I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 4-6

There are two lessons from today’s passage that I want to touch on today (well, perhaps part of my thoughts on the first one represent a third lesson).  When Peter and John were arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin was concerned about the fact that they were spreading “misinformation”.  So, they ordered Peter and John to stop preaching in Jesus’ name.  Then, when they continued to preach in Jesus’ name and even went so far as to tell the Sanhedrin that they would not stop doing so, the Sanhedrin wanted to kill them.  However, they did not because Gamaliel gave them a piece of advice to which we would do well to listen.  Gamaliel essentially told them that if there was no truth to what the apostles were preaching, they would soon fade away and become irrelevant.  On the other hand, if the apostles were preaching the truth attempting to silence them would only put them into conflict with God.  Combining what Gamaliel says here with what Jesus said about truth (“You will know the truth and the truth shall make your free”) tells us how to respond to misinformation: speak the truth and allow people to determine for themselves whether they wish to believe the truth or a lie.

Which brings us to the response of the believers to the threat of persecution for speaking the truth about Jesus; they prayed.  But they did not pray for protection.  They prayed for courage to continue speaking the truth in the face of opposition.  Actually, they prayed for two things, courage and miraculous signs.  This prayer fits in with the response which Peter gave the Sanhedrin, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” There is nothing wrong with praying for protection from persecution, but our first thoughts should be to pray for courage and for expressions of God’s power to reveal the truth of what we preach.

In between Luke’s two accounts of confrontations with the Sanhedrin he tells about how the Believers took care of each other.  First, we have Luke tell us that the Believers shared everything  they had so that there were no needy people among them.  This sounds like communism: those who had wealth gave of it to the apostles to give to those in need.  However, we have what Peter told Ananias. “The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours…”  So, what can we learn from this?  Those of us who have great possessions should give as God guides us to help those in need.  But it is up to each of us to decide how much of what we have we should give.  Barnabas was blessed and honored because he sold his property and gave the proceeds to care for the needy.  Ananias was not condemned because he did not give all of the proceeds from selling his property.  He was condemned for lying about it.  Ananias wanted the honor of caring which Barnabas got without the sacrifice.  This also fits in with Peter’s answer to the Sanhedrin.  It is not up to human authority to determine how we obey God.