UNIFORM LESSON FOR SEPTEMBER 6, 2015
Scripture passage and lesson focus: Acts 4:23-31
Luke, the Gospel writer and the author of the Acts of the Apostles, emphasizes the powerful role of the Holy Spirit in the beginning of the early church. The first followers of the resurrected Jesus, emboldened by their Pentecost experience of the Holy Spirit, spoke out powerfully to their fellow Jews about Messiah Jesus. They also performed miracles that attracted many new believers in Jesus.
Our passage for today describes what happened after Peter and John had been put in prison by the religious authorities for preaching about Jesus. Luke points out that Peter and John were considered to be uneducated and ordinary men, but they impressed their hearers with their bold preaching. The frustrated authorities ordered Peter and John to quit talking about Jesus. They refused to do so.
Acts 4:23-26 — Believers respond with prayer
After the religious authorities dismissed them, Peter and John rejoined their fellow believers. The Greek text literally says they went to “their own,” which is best understood to refer to a gathering of some of their fellow believers. The immediate reaction of the new followers of Jesus to this report is a spontaneous and heartfelt prayer. (The NRSV translation “they raised their voices together” fails to capture the powerful and immediate prayerful response to the report of Peter and John.) In his commentary about this passage, the reformer John Calvin — who had his own difficulties with civil authorities — says this about the believers: “Through prayer to God they seek after a constancy that will not be overthrown.”
Like a capable Hellenistic historian, Luke shapes the words of the believers’ prayer as if he had been present at the events he is recording. He uses terms taken from the Septuagint, (a Greek translation of the Old Testament) with which he was very familiar. Echoes of Nehemiah 9:6, Psalm 146:6 and Isaiah 37:16, in which God is addressed as the creator of all, can be heard in Luke’s account.
Luke quotes the Septuagint in a grammatically very difficult sentence describing God’s servant David as the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking prophetically in Psalm 2:1-2. This is much like Luke 1:16-20, where the Holy Spirit also speaks through a Psalm attributed to David.
Acts 4:27-28 — Jesus died according to God’s plan
Luke skillfully links the words of Psalm 2:1-2 with the opposition Jesus faced in Jerusalem from both Roman and Jewish officials. He connects “the kings of the earth” and “the rulers” of Psalm 2 with the roles Herod and Pilate had in the death of Jesus. Both gentiles and Jews opposed Jesus and threatened the early church. By linking Psalm 2 with both the death of Jesus and the opposition experienced by the early church, Luke is able to explain both events as parts of God’s plan. Luke the historian sees God’s hand in the development of the early church. Such an application of an ancient text to current events in Jerusalem is reminiscent of how Scripture was interpreted in the Jewish sectarian community at Qumran and in the early church.
Luke emphasizes the sovereign role of God in history and underscores Jesus’ identity as God’s servant and the Messiah. God’s will foreordained the momentous events in Jerusalem.
Acts 4:29-31 — Emboldened by the Holy Spirit
In what may have been be one of the most immediate answers to prayer, when the believers asked for the power to speak with boldness they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke God’s message boldly. God’s power manifest in the healings and signs and wonders performed in the name of Jesus emboldened the first believers. In what must have felt like a repetition of the first Pentecost experience, the believers experienced a sudden shaking of the room where they were gathered. Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, they could speak out powerfully about God’s message, the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.
For discussion
Can you describe a time when a group you were in felt suddenly moved to prayer? Luke tells us that the events he recorded were preordained by God’s plan. Does this mean that God has preordained everything that happens? Are people responsible for things God has preordained? What does boldness mean in this passage? Have you witnessed any examples of Christians speaking God’s word with boldness? Do you think actions can be a way of speaking God’s message with boldness?
