Acts 5:17-32 Freedom and Confrontation

Acts 5:17-20 Peter is arrested by the high priest and freed by an angel of The Lord. We should not be surprised at the priesthood's reaction to the church's growth. The apostles had been warned not to preach or teach in the name of Jesus. They had decided that they they would obey God rather than men. (Acts 4:18-20, 5:29) I still have to wonder why the High Priest was a member of the sect of the Sadducees. But it is obvious that for a man who on theological grounds believes there is no resurrection from the dead, the proclamation of Jesus' resurrection would be a poke in the eye. In this case, we find out that very night an angel came and freed Peter from prison and told him to continue preaching. This is the first of three such incidents recorded in Acts. (See also Acts 12:7-11, 16:25-26)  Jesus had told Peter that one day he would give his life for the gospel (John 21:18-19) but that day was not yet.

Acts 5:21-25 The Temple guards search for Peter and find him teaching in the Temple. I am certain that the priests had not had any inkling that God would supernaturally free Peter from prison. In all cases in which the apostles were freed from jail miraculously, people were astonished at God's supernatural deliverance. In this case, the priests were astonished to find Peter in the Temple teaching the people, in direct defiance of their commands to him, and not in prison where they thought he had to be.

Acts 5:26-32 The high priest and Peter confront each other about Peter's teaching. The logical next step. The high priest didn't really question Peter so much as repeat his threat. In this case he adds the comment that Peter's teaching is intended to bring Jesus' blood on their head. Obviously they could not deal with the concept of the resurrection, because they were Sadducees. And apparently they had made no real effort to understand Peter's teaching, that it was every single person for whom Christ died, and that the Jews of Jerusalem had all been part of putting Jesus to death, and that He had voluntarily laid down His life to redeem mankind.  But Peter repeats the basics of the plan of redemption anyway.

Acts 5:12-16 The hands of the apostles

Acts 5:12-16 Innumerable miracles occur, people are brought from the surrounding area to be healed, and the church continues to grow. This follows after the great fear that arose from what happened to Ananias and Sapphira. Signs and wonders continue to take place at the hands of the apostles, people hold them in high esteem and fear to associate with them. There is nothing that says that people were healed by Peter's shadow, but apparently they thought they would be.

          In the modern church, there are answers to prayer for healing, but they are usually isolated. Occasionally there will be itinerant evangelists with healing ministries that pray for people who line up, often hundreds of them in a single meeting. But the key aspect of this ministry seems to be that it was part of the organic ministry of the church. People from the outside came to be healed because they recognized that healing flowed from that body of believers who named the name of Christ. Peter had a unique place as the pastor of the first church of Jerusalem, yet the text says the signs and wonders took place at the hands of the apostles (plural). 

          In the modern world, the explosive power of God's healing does not seem to be manifested in the church. Traveling evangelists such as Kathryn Kuhlman and Oral Roberts, perhaps, but I cannot recall ever hearing about a stampede of sick people rushing to church to be healed. They go the ER instead. There are two possible views of this. One is that this type of sign and wonder ministry was confined to the early church and is no longer needed since the church has been established. The season of great works of power was needed then but is not needed now, as God has other priorities for the modern church, such as discipleship and spiritual formation. The other point of view is that this is missing because the church is missing the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through apostolic leadership. The test of the latter view would be if a church (any church, any denomination) were to be so led by the Holy Spirit that its leadership would go and pray for people and they would be healed so routinely that they would be sought out by unbelievers, not because they wanted to be saved, but simply because they wanted to be healed and believed that the church leadership had the authority to heal them in Jesus' name. What would this look like? Hard to say, but it would be different from the church services and ministries that we have now.

Acts 4:32-5:11 Ananias & Sapphira

Acts 4:32-37 The congregation is unified, the apostles exhibit great power, and members continue to generously donate the proceeds of the sale of property to the community. We now see that this outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the 8,000 or so early Christians continued to result in a community with common property and great generosity. This seems to be an expansion of the initial community property arrangement discussed above, in connection with Acts 2:44-45. Acts 4:33 makes it clear that this is one with the power of the gospel witness and the grace of God upon them all (all 8,000). The poor were taken care of, because anyone with property would sell them and give the proceeds to the apostles to distribute to the needy. This was not based on a human principle, for example, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Rather, this was a fulfillment of an Old Testament command. (e.g. Deuteronomy 15:7-8) And so the same warning should be applied to this example. No one can take a Biblical example of a social or governmental structure or system, wrench it from its Biblical roots, and apply it in the world without the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, and have it succeed. The early church succeeded because they manifested God's power, and this was possible only through the indwelling (and obeyed) Holy Spirit. 

