Acts #8 - By What Power?

Acts 4:1-22 (NIV)
Read by: Chandra Crane

Have you ever been preparing for a trip and reading all the guidebooks or websites to learn about the place you’re going? Then, you get there, and, while some of the information is helpful, you really figure out the place by just experiencing it. In today’s passage Peter and John defend themselves before the Jewish religious leaders after the healing of the lame man outside the temple gate. And although Peter and John were “unschooled, ordinary men,” the religious leaders could see that they “had been with Jesus.” They carried around with them the authority that Jesus had carried. They were acting with Jesus’ power, doing things that the temple priests could not do… It seemed that their efforts to squash this Jesus movement by crucifying its leader had utterly failed. The power they were so afraid of, the “King of the Jews” whose authority had so threatened their own and everything they stood for was still at work. They had read all the right books, taken all the right classes, but their knowledge, it seemed, wasn’t enough. Their fear of losing power had blinded them to experiencing the good news of the Messiah.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What words or phrases stood out to you in the passage?

2. Have you ever seen a situation where someone in authority is blind to a better way because it would mean a loss of power for them? What was that like?

3. The source of the power Peter and John were wielding was that of the risen Christ, his Holy Spirit working in and through them to do the work of bringing tastes of New Creation into the broken world. And everyone could tell that they had been with Jesus. What about your life would make it clear to those around you that you have been with Jesus?

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Bible Project: Acts 1-12 Overview >>

InterVarsity Press Selections: Acts >>

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