I Have been reading Acts recently. In Acts, chapter 5, we learn that Peter and his boys were doing their thing; preaching the gospel of Jesus to everyone. The “spiritual” leaders of that time were enraged that Paul would speak of the resurrection of the dead of Jesus. They wanted to kill them. If it wasn’t for a Pharisee named Gamaliel, they would have. He convinced them that what Peter was doing had to be of God. The rest of the Pharisee’s took his advice. So they called Peter and his crew back into the council, beat them, and told them to leave and never speak of Jesus again…that was the good end of the bargain….what? that is crazy.
They were convinced it was of God, so instead of killing them, they beat them and exiled them…or my new made up verb, a good ole fashion exile-lation. We are too blessed sometimes as Americans. We don’t know what persecution is. we think someone making fun of us for being a Christian is harmful to us. get the heck out of hear! you let me know when you tell a classmate about Jesus, and their response is to beat the snot out of you and tell you to never come back to class and say His name again….when that happens, you tell me and then maybe we would understand, but we don’t. We are scared of what people think, scared of what to say, scared to go out of our comfort zone. because laziness and selfishness rule this country and that doesn’t exclude Christians. This story in Acts 5 is amazing to me. Their boldness to preach no matter what the obstacles is simply incredible.
I believe the word preach also was meant differently back then. I think the willard preacher and HUB preacher are using it the wrong way. I believe it is simply honest fellowship that involves sharing stories and truths about Jesus. It is very simple actually. if your pursuing God with all you have, then what you talk about will be Him, or what He’s doing, or what He’s done, or what you believe about Him.
This story, (specifically if you are a guy) poses a very important question….if this happened today, and you were beat, thrown out, and told not to talk about Jesus, would you still? would you man up? would you let nothing get in the way of the only thing that is worth living for in this life? would you really….?
