Mark Bradford's Bible Blog

³³When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. ³⁴But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. ³⁵Then he addressed them: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. ³⁶Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. ³⁷After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. ³⁸Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. ³⁹But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

In verses 29-32, Peter infuriated the Sanhedrin, and especially the Sadducees, by saying that the council had killed Jesus in the worst way possible for a Jew, by hanging him from a tree, and that the God of their fathers had raised Jesus from the dead, disproving the Sadducees central doctrine that there is no resurrection. In addition, Peter said that God had done this so that Israel could have salvation from sin, which implied that the system the chief priests had control of was no longer valid. In other words, he said that they not only were murderers, they were also irrelevant. Where the NIV says the Sadducees were furious, the KJV and Amplified Bible say they were cut to the heart. The truth hurts, as the old saying goes. They were so angry that they wanted to kill the apostles then and there. But the most respected Pharisee of the time, Gamaliel, presented an argument which allowed for cooler heads to prevail.

Gamaliel was one of the most revered teachers of the law in the history of Judaism. He was the grandson of Hilliel the Elder, the father of Pharisaic thought who was largely responsible for the development of the Talmud and Mishnah. Saul of Tarsus discipled under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), and Gamaliel is also believed by scholars to be the son of Simeon, who held the baby Jesus in his arms in Luke 2:25-35. According to Ecclesiastical tradition, Gamaliel was a secret believer in Jesus, baptized by Peter and John, who, along with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, maintained his position in the Sanhedrin in order to try to help the early church. He remains a canonized saint in the Roman Catholic church to this day.

Gamaliel, because of his position as the most respected teacher of the law in Israel at the time, was able to blunt the rage of the Sadducees. Though the Sadducees had most of the political power, they had to listen to the Pharisees because of their influence and popularity with the people. Gamaliel cites two cases of false messiahs who gained large followings, but whose followers dispersed and movements came to nothing after their leaders were killed. The second example he cites, Judas the Galilean, is interesting because historians place his rebellion as originating in Bethlehem, and Gamliel says this took place during the Roman census. While a false messiah was starting a rebellion in the City of David, the real Messiah was being born there around the same time.

Gamaliel’s conclusion seems very reasonable. If God was not with this Jesus movement, it would fail on its own. If God was with it, nothing they could do would stop it. While the second part of that is certainly true, the first part is questionable. Lots of movements and false religions have succeeded and stood the test of time without God’s blessing. But regardless of the flaws in Gamaliel’s argument, it worked. He was able to help the apostles escape death and continue to spread the gospel, at least for the time being. If he was a secret believer who was trying to help the early church, he certainly did that. What would the rest of the Book of Acts have looked like if all 12 apostles had been killed right after this meeting?

⁴⁰His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

⁴¹The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. ⁴²Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.^[b]

The first time, when Peter and John stood before the Sanhedrin, they had gotten off with just a warning (4:18-21). This time, they were flogged, or scourged. This was the same cruel punishment that Jesus had received (Mark 15:15), 39 lashes with a bone-tipped whip. I quote here from David Guzik’s Commentary:

The victim of a Roman scourging was tied against a post, and struck with a whip that had bits of glass, sharp rock, and metal tied to the end of leather cords. The whip would be struck at the top and dragged down the back, until the victim’s entire back was a bloody, open wound. Many people died just from this scourging.

Then the council warned them again not to preach in the name of Jesus (as if they would!), and let them go. Did the apostles go home, lick their wounds, and feel sorry for themselves? No, they rejoiced! Why would they rejoice after having been beaten within an inch of their lives? They rejoiced because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Jesus had told them that this would happen to them in Mark 13:9. They were receiving confirmation after confirmation that what Jesus told them was true. They were being treated as he was treated, further proof that they were becoming like their Master. Until then, the apostles were held in high regard by all the people (2:46-47). But to be scourged publicly was considered shameful in a culture in which shame was a very big deal, which it remains in Middle Eastern cultures today. But the apostles rejoiced that they had suffered the same kind of shame that Jesus had. If you have ever suffered shame or ridicule for your testimony for Jesus, remember his words, as I’m sure the apostles did that day.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11)

Up until this trial, the apostles had preached and taught the gospel in the temple courts. After, they continued to do that, but also taught from house to house. Rather than wait for the people to come to them in the temple courts, they went to the people, telling the Good News. They were beginning to follow the Great Commission. We, as the church, can’t sit in our nice church buildings and expect people to come to us. We have to go to them and tell them the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Mark Bible Acts, apostles, sanhedrin

The Apostles Persecuted

¹⁷Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. ¹⁸They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. ¹⁹But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. ²⁰“Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people the full message of this new life.”

