Faith Wide Open

The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest.  “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”  Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! - Acts 5:27-29

I find some interesting things in this text.  The first and foremost the inspirational courage and spirit of Peter and the apostles with him who would stand before this council and have no hesitation about declaring their actions or their intentions with absolutely no fear of them as men.  They had just watched this same group conspire and rig the system so that Jesus would be tortured and crucified, yet they are unfazed, full of the Holy Spirit and empowered to do God's will.

The next thing I find interesting is what the council says.  They say "you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching".  This confirms that the apostles were doing exactly what Jesus told them to do, "Go and make disciples."  I believe that when we have a clear direction from God we have an inspired purpose.  And when we have an inspired purpose we are confident and able to be more dependent upon God for the resources.

They also said to the apostles that they were "determined to make us guilty of this man's blood."  They are obviously talking about the blood of Jesus who they had crucified.  Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I read into this that they are very uneasy about the whole event.  Their conscience is not clear and they are struggling to settle into their role of what was done.  So, they've commanded these followers of Jesus to not speak of it hoping it will go away, but they are continually confronted with growing crowds of believers and with a new faith that does away with them.  So they are guilty and threatened.  Then to make matters worse, they flog these apostles and send them out and the apostles celebrate that they have been considered worthy by God to suffer in the name of Jesus and they proclaim His name and teach with even more authority! 

This is inspirational to me and very convicting.  I long for the day and time when the Holy Spirit might rule so well over me; when I might see all the world as just a field for planting God's truth; when I might have so little regard for my own well-being that I would be able to celebrate suffering for Jesus' sake.  Even last night in a meeting to discuss the homeless in our community I had radical ideas, but refused to put them out to the group believing that the group assembled just couldn't handle them.  I would do well to just live "wide open" spiritually and let people thing what they want to think, as these apostles lived.