Take a moment to read Acts 4:1-22 before reading the devotional below.
Peter’s second sermon got him arrested. In the process, another 2,000 people came to faith in Jesus. Not bad when you’re being heckled by the impressive religious elites who have spent a whole lot more time studying the Bible than you have.
The Sadducees were a Jewish sect that did not believe in any type of resurrection from the dead. They held the first five books of the Bible as the exclusive Scripture (the Torah) and rejected anything that was not explicitly stated in those writings. That made the “Jesus was raised from the dead” message kind of hard to swallow, as well as complicating the use of prophetic descriptions of the Messiah (found in the other parts of the Old Testament) to support Jesus’ coming as a fulfillment of prophecy.
When making a theological argument, it really helps to be filled with the Holy Spirit and have a recently-performed miracle to back up your claims. Peter appealed to the leaders putting him on trial by essentially saying, “Don’t shoot the messenger! I’m just telling it like I see it. Exhibit A: man who is currently dancing over there who had previously never been able to walk.” Kind of hard to argue with that.
Even the religious leaders who wanted to silence Peter and John had to admit that the words coming from their mouths were clearly not from their own expertise. Peter and John didn’t look the part. They didn’t have it all together or all figured out. These were ordinary guys who had only barely stopped smelling like fish. The glory of the Holy Spirit is revealed when we reject an air of impressiveness. What would it look like for you to focus more on opportunity than on image? Step into the freedom of the unimportant and simply walk where the Spirit leads you today.