²¹At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.

As in chapter 4 (4:1-4), the Sadducees, who taught that there was no resurrection of the dead, and who held most of the political power in Israel (except for the Romans), were upset that the apostles continued to preach the resurrection of Jesus. And again, they arrested the apostles for doing so. But though their stated reason for doing this was doctrinal, Luke points out that their real reason was jealousy. They were jealous that the apostles were having so much success teaching a doctrine that they didn’t agree with. That sort of sentiment is, unfortunately, all too common, even in the church. Too many churches view other congregations as “competition” rather than partners in ministry and members of the same body, the body of Christ. We can be critical of other churches and say it’s because we disagree with their doctrine, but in reality, in many cases, we’re just jealous of their success.

As before, they put the apostles in jail overnight. It was undoubtably the same jail where they had put Peter and John in chapter 4. But unlike the experience of Peter and John earlier, this time they were miracluously freed by angels. But they weren’t freed so they could escape prosecution. God knew that they would be arrested again the next day and would still face trial. They were freed to preach the gospel. The angel specifically told them to “Go, stand in the temple courts, and tell the people the full message of this new life.” In other words, go back and keep preaching the doctrine that you were arrested for. Again!

I can’t help but wonder why God did this. He had let Peter and John sit in jail all night the first time, and after their trial, they went back and continued to preach. God knew what the outcome of this trial would be too, and that the apostles would go back to the temple and keep preaching the resurrection of Jesus. Why was it important that they escape so that they could go back and teach on this particular day, only to be arrested again? Was someone there that day who needed to hear that message that wouldn’t be there the next day? Was it just a demonstration of God’s power and the ineffectiveness of the leadership’s efforts to stop the Jesus movement? I suppose we’ll never know. But the apostles did as they were told. They went back to the temple first thing in the morning, and kept on proclaiming Jesus as the risen Messiah.

When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles. ²²But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, ²³“We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” ²⁴On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this.

²⁵Then someone came and said, “Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people.” ²⁶At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.

Once again we have the same group that arrested and tried Jesus, and also Peter and John, doing it all over again. The same high priest, Caiaphas, with his father-in-law Annas as the real power, and the same council, the Sanhedrin. I’m sure they went into this thinking that they had warned Peter and John previously, and now they had the apostles for ignoring their warnings. This time they’d be able to bring the hammer down. But when they went to get the prisoners, they were gone! In verse 19, Luke says an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. Then in verse 23, the testimony of the officers was that the doors were securely locked, with the guards still there but with no one inside. So either the angel locked the prison doors again after freeing the apostles, or the officers were lying to cover their negligence. But they seemed to be unaware of the escape until they went to get the prisoners. If the angel had left the prison doors open, the officers would have reported it immediately, before the council gathered. The guards were as surprised as anyone.

Then someone reports that the apostles were back teaching in the temple courts again! Imagine the temple guards having to go back and arrest them again after having locked them securely away, or so they thought. It must have been embarrassing. Luke points out that they didn’t use force because they were afraid of the people. That also implies that the apostles went peacefully, even though they knew that the crowd was on their side. I can imagine the grins on their faces as they went with the guards again, knowing that the temple leadership had no power to hold them if God wanted them free.

²⁷Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. ²⁸“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”

²⁹Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! ³⁰The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. ³¹God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. ³²We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Imagine the discussion in the council chamber while they waited for the apostles to be brought to them. Instead of the apostles being brought directly from jail, probably in chains, first thing in the morning, the whole Sanhedrin had to sit around and wait while the guards went to arrest them again. They had thought themselves to be so powerful, and they must have begun to realize how powerless they really were. After God had set the apostles free from jail, when they were finally brought before the Sanhedrin, I’m sure the threats the council tried to make had a lot less force than they hoped.

