A Stumbling Block Overcome
Acts 4
As I sit here contemplating what I have read in Acts 4, I have so many thoughts going through my mind.
There are thoughts about how Peter had been at a trial orchestrated by the very people who were now interrogating him before. At that trial, Jesus was beaten and condemned while Peter stood outside and denied that he had anything to do with Jesus.
Now, Peter was arrested and inside, boldly proclaiming the name of Jesus as the only one by which a person can be saved. I pause here to wonder if anyone who had heard his denial was present or if the guard who had lost his ear in the garden was there.
And then, I ponder how Jesus had promised his disciples that they would be given, by the Holy Spirit, what to say when they stood before authorities. I wonder how Peter felt at that moment? Did he marvel at his own boldness?
I think about how Peter demonstrated a longing to be bold in several instances when Jesus was on earth and with him, but how on more than one occasion, fear crept in and won the day. (I’m thinking about the denial, yes, but I’m also thinking about how Peter walked on water until fear showed up.) But with the power of the Holy Spirit, boldness was an achievable goal for Peter. The disciples even pray for more boldness after the trial is over.
And then my mind turned to a bit of confusion.
Do you remember way back when I was studying Luke and I shared a journal entry called All It Takes is a Mustard Seed? In that journal entry I talked about Jesus’ warnings about stumbling blocks.
Well, the prayer by the disciples here in Acts 4 contained a couple of stumbling blocks for me. It’s not because of them. It’s because of how some theologians define words and characterize God. And I had to take those words to God and ask for Him to help me understand the truth of their meaning.
Here’s the disciple’s prayer:
When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.’Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4: 24-30 NIV)
I’ve underlined the words and phrases that, for lack of a better term, triggered me as I read. You see, and I hate to admit this, but until a few years ago, I didn’t realize that some Christian camps define words differently than I did, and that the theology of some teachers I had listened to over the years used those words in a way I would have never suspected because their definition of them was NOT what I had always understood it to be. I felt shocked, as well as stupid and duped, when I discovered the truth, and it has left me with a wariness of all Bible teachers to be honest. My natural bent to question things and be somewhat skeptical has been turned up past high.
It’s not all bad, however. This new wariness has led me to search the scriptures more and rely on the Holy Spirit to guide me more than I ever did in the past. However, a place where I thought it was safe to be trusting has been stolen from me and that part of the whole thing is saddening.
And, now, as I read scripture, I question if how I understand it is right or not. Am I reading what is true or is the truth being obscured by things I was taught that weren’t (aren’t) right?
That’s where I was with this passage.
So, I prayed something very much like this:
“God, that word Sovereign. It doesn’t mean that you control every little detail to the point of authoring sin, right? It seems like that’s what you’ve told me before when I have asked this question. But I don’t want to get you wrong, God, and when I combine that meaning of sovereign with the stuff about Your will determining what happens in that other verse, it kind of makes me wonder again about what is true about You. Help me understand this. Help me to know who You are.”
And He answered with a prompt to reread the chapter because the answer to my question was there.
So, I did.
And it is.
I even had a reference jotted on my page for a verse which had come to mind during my first reading which was part of the answer I was now looking for in this second reading. God knew even as I was first reading Acts 4 that I was about to stumble and would need to pause to get my footing. And that verse would help me do it.
Next to the verse that I’ve underlined above about the predetermined will of God being done, I have Genesis 3:15 written in the margin. That’s the verse where God tells the serpent that He would crush the serpent’s head while the serpent would only strike God’s heel. And that predetermined means of redemption is what this verse is talking about. The they in the verse are the people who crucified Christ. It’s specific to one thing here and not to every thought or action that occurs in the world.
And that word Sovereign? Well, that was just a name for God acknowledging His position as absolute ruler, as rightful King. It’s not about meticulously deterministic control. It’s about position.
It goes back to how Peter and John answered their accusers about listening to God above all and not being able to keep from talking about Jesus. It wasn’t because they were being forced by God or manipulated like puppets to do this.
This was them loving God with all their heart, mind, and strength and others as themselves. It was them feeling compelled by that love to CHOOSE to obey God rather than men. It was about resting in the goodness of God and being empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak with boldness as they CHOSE to fill their God-given place while allowing Him to take His proper place over their lives.
In my mind, I saw this image of God seated on His throne and the disciples stepping under that throne, as good citizens of God’s kingdom, to do what needed to be done. God made the place. He had the armor and power that they needed to fight this battle, but they had to choose to step into that place and accept His provisions.
And as I sighed in relief that the confusion was gone and thanked God for it, a verse in something I had read recently came to mind, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s from one of the books that Peter wrote. :) That verse says:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5 NIV)
That verse and the image I had been given joined Acts 4:12 and clicked on a new light in my mind when contemplating what it means to be “saved.”
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12 NIV)
Do you see the connection?
Think of humble as anavah, my word for the year, which means to fill your God-given place. Being humble means standing under God’s authority. It means allowing Him to have His proper place in our lives as the supreme ruler, the one with the final say.
This is what the religious rulers were not doing. They were proud. They were elevating themselves from where they should have been, and they had rejected Christ as their Messiah. They accused Jesus of performing miracles by power from evil sources. They called His claims to be God blasphemous and refused to acknowledge Him as the Son of God. They rose up against the anointed one and had Him killed. And God used their pride and rebellion to bring redemption and offer salvation to all.
And still. Even though Jesus had risen from the dead, they clung to their pride and positions of power. They conspired to continue to trample the name of Christ – the very name that could have saved their souls if they had humbled themselves.
So, as I conclude my time pondering Acts 4, I have moved from contemplating a story from long ago, to stumbling over faulty teaching that once again reared its ugly head, to not just having my footing re-established and secured in the here and now, but to standing at the edge of a glorious horizon where a fuller understanding of God and His goodness stretches out before me.
And as I got the verse graphic ready to include in this post — really, as I searched the scriptures I have cited in this journal entry to choose what verse should be on the graphic — the portion from the apostles’ prayer hit my heart in a new way.
You see, I didn’t actually want to share my stumbling journey in this journal entry. I didn’t want to touch on the subject of determinism so directly as I know it can be a contentious one and is one that makes me feel embarrassed that I didn’t realize what it meant before I did. However, as I pondered just writing about Peter’s boldness, I knew I needed to also be bold. I mean, I couldn’t just be a hearer and not a doer of the Word, right? So, I sucked it up and wrote about the thing that makes me feel stupid and duped.
And as I read that verse while searching for what to put on the graphic, I felt the Holy Spirit say, “This is why you needed to write this. Healing comes from boldness.” And that thought leads me to pray right along with the disciples: “stretch out your hand to heal.” May what I didn’t want to share become part of what You use, Lord, to bring healing from confusion to others.
