Worth Repeating - June 26, 2017

Acts 4: 13 . . . and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Biblical wisdom is not associated with great learning or with anything particularly intellectual or scholarly.*

In this story, the observers were impressed with Peter and John’s courage as they noted that they were Jesus’ followers. How did they know? Perhaps they had seen them with Jesus, or knew them by reputation, or maybe the evidence pointed to no other explanation. Peter and John were not educated men – you don’t need a college degree to be a fisherman. They weren’t rich or famous, so what did they have to be confident about? They weren’t soldiers so why were they so brave? 

Their actions were a positive reflection on the Lord. As someone has observed: “Of the proofs for the resurrection of Jesus, one of the most compelling is simply to compare [the] cowering disciples as portrayed [in the Gospels] . . . with the bold, confident figures in the book of Acts.”* If they hadn’t changed, would the book of Acts have been called, “The Disappearing Acts of the Apostles”? Or “The Sometimes Brave, Sometimes Foolish Acts of the Apostles”? 

What about us? Have we ever left a bad impression on someone who knew that we were Christians? Or do we leave others knowing that they have been in the presence of Jesus because they have been with us?

If our society is indifferent to us, could it be because we have become indistinguishable from the world?*