Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 4-6.

The first thing I want to comment on is the way in which Luke changed how he reported numbers.  Back in chapter 2, after Peter’s speech on Pentecost, Luke reported that the number of believers rose to around 3,000.  Then in today’s passage, after Peter and John had healed the lame man, Luke reports that the number of men who believed rose to about 5,000.  So, before Pentecost, the number of believers was around 120, after Pentecost it was around 3,000, and after this incident it rose to well over 5,000 (I would assume that the number of women believers was at least similar to the number of men who believed, but it may have been much higher).

However, that is not the main thing I want to write about today.  Rather, I want to write about Peter and John’s response to the Sanhedrin’s threats, and the prayer of response which the Believers offered up when they heard about it.  First, Peter and John asked if the Sanhedrin believed that they should listen to the Sanhedrin over listening to God.  Should we listen to human authorities or to God?  Then, Peter and John gave their answer to that question: they could not help but speak that which God directed them to speak.  I hope their question is as much of a rhetorical question for you as it was for the two of them.  Next I want to look at how the Body of Believers responded to the threats.  Now the obvious part of their response was that they prayed.  But we can learn a lot from what they prayed.  They did not pray that God would protect them from the threats which had been issued against them should they continue to preach in the name of Jesus.  Instead, they prayed that God would make them bold in the face of those threats.  Do we share their faith to pray that God make us bold in the face of threats?  I am not sure that I have the faith to take that position.  I strive to reach the place where I will pray to stand firm against threats rather than praying for protection from them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.