Notice that in verse 28, the council would not use the name of Jesus. They just said “this name.” They did the same thing in 4:17, at the first trial of Peter and John. The name of Jesus has power, and even those who oppose Jesus understand that, though they may not admit it. Do we who claim to believe in Jesus recognize the power of his name? The council’s charge in the rest of that verse (“you are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”) is outrageous. These were the same men who had said, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25) Now they take it as an insult to have Jesus’ blood on their heads. Peter’s response is more spiritual than mine would have been. In his place, I would have said, “Hey dummies, you are guilty of his blood! You’re the ones who had him arrested and tried. You’re the ones who insisted that Pilate crucify Jesus when Pilate wanted to let him go.” But essentially, Peter did say that, just in a more God-glorifying way.

He began with the same reply he had given the council at his first trial, “We must obey God rather than men!” (4:19) This was something the religious leaders could not deny. They would have said the same thing. What Peter says in verse 30 is packed with meaning. He first says, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead.” By saying that the God of their fathers had done this, he was appealing to their common Jewish heritage. But by saying that the God of their fathers had raised Jesus from the dead, he was saying that the same Jehovah God that they worshiped had disproved their central doctrine. No wonder they got so mad.

Then Peter sticks the dagger in by saying that they had killed Jesus by hanging him from a tree. This was where Peter put the blame for Jesus’ death squarely on the shoulders of the religious leadership. In fact, the apostles were not railing against the chief priests in the temple courts for killing Jesus. The fact that the chief priests thought they were only shows their own guilt. Though Peter had pointed out the guilt of the “men of Israel” as a whole in the death of Jesus in 2:23, the apostles were mainly preaching the resurrection of Jesus, not the guilt of the leaders for having him executed. It’s funny how we can so easily take offense when none is meant if we feel guilty about something. The fact that Peter said that they had killed Jesus by hanging him from a tree is significant. It refers to Deuteronomy 21:22-23, where it says that a person hanged from a tree is cursed by God. It was considered the worst possible way for a Jew to die, and the ruling council had done it to an innocent man.

In verse 31, Peter says that God had exalted Jesus “to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.” This would have been deeply offensive to the chief priests, and the whole council, Pharisees and Sadducees, who considered themselves righteous. In their minds, they held the way to forgiveness of sins, and had no need for a Savior. Then in verse 32, Peter again claims that they were all witnesses to these things, which in a Jewish trial, would be more than enough evidence to prove a case. Only two witnesses were required, and here were 12! Then he adds the kicker–not only are there 12 human witnesses, but God himself is their witness!

This is a very long passage, and I must stop for today. I will continue with Gamaliel’s reply and the outcome of the trial tomorrow.

Mark Bible Acts, apostles, Peter

The Apostles Heal Many

¹² The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade.

In the aftermath of the episode with Ananias and Sapphira, the early church experienced a surge in divine power. God had made sure that his church remained pure, and a pure church is a powerful church. If God had allowed what Ananias and Sapphira had done to slide, I don’t think the early church would have been able to continue in this way. In my last post, I compared the story of Ananias and Sapphira to the story of Achan’s sin in Joshua 7. The sin of Achan caused defeat for Israel. The whole history of Israel in the Old Testament is replete with examples of victory when Israel obeyed God, and defeat when there was “sin in the camp.” God had excised the sin in the early church, and as a result, they went on to greater victories. If the church today is not victorious, it’s because there’s sin in the camp.

The church continued to meet in the temple complex, in the area called Solomon’s Colonnade, a large passage on the east side of the temple, in what was known as the Court of the Gentiles. This was a large public area which was open to all, and it seems that the early church had claimed this area as their own. Though they had experienced a little persecution at that point, it had not gotten really serious yet. The church was not yet following Jesus’ commission to go into “all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) They didn’t do that in earnest until they were forced to by persecution. They were still meeting in the temple, and therefore considered by most to merely be a sect of Judaism. That view would continue until the temple was destroyed, and the church was forced out into all the world.