Acts 5:1-11 The sad story of Ananias and Sapphira: Joseph, also called Barnabas, donated the proceeds from selling land to the church. (Acts 4:36-37) This lines up with earlier descriptions of the common property arrangement in the early church.  But Ananias and Sapphira held back part of the proceeds and laid the rest at the apostles' feet. Peter's interrogation zeroes in on the fact that it wasn't their failure to donate 100% of the proceeds to the church that caused their harsh judgment, but their lies in claiming that they had. Peter said that they had lied to the Holy Spirit. And so they fell down dead, and were buried (immediately, it seems).

          There seems to parallel here to the case of Achan recorded in Joshua 7. In both cases, the people of God were entering into a new life. The unity of the community in pursuing God's plan according to His command was paramount. In the case of Joshua, the people were to conquer the land and utterly annihilate the inhabitants. The commands were very specific, that if they allowed them to continue in the land, they would be a snare to Israel. (Deut. 7: 16 & 25; Joshua 23:13) And in fact they were. (Judges 2:1-5) So it was important that they meticulously follow the commands of God as given through Moses and then through Joshua. Since Moses had commanded them to destroy their gods, Achan's disobedience as a result of greed at the very outset (the first real battle, at Jericho) threatened to undermine the basis of the new community.

          In the birth of the church as recorded in Acts, God was establishing a community whose existence would be defined by the presence of the Holy Spirit and His work in the lives of the individual members, moment by moment leading and guiding them. So the key disobedience was that Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit. They thought they could get away with pretending to be completely obedient to the leading of The Lord when in fact they were not. The Holy Spirit is God, and so this shows us that at the very inception of the community of Christians - the church - He was establishing that one cannot lie to the Holy Spirit. He knows. And there are consequences. We might lie to people and get away with it. They may or may not ever find out. But the Holy Spirit knows. We should not even try to pretend He does not know. And without the Holy Spirit we cannot be part of this community. So Ananias and Sapphira were in a sense an object lesson for this principle. 

          Who among us can live up to this standard? Who is so filled with the Holy Spirit that they never err? Obviously, in this life, none of us. But the key point here is honesty and humility. Instead of pretending that we are walking in the spirit, we need to own up to the truth. When we fall short of a 100% Holy Spirit anointing, let's not pretend otherwise. It is exactly the same way Jesus treated the Pharisees. They were claiming to be followers of Moses and fully obedient to the law as given through Moses, but it was a sham - they weren't and they knew it, but they couldn't or wouldn't admit it.

          This is confirmed in 2 Corinthians 9:6-7. "Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." There was never a compulsion - God want hearts that generously give, and do so cheerfully. Ananias and Sapphira could have honestly sowed sparingly, and the only drawback would have been that they would have reaped sparingly. And this principle applies to all aspects of God's kingdom, not just money. It is just that money is an overt and open way in which our commitment to The Lord and our walk in the Holy Spirit can be seen. But Ananias and Sapphira failed on a more fundamental level than sowing sparingly. They did not understand the fundamental principle above, that it is impossible to lie to the Holy Spirit.

Acts 4:23-31 The believers prayed ...

Acts 4:23-31 Next, the apostles and believers hold a prayer meeting and the place was shaken. They have a unified prayer meeting. The apostles and their companions considered the threats and warnings of the Jewish leaders, and prayed, firstly Psalm 146:6, recollecting God's power demonstrated in creation, and secondly Psalm 2:1-2, David's prophecy or statement of fact regarding the rage of the worldly governments against the Messiah of God. They recalled God's sovereignty. And then they prayed, not that they would be protected from evil governments or kept safe from persecution, but that they would be granted boldness and confidence to proclaim God's message with signs and wonders following. 

          Verse 31 is the capstone of this prayer meeting. The place where they gathered was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. There is no further information on what kind of shaking took place. Perhaps there was an earthquake. Or perhaps the people were so overcome by the Holy Spirit that their spirit and soul were shaken. But that the result of being filled with the Holy Spirit was not that they spoke in tongues, or prophesied, but that they spoke God's word with boldness, suggests that at least those who were companions of the apostles, and we have no information as to how many were present at this prayer meeting, received the promise of Acts 2:38-39, the Holy Spirit now infused all who were present.  But the phenomenon accompanying this filling was speaking the word of God with boldness.

