Acts 4:13–22

Characteristics of people in this event.

1. Peter and John, the kind of people they were to stand up to the authorities, and present the truth, regardless of the consequences.

2. The Leader’s response, the way people often respond when the evidence for truth mounts against them.

3. A bold response, how the disciples respond publicly to the unbelieving rulers of Jerusalem.

Peter and John

The rulers and elders and scribes were astounded at Peter and John. Verse 13 says they were amazed, boggled, stumped, astonished. They saw the real explanation. What didn’t fit together were Peter and John’s public boldness and their lack of education.

Peter and John were speaking with straight-forwardness, confidence, courage and clarity. They were doing this in the presence of people with power and esteem and scholarship, the rulers and the elders and the scribes. The leaders were stunned. These men spoke as though they had the authority on their side. What made this boldness so incredible was that Peter and John were not formally educated; and they didn’t have the refinement of skill that comes from courses in rhetoric.

The leaders remembered that this Jesus, whom they had tried to get rid of was just like that. John 7:15 says, “The Jews marveled at [the teaching of Jesus], saying, How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” It was just the same with Jesus as with Peter and John. They were all bold and straightforward and clear. And they had insight into the things of God, even though they had never had the rabbinic education the scribes had.The leaders said in verse 13 “They recognized that they had been with Jesus.” This is the way he was. They must have gotten it from him. A disciple, when he is taught, will be like his master (Luke 6:40).

The Rulers Response to Peter and John

Verses 16–17: “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is manifest to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.”

How would you describe the connection between what they say in verse 16 and what they say in verse 17? Verse 16: a great and undeniable sign of love and power has been done by these
courageous men in the name of Jesus. All Jerusalem knows this. Verse 17: Let’s threaten them with harm and try to keep them quiet about this Jesus.

Verse 16 states reasons to consider the truth of what Peter and John say.

Verse 17 describes the behavior of a people who are not interested in the truth, but only in the benefit that they get from falsehood.
It’s like people sitting in their house, seeing smoke coming from the basement door, and saying quick let’s close the door and have dinner. How foolish!

Just like today, people with covid are being helped by this treatment, it is cheap, proven and will help, quick let’s ban it from the world. We are just as foolish as the religious leaders were to Peter and John.

When people are getting some benefit from a wrong, they turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the mounting evidence that they should change.

Peter and John’s Response to the Threat

Verse 19 Peter and John respond to this blind threat. “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

This must have been a shock and surprise to the rulers from Peter and John.

Their response assumes something that the rulers refuse to assume. Peter assumes that he has to choose between listening to God and listening to the rulers. This assumes that the rulers are not speaking on God’s side.

Peter doesn’t express any apology for this assumption at all. He just says it with a kind of disarming simplicity he speaks as if they must operate on his assumption:

The issue is still the main issue for today, will we listen to someone other than God, whether they are religious leaders or someone else, who does not line up with what God’s Word says.

Peter said, Now you judge for yourselves what we should do. Go ahead tell us: God or you! It’s a question they could not answer without admitting they were not on God’s side.

The basis for Peter’s response is the utter assurance that Peter has that Jesus is alive, that he is Lord of the universe, that he healed the man, and that obeying him comes before obeying any human ruler.

Peter and John know, because they have seen and heard. They have an experience of the living Jesus that has made them utterly unstoppable. So they do not suggest that maybe the rulers
speak a little for God, and maybe the apostles do. No. The rulers are anti-God in telling them to be quiet about Jesus. And the apostles are in touch with the living God through knowing Jesus.

Three Lessons For Any Believer

1. Be Bold and Clear in what you say.

In order to be bold, forthright and clear in what you say for Christ in public, you do not need to be formally educated or unusually skilled. What you need is real fellowship with Jesus, real experience with Jesus, the kind of experience that enables you to say: “I cannot but speak what I have seen and heard.”

Education is not a factor

One thing you must remember, as one who has followed the educational route far in my field and also reading what the most educated write.

There is nothing in advanced education that makes a person a courageous and clear spokesman for the truth.

I believe some of our brightest young people should make scholarship a career for the glory of God. They can help us who are not as gifted to better understand God’s Word.

Remember, there is no positive correlation between advanced education and courageous clarity. I know plenty of people educated to the max who don’t know when to get out the rain.

A Path to Boldness

What makes a person bold for the truth is being sure that they have seen God’s truth.

Boldness and clarity come from spending time with Jesus. Jesus is the truth we need to see, and Jesus is good, radically good. The more you have real dealings with him, the more confident you become in the truth, and the more good you become in not wanting to exalt yourself or protect yourself with impressive words.

We must be willing to just want to speak the truth for his sake and speak it with boldness and clarity, or clever camouflaging of indecisiveness.

2. People can Benefit from Wrongdoing and often will try

It is still true that those who benefit from wrongdoing and wrong-thinking will usually turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to contrary evidence for what is right and what is true.

Justifying the Desires of Our Hearts

This disease affects all of us. Our mind perceives reality selectively in order to justify what the heart desires. Complete objectivity, whatever side you are on, is difficult and usually a myth.

If showing pictures of mutilated babies threatens your desire for abortion on demand, then the pictures are emotionally manipulative or in bad taste or irrelevant. But if showing dead sea otters or oil slicked cranes or mutilated seals helps your cause, then this is simply telling it like it is and forcing people to come to terms with what is really happening. What is the difference, there is none!

A booklet distributed to many students at public schools in connection with sex education says, “Medically, it is best to have an abortion after the sixth week and before the 12th week of pregnancy.” But abortion defenders turn a deaf ear to the question: “Medically best for whom; baby or mother; or neither?”

But abortion providers turn a deaf ear to observations one medical doctor in a letter a few years ago to the Arizona Daily Star: “There is inescapable schizophrenia in aborting a perfectly normal 22 week fetus while at the same hospital, performing intra-uterine surgery on its cousin.”

Turning a Deaf Ear to the Bible

Many Christians involved in any culturally accepted sin, often turn a deaf ear to the Bible, when it shows clearly what they are doing is wrong. Abortion is just one of those examples.

When people benefit from wrongdoing or wrong-thinking, they will turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the mounting evidence for what is right and what is true. The mind selectively sees what will justify the desires of the heart. In the end that is what must be changed.

3. It is the Christian Duty to Speak God’s Truth

Christians that place their hopes on Jesus and spend time with Jesus and obey Jesus, should stand up in public and tell God’s truth as they see it without worrying that secular listeners may not even agree with our most basic assumptions.

One of the great obstacles to our speaking out in public about the truth as we see it with Jesus is that we think we have to win.

Many Christians fail when they think that they must have to operate with the assumptions of secular leaders. But Peter shows us that this is emphatically not what we have to do. Our calling is not to win or to borrow the assumptions of the world. Our calling is to stand up and tell it like it is in the eyes of God.

The Bible says that the law of God is written on the heart of every person (Romans 1:32, 2:15). It says that everyone is created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). This means that when we speak the truth of God’s Word, there is reason to believe, then, that our witness to the truth, in any case, can trigger something deep inside of people. It will have the ring of truth in their heart of hearts, though it may be temporarily suppressed in unrighteousness.

In turn, God can use that truth and the power of the Holy Spirit to cause a person to see it and repent.