years of consciousness in the physical world. They must try to distract us away from the possibility of a life in union with God that opens out into eternity.