          There is perhaps a fitness to the way God works. On Pentecost, Jews from all over the world were present, and the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to speak in languages that they would all understand. On this occasion, they had been threatened about speaking about Jesus, His crucifixion and resurrection, and salvation in His name - the stuff of the scriptures. And so the Holy Spirit empowered them - perhaps involuntarily - to speak the word of God boldly. If nothing else, this is confirmation that the apostles and the early church (all 8,000 of them, perhaps?) were approved by God to go ahead and ignore the Jewish leadership's warning not to speak in Jesus' name, but instead to proclaim it. And in later passages, the presence of the Holy Spirit is manifested in other types of phenomena, to make specific points that are directly germane to the circumstances.

Acts 4:1-22 The apostles on trial

Acts 4:1-7 The priests, temple guard, and the Sadducees arrest some of the apostles. Since Peter and John were mentioned in 3:11, it seems likely they were the ones arrested. They spent the night in jail, but the rest of the church must have been busy, because there were five thousand converts as a result of this incident and sermon. The next day, what must have been a very large group of senior Jewish leaders gathered, since it mentions the elders and scribes, and then by name Annas, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and adds, "...all who were of high priestly descent." Although Jesus had done similar miracles, He was gone and the Jewish leadership probably couldn't miss the fact that 5,000 Jews, presumably devout enough to be in the temple, had all converted to believe in Jesus.

          The question asked in verse 7, "By what power or in what name have you done this?" sounds very much like a trial lawyer questioning a hostile witness in court. They could not have been unaware that Peter had preached a message about Jesus, whom they recently had the Romans dispose of. So this was the opening line of questioning to bring into court first-hand testimony. Peter obliged them.

Acts 4:8-12 Peter gives a short sermon. Boiled down to the basics. They had asked in what name and Peter responded, Jesus Christ the Nazarene; then to be sure they knew who he was talking about, he brought up His crucifixion by them, and His resurrection by God. That Jesus. He quoted Psalm 118:22, gave an altar call. Be saved in His name.

Acts 4:13-22 The priests consider this and decide to threaten and release the apostles. God had placed the senior Jewish leadership in a dilemma. The miracle was undeniable (4:14, 16, & 22), but at the same time, they could not acknowledge Jesus in any way, or else their own places of power & privilege would be at risk. So they warned and threatened the apostles, they got the response which seems almost rebellious. The apostles simply said that they could not stop speaking about what they had seen and heard. But they had committed no crime under Jewish law or Roman law, and at least 5,000 people were witnesses to the miraculous healing, so the Jewish leaders could do nothing further.

          There is often a dilemma on the part of believers about the extent to which we should be subject to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7) and when we should disobey. The apostles established a standard, and this was two-fold. Firstly, they were operating under the authority of the Holy Spirit, which no human government can regulate. Secondly, they were in effect being told to deny the truth, the things they saw and heard. It was not that they were being argued out of believing that Jesus had been responsible for the healing, it was that they were being told just to shut up about it. Governments since then have tried to suppress the gospel. They have for a period succeeded in driving the church underground, but the power of the Holy Spirit so permeates the persecuted church that sooner or later, He and it both emerge into the light of day. We shall see wise counsel is given to the leadership in Acts 5:38-39. It was ultimately ignored.

          The problem is that there is a built-in, permanent conflict between the world and the gospel. It can never be reconciled.  And so any government that buys into the world system will eventually find itself in conflict with the gospel. Just as there is a conflict between the world and the gospel in the life of each individual, until they take a stand to reject the world's way of looking at life, accepting not only the good news that Jesus died to save them, but the good news that God provides both the guidance and the power to live life His way. 

Acts 3:1-26 Peter and John went to pray; they met a lame man on the way

Acts 3:1-10 A lame man is healed at the Temple when Peter prays for him. I have to wonder, was this lame man laying there when Jesus walked by, and Jesus didn't heal him? We have record in Luke 5:18-26 and John 5:1-9 of Jesus' healing of the lame. Perhaps this man's time had not yet come - Jesus was leaving this one for Peter. Verse 10 implies that he had been begging at the beautiful gate of the temple for some time.

          In verse 6, Peter says he had no silver and gold. It was just recorded in Acts 2:45 that in the new Christian community they were selling their goods and giving to anyone who had need, Perhaps this sharing was limited to those within community, so Peter was not free to share community generosity with non-members.

          And when he got up, he was walking and leaping. This seems incredible, since he had been lame from his mother's womb. He had never learned to walk as a child. But now that he was healed, he immediately had the balance and coordination to walk and to leap. According to verses 9-10, all the people had the same reaction as they were filled with wonder and amazement.

