Experience - Day 24

13 The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing right there among them, there was nothing the council could say. 15 So they ordered Peter and John out of the council chamber and conferred among themselves.
16 “What should we do with these men?” they asked each other. “We can’t deny that they have performed a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it. 17 But to keep them from spreading their propaganda any further, we must warn them not to speak to anyone in Jesus’ name again.” 18 So they called the apostles back in and commanded them never again to speak or teach in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? 20 We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.”
21 The council then threatened them further, but they finally let them go because they didn’t know how to punish them without starting a riot. For everyone was praising God for this miraculous sign—the healing of a man who had been lame for more than forty years.“

There are several lines I love in today’s passage.

First, I love the line that they noticed that boldness of Peter and John and were surprised by it, because they recognize that Peter and John were “ordinary men with no special training.”

The word in the Greek for the above phrase is, I kid you not, idiotes, from where we get the word, idiots.  Yep, the religious leaders recognize that these men were, idiots.

Though that idea makes me chuckle, from their perspective, Peter and John were fishermen, not men schooled in the way of the prophets.  They had flunked out of the Hebrew schools, and had gone into the trade of their fathers and families.  Whereas those sitting in the Sanhedrin, the religious rulers, had all had teachers, they were all the best of the best, the ivy league graduates of the Hebrew tradition.  And yet, these ivy league teachers were being “schooled” by idiots!  How was this possible?

Well, the only thing they could figure that made them different was that these men, “had been with Jesus.”  And we know this not just from the stories, but being “with Jesus” is exactly what Jesus appointed them to do, “And he (Jesus) appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him…” (Mark 3:14, ESV)

Spending time at the feet of Jesus, learning from His life, His teachings, His interactions with others, is exactly what sets us apart from others.  When we spend that time, we should be growing in the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Galatians 5: 22).

And as much as the leaders wanted to rid themselves of Peter and John, and ultimately the nuisance of Jesus and his teachings, they couldn’t deny the healed beggar “standing” in front of them.  They struggled to know what to do.

As the story goes, the Sanhedrin orders the men to stop teaching in the name of Jesus, to which Peter and John reply, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him?” Ouch!  That one had to hurt because the Sanhedrin would have seen themselves as the arbiters of what God does or doesn’t want.  I’m sure these men felt as if they were losing control, and that scared them to death.  As the story unfolds, they are willing to do anything to hold onto that control, even if it means killing more people.

But just like Peter and John said that no matter what happens to them, they can’t stop telling about everything they have seen and heard, I pray that we too could live with that same conviction.  I pray that our eyes are open to the things that we have seen and heard that have no other explanation but that Jesus was involved, and that no matter what happens to us, we can’t stop telling others about what we have seen and heard along our own faith journeys.  

JOURNAL

1. When you think of people in your life that you feel pretty confident that they have “been with Jesus” what are the qualities they exude?  What is different about them?
2. What are some of the ways you most enjoying “being with Jesus”?  What ways are harder for you, stretch you?
3. What have you seen and heard that is hard to deny was supernatural, or of Jesus, His Spirit, and our God?