A Commentary in Simple English on The Acts of the Apostles

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CHAPTER 4

Verses 1-4: In prison for the night

In the Gospels we read how Jesus argued with the Pharisees. They were the party of the Jews who made a lot of the Law. In Acts, the Pharisees are more friendly to the Christians. It is another party, the Sadducees, who are now the enemy. We do not know very much about the Sadducees. See Matthew 3:7 and 16:1 and 6; Matthew 22:23-34; Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-40; Acts 5:17 and Acts 23:6-8. They were rich and rude. They had power among the Jews. They did not believe that anyone rose from the dead. That meant that they did not like the followers of Jesus.

So (verse 1) the priests who were on duty in the Temple came to Peter and John. There were some Sadducees too and the ‘Sagan’. He was the head of the Temple police. Only the High Priest had more power in the Temple. They ‘threw their hands’ (verse 3) on Peter and John. The Jews dealt with courts cases quickly, but it was late afternoon. So the Jews put Peter and John in prison for the night.

(Verse 4) This did not stop many of the people from believing the Good News. We think that many of the three thousand (2:41) who believed at Pentecost had gone home now. They had left Jerusalem. Now there are five thousand people in Jerusalem who believe the Good News. These are all men; this is quite clear. So we can add about the same number of women and perhaps children. This was the size of the Jerusalem church at this time.

Verses 5-12 Peter speaks to the Jewish leaders

(Verse 5) The highest Jewish court was the Sanhedrin. It met in a hall just west of the Temple. See verse 15. It may be that this was a meeting in that hall. But it was not a full meeting of the Sanhedrin. The ‘rulers’ are the high priest and his family and some other priests. The elders were men who were not priests. They were well-known and honoured. The ‘teachers of the law’ would be Pharisees.

(Verse 6) The high priest had more power than anyone else among the Jews. He had to be able to work with the Romans. [4.1]

So (verse 7) the officers brought Peter and John from the prison to the hall. Verse 14 tells us that the healed man was with them. We do not know whether he had been in prison. The council sat on the floor with their legs crossed. Peter and John stood. There is no question of thanks to God for the healing of the man. The rulers just want to know how Peter and John were able to do it.

Still today, people do not want to give God the glory for His goodness.

So in verse 8, Peter begins his reply. Not long before, he had said three times that he did not know Jesus. Now he stands in front of a meeting of the most important Jews. God’s Spirit fills him. He has another crowd to speak to. He tells them the Good News.

First in verse 9, he asks whether he was wrong to do good to the man who was healed. This does not seem to be a court of law, and there is no clear charge for Peter and John to answer. In verse 10, Peter says very firmly that the healing was done in the name of Jesus. He adds that the very people to whom he speaks had put Jesus to death. What was worse for the Jewish leaders came next. God had raised Jesus from the dead. The leaders had shamed Jesus. God gave Him the highest honour.

Then in verse 11, Peter uses some words which come from Psalm 118:22. The Jewish leaders are like builders. They should build up God’s kingdom. Jesus is like a stone, which these ‘builders’ ought to have used in the building. Instead they said that there was no place for Him. Yet God has made Him the most important ‘stone’ of all.

When we look at Psalm 118, we can see that Jesus is the Saviour. He is God’s answer to the prayers of His people down the ages (Psalm 118:21). The ‘builders’ said that Jesus did not fit in anywhere. Yet God has given Him the highest place. This is wonderful. We should be full of joy (verses 23 and 24). [4.2]

(Verse 12) Peter probably spoke the Aramaic language. In that language, the same word means both ‘saved’ and ‘healed’ This verse is full of truth for us:-
1. Men are lost, and need to be saved.
2. It is no good to look to be saved except in the name of Jesus.
3. There may be all sorts of wonderful names in heaven. They do us no good.
4. God has given the name of Jesus. His name is ‘under heaven’, that is, it is here on earth for us. We do not have to climb up into heaven. (Romans 10:6)
5. ‘In the name’ of Jesus God will save us. We shall and must be saved by that name. There is no ‘second’ name with that same power.

Verses 13-22 The Jewish leaders decide what to do

(Verse 13) Peter was brave to speak like this. No one had taught Peter and John the Jewish Law. (‘Uneducated’ in RSV is rather too strong.) Still, there was something different about them. What made them really different was that they had been with Jesus. The Jewish leaders had argued with Jesus. They could never win. Now they had trouble with the men who followed Him. This is not a law court. Peter and John had not done anything wrong. The man who had been healed stood there.

That proved that they had done good. ‘Courage’ or ‘boldness’ is a great word in the New Testament. (‘Parrhesia’) We find it again in Acts 4:29 and 31 and in other places.

So in verse 15 the followers of Jesus are sent out of the hall. The Jewish leaders talked to each other. They did not know what to do (verse 16). They could not say:- ‘God had not healed the man’. Nothing that they could do would stop the growth of the church. (Verse 17) So they will try to stop Peter and John from preaching the Good News. They would ‘threaten them with threats’.

In verse 18, the Jewish leaders call Peter and John back into the hall. They warn Peter and John not to speak in the name of Jesus. They do not find that Peter and John have broken the Law at all. Peter and John claim that their duty is to obey God. We must obey the laws of men as far as we can. But we must always obey God. The church cannot give up its work which is to tell the Good News about Jesus. Yet we know that this will at times lead to suffering. So (verse 21) the Jewish leaders had to let Peter and John go. They did not decide what to do. They decided to do nothing.

