GOSPEL MEDITATION # 19
Acts 5:33-42
The Apostles Arrested and Freed part 2
- Find a quiet place, alone and apart from 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.
- Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
- In part 1 we find that the Twelve, due to their refusal to cease preaching Jesus, are arrested and put into prison. By the agency of an angel, they are set free and proceed to the temple to continue their preaching. They are discovered again, re-arrested and brought before the Council. The Apostles again refuse to obey man rather than God.
- The religious authorities are completely enraged. If the Apostles are right, and Jesus is the Messiah, their lives and work are rendered meaningless and errant.
- Gamaliel, a respected Pharisee, grandson of the great Hillel, head of the school or which Paul was a student, makes a dramatic and conciliatory presentation.
- “If” Gamaliel argues, the Twelve have it all wrong, their movement will ‘probably’ fail. The second “if” is not a maybe but a surety, but if the Galileans are right and it is of God, nothing can stop it.
- This is not the truth of God since many, hundreds plus, false religions exist and their mere existence counts for little or nothing.
- The council agrees to Gamaliel’s proposal, and the Twelve are set free.
- The mindset of the Apostles’ is extraordinary, they leave the Council rejoicing. And their rejoicing in that they are counted worth to suffer dishonor because of Jesus-the name.
14. And again, they refused to stop preaching Jesus as the Christ, meaning they could end up in real trouble.