A Commentary in Simple English on The Acts of the Apostles

a) We talk about buildings where Christian people meet for worship as ‘churches’. There are places in Scripture which may speak about Christian meeting places. [5.4] The Jerusalem church met in the Temple courts. (Acts 2:46 and 5:12). Paul used a lecture hall in Ephesus (Acts 19:9). In Acts 20:7-12, the Christians had a building. At the port of Troas they met in a warehouse or ‘godown’. Any building which they could use would do. They did not need special buildings.
b) We talk about ‘the Church of England’ or ‘the Church of Rome’. We talk about the ‘Methodist Church’ or the ‘Presbyterian Church’. The New Testament does not use the word church like that. The church was not divided. There was no need for such labels.

In the New Testament, the word ‘church’ is used in two ways.

a) It may mean all real Christians, wherever they are in the world. See for example, Matthew 16:18; 1 Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 5:23-32 and Colossians 1:18-24. In this sense, the Kingdom of God (or of heaven) in this world means much the same as ‘the church of Christ’.

b) On the other hand, the word ‘church’ may mean a group of Christians who meet in one place for worship. They agree in love to do the will of God. They shut out anyone who shames the name of God by sin. They meet at the Lord’s Table and for worship. They should have a group of elders to lead them. In the Book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3 are made up of messages to seven such local churches. There are New Testament letters to local churches in Corinth, Philippi, Colosse and Thessalonica. See also, for example, Matthew 18:17; Acts 20:28 and 1 Corinthians 5:12. The head of each local church is Christ. It may seem to us that things are wrong in another church not far from us. We do not have the right to try to sort them out. They may, of course, ask for our help and we should be glad to give help.

Verses 12-16: Another picture of the Church in Jerusalem

Luke has already given us pictures of church life. The last one was in 4:32-37. This one is not the same. So far we have had pictures of life in the church. Now we have a picture of the church in the city and the country around.

In the first part of the chapter, we read about the death of Ananias and Sapphira. That was just one sign of God’s judgment. (Verse 12) There were many ‘signs and wonders ‘ of grace and healing. It seems that Jewish doctors at this time were not very good. See Mark 5:26. So many people needed healing work. These signs and wonders would help some people who had not yet believed the Good News. They would also make the faith of believers stronger.

The believers met for worship and for other purposes in the Temple Courts. Luke may mean (verse 13) that for a time the church did not grow. It became clear who were Christians and who were not. There were some people who were enemies of the Christians. There were other people who honoured the Christians, but who did not join them. [5.5] In verse 14, the church grows again. Verse 15 is rather like 19:11 and 12. We should be very careful about these things. They are very close to wrong ideas of ‘magic’. (Verse 16) We can see that the Jerusalem church has a ministry to people who do not yet believe the Good News.

Now we read at the end of verse 16 that all the sick people and the people who were troubled by unclean spirits were healed. A healthy church can bring health to people in need. Yet we need to be careful. There are Christians in the New Testament who were not healed. See 2 Timothy 4:20 and 1 Timothy 5:23. God is free. He is our Lord. There are times when He has something better than healing for us. See 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.

Verses 17-42: Prison again

The Jewish leaders did not like what they knew about the church. They needed the honour which the Jewish people gave instead to the church. We had the names of some of these Jewish leaders in 4:6. Luke does not say anything this time about ‘the teachers of the law’. They would belong to the Pharisee party. It is the Sadducee party which acts now. They ‘boiled up’ with jealousy. They ‘got steamed up’. (Verse 17). This time, it seems, it is not just Peter and John who are put in prison for the night (verse 18). It may be all the apostles.

The picture of people in prison who are set free is often found in the Old Testament. Think about Joseph in Genesis 27:8 and 41:143. In the Psalms, see Psalm 68:6; Psalm 102:19 and 20; Psalm 107:10-16 and Psalm 146:7. Isaiah 42:7 is most important. See also Isaiah 61:1. In Luke 7:18-23, John the Baptist is in prison. He knows and believes that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Yet he wants to be quite sure. So he sends two of his followers to Jesus. They see the work that Jesus does. He sends them back (verse 22) with a message. They are to tell John about the work that Jesus does. But Jesus leaves out what Isaiah says about the opening of the prison. So sadly John knows that God will not set him free from prison.

This is rather like healing. God can heal. He does not always heal the sick. God can set the prisoners free. He does not always do it. We shall find some places in Acts where God sets prisoners free. In other places, Christian prisoners die. See Acts 12:1 and 2. See too Hebrews 10:34, 11:36 and 13:3. God is free. He does not promise that He will always free His people from prison.

