Context No. 900 of 4322 · Acts
Context · Reflection
Acts 4:1-7: in context
1As they spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them, 2being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening. 4But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. 5In the morning, their rulers, elders, and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem. 6Annas the high priest was there, with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and as many as were relatives of the high priest. 7When they had stood Peter and John in the middle of them, they inquired, “By what power, or in what name, have you done this?”
Peter and John have just healed a lame man and preached the resurrection at the temple, and the authorities have had enough. The priests, the temple captain, and the Sadducees, annoyed that they are teaching the people and proclaiming resurrection in Jesus, arrest them and hold them overnight. But the word has already done its work: about five thousand men come to believe. The next morning the rulers, elders, and high-priestly family assemble, stand the two fishermen in the middle, and demand: by what power, or in what name, did you do this?
The question they ask is the right one, even from the wrong motive. By what power, in what name. The whole book of Acts is an answer to that question, and the answer is always the same name they are trying to suppress. Notice what happens even under arrest. The apostles are in custody, the machinery of the temple establishment is arrayed against them, and meanwhile the number of believers jumps to five thousand. The authorities can jail the preachers, but they cannot jail the word; it keeps spreading while the men who spoke it sit in a cell. And these are ordinary men, uneducated fishermen, standing in a ring of the credentialed religious authority of the nation and being asked to account for themselves. The council has the robes and the votes; the two prisoners have only the name of Jesus and the risen Lord behind it. That turns out to be enough.
If I were stood in the middle and asked by what name I live and act, would the honest answer be Jesus, or something I would rather not say out loud?