Verses 23-31 Prayer: God decides what to do

In verse 23, Peter and John go back to their own people. This is not always the right thing to do. Peter and John do know what to do. Sometimes we must not let the enemies of the church know where other Christians are. At this time, the danger was not yet that great. It is the ‘chief priests and elders’ that we read about here. The ‘scribes’ or ‘teachers of the law’ were mostly Pharisees. They were not so strong in their hatred of the Christians.

In verse 24, the writer uses a word which he rather likes. This is ‘homothumadon’ which means ‘of the same mind’ or ‘of one accord’. The Christians all felt the same way about what the leaders of the Jews had said to Peter and John. They all wanted to pray. We should not find a miracle here. The writer does not mean that the Christians all said just the same thing together. [4.3]

So in the second part of verse 24, they praise God as the Creator of all things. This is true. The progress in science in our day shows that the world is not as simple as people once thought. It had to be made. [4.4] In verse 25, their prayer moves on to the way in which God rules the world. They use the first part of Psalm 2. The ‘nations’ or Gentiles here are the Romans. They ’snort’. ‘The peoples’ are the Jewish leaders. In verse 26, ‘the kings of the earth’ means Herod Antipas. ‘The rulers’ means Pilate. They all come together and they agree to attack Jesus. He is the Messiah. He is the One that God has set apart. God has ‘anointed’ Him. So those who attack the church now, attack Jesus. And those who try to attack Jesus, try to attack God. So in verse 27, what the Psalm said long ages before has now taken place.

In verse 28, God’s ‘power’ (NIV) is His ‘hand’ (as in RSV). We do not want to miss this. In verse 30, God’s hand does something very different! What we should learn is that wicked men do all that they can to fight against God. Even then they only do God’s will! The word ‘ Predestined’ which we find in some bibles is ‘proorizo’ (Greek). This means to fix a limit in advance or beforehand. Although God let men do so much violence to His dear Son, there was a limit to it.

Jesus, of course, is not only the Messiah here. He is God’s anointed one. He is also holy. He is God’s servant. He really is able to do the work which God wants to be done. This is the great work of saving lost sinners.

In verse 29, the people who pray begin to ask God to do something. First they ask God to take notice of the threats which the Jewish leaders made. Then they ask God to give them His help to speak in His name without fear. (Verse 30) After that, they ask that ‘God’s hand’ will work. The Old Testament sometimes speaks about God’s hand. See Psalm 31:5; 31:15; Isaiah 49:16 and 65:2 for example. Again they call Jesus ‘your holy servant’. They ask for more miracles of healing. They ask for ‘signs’ which will point to the Good News. A ‘wonder’ is ‘something strange’. They want people to know that all this is to do with Jesus. They want it to happen ‘through His name’. They do not want any honour for themselves.

In verse 31, God answers their prayers. What happened was a little different from what had happened at Pentecost. See Acts 2:2. Now, the coming of the Holy Spirit shook the place where they met. This sometimes happens when the Holy Spirit comes. God filled them all with His Spirit. As they had asked in verse 29, they spoke God’s word boldly.

Verses 32-37 The life of the Jerusalem church

These verses do not give answers to some of the questions which we would ask. We might want to know how many people there were in the church. We might ask where they met. See 5:12. We would want to know how big the collections were. These questions are not so important. The important questions about any church are the questions to which we have answers here.

So in verse 32, we learn that the Christians were united. It was not that they all used the same prayers or words in worship. They had the same feelings, the same wishes, the same thoughts. They were one in ‘heart and mind’.

Second, they shared the things that they had. They also shared their money. Now verse 33 goes on to speak about other things. Then we come back in verses 34 and 35 to the question of money and goods. Perhaps Luke means that just because the poor were cared for, there was power in preaching. Verses 36 and 37 tell us the right way. In Chapter 5, verses 1-11 tell us about the wrong way. [4.5]

We have the teaching of Jesus about giving in verses like Matthew 6:1-4. We also have Luke 21:1-4 and Acts 20:35. We may add 1 John 2:15. In the Old Testament we have Proverbs 30:8 and 9. There is plenty of teaching about money by the apostle Paul. See 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 and 9:6-15. See also 1 Timothy 6:6-10 and 17-19, and Hebrews 13:5.

In verse 33, the apostles make their witness that Jesus rose from the dead. The main enemies of the church at this time were the Sadducees. They were the Jewish group who did not believe that anyone would rise from the dead.

‘Great grace was upon them all’, that is, the Christians. This could mean ‘the grace of God’. It could just mean ‘the favour of the people’, but this is not so likely.

The people gave money to the church. Then the church gave it to people who were in need. We may not want other people in the church to know that we are really poor and ‘in need’. We may be too proud. This may be quite wrong. We think that the money was ‘put at the apostles feet’ to show that it was not just given.

Luke brings Joseph or Barnabas, (verses 36 and 37) into the story here. He will play quite a large part in the story of Acts from now on. He sold a piece of land which may have been a farm or a place for burials. Barnabas came from Cyprus where many Jews lived.

Some Christians are rich; they give what they have to God’s service. They become poor, but God honours them and cares for them. A few Christians are poor but become rich. They know how to give to God’s work. What matters is not how much we give. It is whether we give with joy and love. If we give a little money like that, God will use it. See Revelation 2:8 and 9. On the other hand, many rich churches become dead and have no life. See Revelation 3:17 and 18.
 
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