This time He did set the prisoners free (verse 19). One angel was enough. God has great numbers of angels who all wait to do His will. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 26:53. God sends angels with His messages. We shall often meet them in Acts. But God’s people have to do the ‘acts’. So here. The angel opens the prison and brings them out. The doors are still locked. The guard is on duty. We would want to go and hide so that we would not be put back in prison. (Verse 20). The angel tells the apostles what to do. They are not to hide but to preach again. [5.6] They are not to leave out the bits of the Good News which would upset the Sadducees. The angel tells them ‘to speak all the words of this life’. And they are not told to find some quiet corner where no one will notice them. They have to go back to the Temple.

So (verse 21) the Apostles get up early and go to the Temple. There they start to teach the Good News. It seems that the High Priest was up early that day too. He and his friends called a full meeting of the Jewish Council. This was the Sanhedrin. It was not made up only of Sadducees. Other groups like the Pharisees were there too. So this is different from verse 17.

The Sanhedrin sent someone to the prison. The temple police or ‘underlings’ [5.7] did not find the apostles in the prison. It was empty. (Verse 22) They could not explain what had happened. (Verse 24) Nor could the chief priests or the leader of the temple police. The high priest would blame him because the prisoners had escaped.

Then someone came with the news to the Sanhedrin (verse 25). The apostles were in the Temple. As the angel had told them, they taught the people there. So (verse 26) the boss of the temple police does not leave the job to his ‘underlings’. He goes along himself this time. They did not use force, and the apostles did not make trouble. They went with them quietly to the Sanhedrin. (Verse 27).

We should remember that there was still building work at the Temple. There would be plenty of stones around. If the people had become angry, they might have stoned the ‘police’.

The high priest was right. (Verse 28). He had told the apostles not to preach the Good News. See 4:18. Yet the apostles said then that they must obey God, not men. They must preach the Good News. Then the high priest will not name Jesus. He talks about ‘this name’. He calls Jesus ‘this man’. We should remember Matthew 27:25. It is not the apostles but the Jewish people who ask for punishment.

The high priest did not want the apostles to tell him how they escaped from prison. He does not believe in angels anyway!

If the high priest did believe the Good News, then the blood of Jesus would cleanse him from sin. God would forgive his guilt. He does not believe. So it is not the apostles who bring guilt on the Jews. It is the Jewish leaders themselves. They are rightly afraid that God will punish them for the death of Jesus.

So we have the main points of the reply that the apostles gave in verses 29-32

1. We must know the will of God and do it. It is not always easy. We have to make hard choices very often. It is not only the laws which men make which go against God’s will. Often people say: ‘ We have always done it that way’. People do not need to say anything to us.. We know what they expect us to do. Christians often have to be different. (verse 29).

2. The apostles speak about ‘the God of our fathers’. They want the Jewish leaders to know that they have not made up a new ‘god’. They worship and serve the same God. ‘The fathers’ means mostly Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The faith of the Jews is far older than the Law of Moses.

3. As in 3:26, the apostles say that God ‘raised up’ Jesus. This comes before His death here. So it does not mean that He rose from the dead. God raised up Jesus as a teacher. God raised him up as a leader for the Jews to follow. He raised him up as the promised Messiah.

4. The Jewish leaders had killed Jesus not long before this. The apostles speak about the cross on which Jesus died as ‘a tree’. See Deuteronomy 21:22 and 23 and Galatians 3:13. Christ was God’s blessed Son. He died on the cross, so that He went from being a blessing to being ‘a curse’ for us. Now we were under the curse of sin and the law. We can pass from being a curse to enjoying God’s blessing. Jesus has taken the curse of sin away from us for ever. [5.8]

5. (Verse 31) This was not all. God has not only raised Jesus from the dead. God has lifted Jesus up, or ‘exalted Him’. Once Jesus had been lifted up on the cross. Now God has lifted Him up to glory.

6. ‘God’s right’ is the place of honour. It is the place of power and authority. That is where Jesus is now.

7. Jesus is the first of God’s people. He is their great leader. The word ‘prince’ here might make us think of someone who is not yet king. This is not what Peter means here. Jesus is also the One who saves the lost.

8. Christ is in the place of power. Yet His work is a work of grace. It is to give. Salvation is all of grace. He gives grace so that we may ‘change our minds’, that is repent. We do not have to earn salvation or God’s favour. We do not have to pay anything to have our sins forgiven. Christ has paid the whole price.

