Bare knuckle boxing in the spirit

Acts is full of amazing stories of courage, conviction and calling. Chapter 4 v 1 – 31 is one of my favorites. Peter, who is arguably the best pound for pound fighter in the new testament, tag teams with John, who himself is pretty fierce. Together they go head to head with the Temple officials. Take a ringside seat and enjoy the bout.

Read Acts Chapter 4 v 1 – 31

What an amazing chapter. Peter and John a chapter earlier have just locked eyes with a paralyzed nobody and spoken those incredible words “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”. Up he gets and starts laying down some moves in the temple courts. The crowd look on amazed, they have seen this guy every day. There is no question of him being a sick-note, this is for real. Peter knows he has got the attention of the crowd so he starts to preach. He lays down salvation history in about 200 words finishing up with a call to repent and the promise of refreshing in the presence of the Lord.

The attention received had not been missed by the Temple officials. With a boil-in-the-bag revival of 5000 Peter and John are arrested and put up to face the court. The court want to know how, so Peter filled with the Holy Spirit pulls another Christocentric sermon to rival any out of the bag. Except this time he goes straight for the bare knuckle punches - “you rejected him, and you can try as hard as you like and use any means you have but you won’t get salvation by any other means other than through Jesus Christ”.

Rocked by the response the court are astonished, they know that these guys didn’t go to bible college or get an MA in old testament history. Their response was testimony only to the fact that they had been with Jesus. What comes next is amazing – the court’s eyes are drawn to the no-longer paralyzed somebody. Even they knew he was for real. And then come those amazing words “they had nothing to say in opposition”. These highly trained men were left completely speechless. I mean what else could they say? Sure they could argue with the words of Peter and John, but what about the healing? There were no complex legal arguments, no carefully crafted defence case, no thesis, just a simple spirit-filled sermon about Jesus and the reality of a healed beggar standing in their midst.

Is this not an amazing testimony of the profound power of simple Christ-centered preaching and the workings of miracles? When the two come together there is a potency that can open the eyes of the many and silence the few.

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