Acts 3:11-16 Peter's impromptu sermon, reiterating that it was in the name of Jesus that the miracle occurred. Peter is quick to state that the glory for this miracle goes to Jesus, who is the servant of the God of Abraham. In this message addressing the Jews in the Temple, most likely including the priests, scribes, and Pharisees who were present, he bluntly accuses them of being worse than Pilate, in stating that they, his listeners, delivered Jesus up and disowned Him in the presence of Pilate who had decided to release Him (Luke 23:16-25). They put to death the author of life, an interesting juxtaposition - how could they kill the one who created life in the first place? Obviously they couldn't, the resurrection proves it. And for those who perhaps did not see Jesus after His resurrection, they have the evidence right in front of them in the man who was born a cripple and was now able to run and leap, in Jesus' name.

Acts 3:17-26 Peter concludes his sermon with an altar call based on the Pentateuch. Peter repeats his call for his listeners to repent and be saved. In this case, although he cites the prophets as being fulfilled in Jesus' suffering, in this case instead of quoting Isaiah, he quotes Moses, two sections from Deuteronomy (18:15-18 and 15:19) and Genesis 12:3. In this part of the sermon Peter switches from the atonement through Christ's death and his resurrection to a different theme. He is now making the case that Jesus was the promised Messiah, and urging them receive God's blessing by turning from wickedness to God's Servant, Jesus.

          It would be possible to discuss in depth the logic underlying Peter's hermeneutics, but I think it is safer to say that Peter was operating in the power of the Holy Spirit. Besides recognizing that people need to hear different aspects of the gospel, specific aspects of the message will speak to the hearts of people differently. And so in this case the Holy Spirit led Peter down this path. The key point in this whole sermon is that we again see that the proper use of Scripture, which in Peter's case meant the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, is to bring life to listeners by connecting them to God through experiential faith.

Acts 2:41-47 Organizing the first mega-church

Acts 2:41-47 About 3,000 people are saved and the early church is established with daily communion in various houses and meetings in the Temple. It must have been quite a service, as 3,000 were baptized. One has to wonder how many of the apostles were involved in doing the baptizing to get through it before dark. Even starting shortly after 9AM, assuming a twelve hour day, that leaves only nine hours of daylight, which would require baptizing over 300 people per hour. We don't know where they did it, but the Jordan River is approximately 30 km, which would have taken most of a day to walk.

          Organizing this flood of converts must have been a challenge. Even with twelve apostles and 108 deacons, 120 in all, there would still been approximately 25 new converts per leader, assuming that all 120 who were in the upper room (Acts 1:1) were qualified as leaders. But those who were added to the church devoted themselves to the apostle' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. We have the elements of the first meetings, which we still find in most church services today. However, in this case, they were continually devoting themselves to these things. Perhaps these were not formally organized meetings, they may have spontaneously decided to eat meals together, to go to each other’s' houses for fellowship and prayer. They were often at the temple as well, all 3,000 of them, most likely to hear the apostles teach. If this was the case, it would likely have been more than a minor annoyance to priests and scribes for whom the Temple was the center of Jewish worship. Although at this point the early Christians were evidently all of Jewish background, the circumstances of the death of Jesus would have caused significant tension between new Christians and the Jewish authorities. This conflict continued.

          The early church also experienced many signs and wonders through the apostles. Interestingly, although Peter said that all who believed and were baptized would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, evidently at this stage miraculous works occurred only through the apostles. Perhaps the new believers needed some instruction in how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. But they did immediately begin to exhibit unprecedented generosity, having all things in common. There is an interesting socio-religious question here. As far as I know, this is the first occurrence of communism on a large scale in history. What is the difference between having all things in common in a family, where presumably the father and mother handle finances and are in charge, and in a larger community, in which elected or appointed leaders are in charge? What is the largest scale on which this kind of common property arrangement will work? In the twentieth century, grand experiments on a national scale tried to implement common property in numerous countries. They were all social and economic disasters. One can point to many reasons for their failure, but one of the key differences is that in the early church, all were subject to Christ and therefore the Holy Spirit was behind it all, and both leaders and members were in constant contact with God through the Holy Spirit. The 20th century national experiments in Communism explicitly rejected God and religion in any and all forms, largely due to Karl Marx' influence on the political structure. Curiously, however, that seems to be a common attribute of all forms of political organization that fail; even democracy based on rejection of God seems doomed to failure. We might also point to other problems, such as the overarching egos of key leaders versus the humility of the apostles, but the one point that history seems to teach is that we cannot take a Biblical event as a basis for a political or social norm and expect it to work after we have wrenched or surgically excised it from the context of God's continuing presence with His people.

          The key point is this. God came to bring spiritual and eternal life to His people. Politicians who want to make things fair, or promote altruism as a moral basis for organizing society, have neither the desire nor the ability to bring these people eternal life. And so their social and political initiatives, however well-intentioned, are doomed to fail.