9. God’s grace is first for Israel. Later it will spread to all the nations. But Peter and the apostles want the Jewish leaders to hear this. Their great sin need be no bar to God’s grace.

10. In verse 32, Peter says first that the apostles know these things are true. They have seen what God has done. They are ‘witnesses’.

11. God’s Holy Spirit is another and even greater ‘witness’ to the truth of the Good News.

12. Here is yet more grace. God has given His Spirit to those who do His will.

In verse 33, Luke finds a word to tell us how very angry the Jewish leaders were. He says that it was a though someone had cut them through with a saw. We shall find the same word in 7:34. The Good News is a message of peace. But it made these men so angry that they wanted to kill the apostles.

The Sadducees could not do just what they liked. So (verse 34) Gamaliel, a Pharisee, speaks. [5.9] He has the apostles sent out of the meeting. The Jewish leaders were not united, and they did not want the apostles to know this.

This is one way in which God helps His people. The enemies of the truth often do not agree with each other. God can turn them against one another. This is what Luke 2:51 means. It says that God has scattered the proud in their inmost thoughts. Like the apostles, we may have to face the enemies of the church. We can pray that God will stop their bad work in His own way. God’s way may not be our way.

Gamaliel speaks (verse 35) with doubt. This is because he thinks only of doing nothing. [5.10] (Verse 36) Theudas was a common name and there were many troubles in those days. The Jewish writer Josephus tells us about an uprising led by another Theudas. This was not before AD.44 so it was some years after this chapter. (Verse 37) Judas the Galilean dates to a ‘census’ in AD.6. This is a later ‘census’ than the one which Luke writes about in Luke 2:1-20. [5.11] What Gamaliel says is really that the Romans killed these leaders. Their followers then failed. The same may be expected with the Christians. Jesus was killed. So the Jewish leaders may expect his followers to come to nothing. Gamaliel thinks only about a dead Christ. He does not think about Christ who rose and who is now in glory. He may think also: ‘Leave it to the Romans. Let them finish the Christians off’.

So in verses 38 and 39, Gamaliel gives his advice to the Sanhedrin. He was a wise man. Yet in one way, what he said here was not wise. No doubt it was God Who let him to speak as he did. What he said stopped the Jews from more violence and cruelty against the apostles. In this way the apostles’ work could go on. The Good News spread. Yet this idea is not right. Many evil men gain power. What is wrong does not always fail. There are bad men who have great numbers of followers. There is more truth in what Gamaliel says in verse 39. We may be quite sure that God will triumph at last.

Gamaliel ought to have said: ‘ We already know enough about Jesus and His followers. We know whether they are right or wrong’. If the work was from God, they all had a duty to join in. Further, if a teaching is wrong, we have a duty to warn people against it and to argue against it. It is wrong just to allow it to spread until God causes it to fail.

(Verse 40) So the Sanhedrin agreed with Gamaliel. To them it seemed important to agree with each other. They did not want the truth of the Good News to divide them. They called in the apostles. They had them beaten or flogged, or ‘flayed’. This most likely meant that each of them was hit thirty nine times. See Deuteronomy 25: 2 and 3 and 2 Corinthians 11:24. They told them once again not to speak about Jesus and set them free.

So (verse 41) the apostles left the Sanhedrin . ‘The name’ here of course is the name of Jesus. They had suffered badly, but they were full of joy. The Jewish leaders had put them to shame. The apostles felt that this was an honour for Christ’s sake. They would remember the words which Jesus had spoken. See Matthew 5:10 and 11. Peter years after would write 1 Peter 4:12-16. [5.12]

One man did not take the advice of Gamaliel. This was Paul, who was then known as Saul. See Acts 8:3 and 22:3. We do not know that any of the Sanhedrin felt any joy at what they had done that day. (Verse 42) It was the apostles who felt joy. Of course, ‘they never stopped teaching’ means that they went on. They knew more than ever the danger that they faced. In the temple courts and in people’s homes, they taught about Jesus.. For the first time in Acts, the word ‘preaching’ or ‘proclaiming the Good News’ has its full meaning. The Good News was that Jesus, who had taught the Jews and healed the sick was the Messiah. God had long ago promised to send the ‘Christ’ and God had kept His word. [5.13]

The apostles preached one great truth: ‘the Christ, Jesus’. He is so full of truth that we do not need to preach anything else.