By Richard Vinson
In the first part of this chapter, the disciples must stand before the Temple authorities — the same group that handed Jesus over to Pilate — and defend themselves for healing in Jesus’ name. The authorities threaten the disciples and warn them never to mention Jesus again, and the disciples openly state that they plan to disobey the command. Then they gather to pray that God will help them make this real.
Did you ever learn ACTS as a way to remind yourself how to pray? Adoration (or praise), confession, thanksgiving, supplication (or any request) — not a bad outline, that. In the prayer of the early church in Acts 4:23-31, one might have expected that they would pray for God to confound their enemies or to deliver them from the oppression that was only beginning. In fact, they don’t ask God to do anything but notice the threats made against them, and then move on to ask God to make them bold: “Allow us to speak your word with all boldness.”
That isn’t usually high on my list of requests. I ask for God to make me more patient and to help me understand things better, but not to help me keep sticking my head in the lion’s mouth. I don’t usually pray for God to shake up my world; or, rather, I don’t pay attention when I repeat that phrase in the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come.”
If God’s reign arrived, everything would change. The whole world would look more like the community described in Acts 4:32-35, where nobody owns anything, nobody goes without, and nobody is untouched by the power of Christ’s resurrection.
Sometimes when I read descriptions like that, or the “swords into plowshares” passages from the prophets, my heart aches for how long humanity has longed for that New Age, and yet how far we still are from it. The distance between God’s plan and our reality is why we should pray to be shaken up, and pray for the boldness to speak out against all oppression.
- When the believers appear before the council, they take the man they healed with them — great strategy! What would your church put forward as the proof that what you do is beneficial to society at large?
- When you read 4:32-35, how does it make you feel? On a scale from “it’s hopelessly idealistic” to “we should live like this,” how do you rate the passage?
- What other details do you notice in today’s reading?
Prayer: Lord, to do your work more boldly. Inspire us to expect your kingdom, and to live now, as much as we are able, as we will live when your kingdom comes fully. Amen.
