Peter and John Before the Council
The chief priests and Sadducees were irritated with Peter and John for preaching the resurrection of Jesus and threw them in jail.
I suppose if I murdered someone to stop a message from being spread I'd be annoyed that someone else continued spreading it.
They ask by what power they do these things, Peter said that they do it through Jesus Christ. They saw that these men were uneducated and yet they spoke so well about this, they must have really been with Jesus. They didn't want the word to spread about Jesus so they told them not to speak in his name anymore. They said they were going to anyway, because they couldn't help speak about the things they saw and did. The council threatened them more, but eventually let them go as they have nothing to punish them for.
I'm not really sure this makes any sense. They go to all the trouble to bring them in and threaten them, but when it comes down to it they just let them go. They really can't just make up some charges and throw them in jail or whatever? I suppose they might have thought they could just threaten Peter and John and make them stop, but it just doesn't seem realistic to me.
The Believers Pray for Boldness
The believers pray to God to ask that they continue to have the strength to speak out. The ground shakes and they were filled with the holy spirit.
Weren't they already filled with the holy spirit from when Jesus ascended? Did they need to be topped off?
They Had Everything in Common
No one in the group had anything of their own, everything was shared. Anyone who had anything of value sold it and gave it to the group and everyone had what they needed.
It makes me laugh to read this when I think of the republican right calling anyone they don't like a communist.
I think you bring up a good point about the communism. It's easier for Christians with a lot of money to forget about what the bible says about the rich. "The Big Book of Multiple Choice" as you've called it before.
ReplyDeleteIn verse 13, it's pointed out that Peter and john were uneducated and untrained. Would this mean that they didn't write the bible? Back then and even a thousand years later, to my knowledge, only the educated (who were also usually synonymous with the wealthy) were the ones that could read and write. Does this mean that the books were forgeries and they didn't write them?
Here, it sounds kind of "anti earth ruler"ish. The earthly rulers are bad because they all take a stand against God. It kind of goes against the general message in other verses that say we should obey our earthly rulers. It makes it pretty easy to control people.
Yup, the big book of multiple choice :) Credit where it is due, I heard that first on the atheist experience. I think Matt Dillahunty said it, or maybe Jeff Dee.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point about them being uneducated. It certainly would seem to make writing the thing inaccessible to them.