¹³No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. ¹⁴Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

This seems like a contradictory statement to me. No one else dared join them, but more and more were added to their number. I think maybe this means that before Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead because of their sin, there had been many casual observers who were merely curious about this new movement. Jesus had had many such people follow him around. But after what happened to Ananias and Sapphira, people realized that becoming a Christian was a serious matter, not for the faint of heart. So the casual observers stopped hanging around the edges. Oh, that that realization would come upon the church today! But because of the power of the Holy Spirit that was manifested in the apostles’ teaching and the miracles that were happening, more and more people made a serious commitment to Christ. Lots of things that we do can attract casual observers to our churches, but real commitments to Christ will only happen in our churches if the Holy Spirit is at work.

¹⁵As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. ¹⁶Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil^[a] spirits, and all of them were healed.

There was a superstition in the ancient world that shadows had supernatural powers. Luke doesn’t actually say that anyone was healed by Peter’s shadow falling on them, just that people had that hope. These would not have been believers who did this. It was those outside the temple who placed their sick there where they knew Peter would pass by on his way in. Luke may have mentioned this as a way of illustrating how popular the apostles had become. But we do know of a woman who was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ robe (Luke 8:43-48, blog). There was nothing supernatural about the robe Jesus wore, either. It was the woman’s faith that healed her. It’s possible some were healed without an intentional act by Peter or the other apostles as well, because of their faith.

However, Luke makes clear that many were healed, by whatever method. Just as many people believed in Jesus because of the miracles he performed, many believed because of the miracles he continued to work through his apostles. The Twelve had gone from being disciples, or apprentices, learning for three years to do the things their master did (teaching and healing), to actually doing those things. They were now apostles, which means special messengers. Though they would never be equal to their master, they were like him, which is what being a disciple is all about. It’s about learning to be like Jesus.

Mark Bible Acts, apostles, early church, healing

The Twelve Apostles

¹²One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. ¹³When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:

Mark tells of the choosing of the Twelve in Mark 3:13-19. See my post on that passage here. But Mark does not tell what, to me, is the most important part of the story; that Jesus spent all night in prayer before making this decision. How much time do we spend in prayer before making a major decision? I’m sure Jesus prayed over each of his larger group of his disciples by name, and not just on that night. How much of that night did Jesus devote to praying about Judas alone?

Why didn’t Jesus simply use his omniscience to choose his apostles? As I’ve said before in this blog, I don’t believe Jesus was all-knowing when he was here in the flesh. Jesus was fully God, but also fully man, which means his knowledge was limited to what a human brain can contain. The human brain cannot contain all the knowledge of God. It would kill us. So much of the Incarnation was about God limiting himself. To really live as a man, Jesus had to have the limitations that human beings have. Why would he need to spend all night in prayer about this if he already knew everything? Before the Incarnation, God the Son knew all that the Father knew, and since the resurrection, he is omniscient as the Father is. But while he was here in the flesh, he had to live with what a human body and brain can do. So he recognized his need for prayer, especially before making a major decision like this. Do we recognize that need in ourselves?

Disciples were more than students in that culture. They were more like apprentices. They followed their master around, not only learning what he taught them, but learning to be like him. Jesus had this larger group of disciples, and from that group, he chose the twelve apostles. The word “apostle” in Greek means ambassador, someone who represents someone else, and has a special message from the one who sent them. That’s exactly what these twelve were.

¹⁴Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, ¹⁵Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, ¹⁶Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

This was an interesting mix of characters. You have two sets of brothers, Peter and Andrew and James and John. They were also business partners. There were also those who probably started out hating each other, or at least were in conflict. Jesus put Matthew the tax collector and Roman collaborator in the Twelve with Simon the Zealot. The Zealots were a Roman-hating group that advocated the violent overthrow of the Roman occupiers. I’m sure Jesus got pressure from Simon to be a political Messiah. Peter, James, and John would also have had problems with Matthew for having overcharged them in taxes over the years. Talk about a team of rivals! Isn’t it interesting how God stretches us by putting us with people we may not like? When Jesus taught us to love our enemies, he may have been talking to his own apostles as well as the rest of us. With the exception of Judas, because of their time with Jesus, these men learned to love each other and work together in spite of their differences to spread the gospel. If they could do that, then we can too.

Mark Bible apostles, Jesus, Luke