The Apostle Persecuted

Prayer Practice

Prayer Journal – To begin your daily worship today, grab a pen and paper and write out a prayer to God. Not sure what to write? Try using ACTS to frame your prayer. Begin with adoration for who God is. Then move on to confession – being real about where you have fallen short in the last day or two. Give thanks to God for all that He gives (including forgiveness for the sin you just confessed!). And then finish with supplication – with your prayer requests to God. When you are done, tuck this away somewhere (so you can read it later and see how God has answered your prayers) and then move into hearing from God through His Word.

 

DAILY READING

Acts 5:17-42

REFLECTION

Words of this Life - Perplexing

by Mary McGinnis

Over the past few weeks in my time of meditation, several phrases have been echoing in my mind like a haunting melody. 

In today’s story, the apostles are arrested for teaching and preaching in the Name of Jesus.  The religious leaders of the day, the Sadducees, were agitated by these apostles, and it raised up a vehemently jealous spirit inside of them. They had the Apostle arrested and place in the common prison. 

 While the religious leaders are gathering their forces together to build their case against them, we find an angel, entering the prison where the disciples are being held. The angel says to them,

“Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.”

Words of Life!  What were these words?  This Greek word “rhema” is defined as that which is or has been uttered by the living voice, thing spoken, or word. 

And what was “this Life” (capital letter L) to which they spoke? 

It seems reminiscent of what the angels had told the women who had gone to Jesus’ tomb at the break of dawn on Easter Morning, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”

Jesus had His life extinguished through the brutal suffering and death He endured on the cross. Yet, on Easter morning, He was raised to life! His life was animated once again. Having conquered death itself, He now stands as the One who possesses an unquenchable vitality and absolute, unstoppable fullness of abundant life that will never end.  

The revelation of the Word of this Life, despite the miraculous signs that accompanied them, we often left people feeling astonished, wondering, and perplexed. 

Have you experienced feelings of wondering? A vexing kind of perplexity, the kind that disturbs you, because it does not add up or make sense? It is the kind of perplexity that will keep you awake a night wondering, “What does this really mean?” Or do your expectation cry out, “This in not how things were supposed to be!” 

In today’s account, it says, “Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to.”  

The Words of Life were working on their souls, disrupting the very foundation of every expectation on which they had built their lives.  

Peter clearly spells out to them who Jesus was, saying to them,

“We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted Him at His right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

After hearing this, their perplexity turned. “And they having heard, were cut [to the heart], and were taking counsel to slay them.”

What is your response when God is speaking His Words of Life to you? Do you find them perplexing? Are they stirring up fear because they are not what you expected? Will you allow these Words to change you and turn to Jesus?  

The Apostles were not afraid. When they were with Jesus, they too were often left feeling perplexed and wondering. Now they had experienced the Resurrected Christ. Now they were filled with His Holy Spirit. Now they were given the mission of telling the Words of Life. They might have been perplexed as to why they were being persecuted and imprisoned. They may have been perplexed as to why their witness was not changing the hearts of these men. 

Yet they held on to this hope written about in 2 Corinthians 4:1-2.  You too can hold on to this hope, even when you are feeling perplexed.  Jesus is Risen!  He is Risen Indeed!

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.”