The Apostles Arrested and Freed, Acts 5:17-42

GOSPEL MEDITATION # 18

Acts 5:17-42

The Apostles Arrested and Freed

  1. Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
  2. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
  3. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
  4. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
  5. Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
  6. First Peter and John but now the Twelve Apostles are arrested and brought before the Council of Israel—and the trouble is their preaching Jesus as raised from the dead.
  7. An angel sets the 12 free, and we see very little of angelic ministry from this point forward. The angel of the Lord instructs that they go to the temple and preach Jesus.
  8. Once the Council discovers the 12 missing, they are re-arrested and brought back for an interrogation.
  9. How confusing it must have been for the leaders of Israel. If the followers of Jesus were right, then their whole structure and reason for living was nullified and more than that, error.
  10. Peter, as spokesperson, will not budge and insists it is their duty to obey God rather the Council. This, understandably, enrages the august body to the point they are ready to kill the Twelve.
  11. The bloodshed was prevented by Gamaliel, the chief teaching rabbi of the school of Hillel. Paul, still Saul, is one of his students.
  12. The wise cleric counsels moderation. He recalls others who rose up against the established order and were eventually defeated. The idea is that the same would be true with the followers of Jesus the Galilean.
  13. There was the possibility that the Council might even be found fighting against their own God. Leave them alone; let the results of the Jesus movement be the proof.
  14. The Apostles were beaten (see Dt. 25:1-3) then set free.

These immediately continued preaching Jesus in the temple and from “house to house.” Courage under fire for sure

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