GOSPEL MEDITATION # 38
Peter is Rescued & The Death of Herod
Acts 12:6-25
- Find a quiet place without distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- From memory, determine the central points.
- Peter, in prison and to be executed the next day, is woken by
an angel, chains binding Peter are broken and fall off him, and Peter is lead out of the prison
by the angel.
- Peter thought at first he had merely seen a vision while
asleep. Finding himself on the street alone, he proceeds to the place where the church is praying for him.
- The place of the prayer meeting is the home of Mary, the
mother of John, whose other name is Mark. This home is
likely the place where the Passover/Last Supper was taken.
- Answering Peter’s knocking at the door is a servant girl
named Rhoda. She knew Peter’s voice, and in her excitement
she rushes in the tell the rest Peter is at the door. For unknown reasons she does not open the door.
- Rhoda is not believed; rather the church people think she
is delusional.
- Rhoda, however, was insistent and Peter kept knocking at
the door. Finally they do find it is Peter after all and Peter
then tells everyone of his miraculous escape.
- Peter, concluding his story, wants the account of events told
to “James and the brothers.” This James is the half brother of
Jesus, who had emerged as the head of the early church in
Jerusalem and is the author of the letter of James.
- Peter now goes into hiding at an undisclosed location. Herod tried to find him but to no avail. And according to Roman law, the jail keepers guarding Peter are put to death.
This Herod Agrippa I, thinking more highly of himself than he ought, dies a miserable death
some short time later.