Join us as we read the scriptures and a daily devotion written by Don Crisp. We pray these messages will bless us all at this time.
Wednesday 16 September: Acts chapter 4: 13-18:
Categories: Don’s Daily Devotions
Wednesday 16 September: Acts chapter 4: 13-18:
V13: The council are amazed at the boldness with which Peter and John speak, all the more because they are ordinary ” uneducated” men – their voices would have identified them as ” working class ” Galileans. The source of their boldness is, of course, the Holy Spirit, filling and enabling them. The only way the council can account for it is that these men have been with Jesus. In a way then, they recognise the source of their changed lives and their power, even as they deny and oppose it. What a sad irony!
V14: So, what can they say? The evidence of the reality of the power at work is there before them, in the once lame man, still it seems, at the apostles’ side. Was he, we may wonder, actually arrested with them, or has he been brought before the council this morning?
V15-16: They send Peter and John out, and discuss what they can do. Their concern is still to oppose and stop the spread of the gospel, and seek to suppress the very Name of Jesus being declared to others, yet they cannot deny the miracle which so many have witnessed.
V17-18: So, to curb this ” pernicious” teaching, they seek to use the power of the council to” warn them off”, to forbid them to speak or teach in the Name of Jesus any more. Remember, the Jewish people generally were in awe and even fear of the Sanhedrin’s power, and once Peter and John too would surely have quailed before it – but now they know the Lord, and are filled with the Spirit.