One of my favorite television episodes of “The Twilight Zone” television series was a humorous episode where the entire plot revolved around a misunderstanding with an alien species and culminated in the discovery of a book. The title of that book was “To Serve Man” and the misunderstanding was that instead of being a book about humanitarian service, it was an alien cookbook.
In our world today, there are similar misunderstandings—although they are not as humorous. Some individuals, groups, and movements in our world today believe that they are “serving humanity” by destroying the Biblical worldview—removing the shackles of superstition, ignorance, tradition, and moral oppression. It is the worldview of the secular humanists that our belief in God, our confidence in the Christian lifestyle, our hope of eternal life, our expectation of answered prayer through God’s miraculous intervention, and our obedience to God precludes logical thinking, scientific advance, social justice, world peace, or their idea of freedom.
In a way, as Pastor Rod Parsley observed in a book that Ian loaned me, Culturally Incorrect: How Clashing Worldviews Affect Your Future, today’s worldview isn’t that different from the Sadducees of Jesus’ day. Parsley engages in a bit of word play that goes like this (The Sadducees did not believe in heaven, in angels, or in the supernatural—that is why they were sad, you see?” (p. 55).
And that little idea leads us into today’s text. Who was it in Acts 5:17 that stirred up the High Priest and Council against the apostles? The Sadducees! And what had stirred them up in the first place? The apostles were healing people and liberating those who were demon-possessed. That’s impossible, according to the worldview of the Sadducees. The apostles preached Jesus as risen from the dead and, since the Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife—much like today’s postmodern nihilists and materialists who say, “This is all there is!”—of course, that was impossible. The apostles were leading the people away from the logic, order, and convenience of the Jewish religion and into the unknown, the unexpected, and the exciting world of the Christian faith. In order to “serve man,” if you will, they wanted to stop these apostles and their messy gospel for good. If they had been successful, the forces of evil would have eaten us alive. And as it is now, we face a similar circumstance. So, let’s get our marching orders from Acts 5:27-42. (Read it/Pray).
Now, See What You’ve Done
Every parent or grandparent has had the experience of telling a little child to be careful fiddling with a straw with a full glass of milk, Coke, or tea or telling them not to spin or jump around when there is a bowl of cereal, soup, or anything else messy to spill. If the child doesn’t obey, and I bet you wonder how I know this so recently (our grandson was visiting us), it isn’t long before you point to the mess and say, “Now, look what you’ve done! Didn’t I tell you to be careful with that straw or stop that jumping around?”
Now, that is pretty much what the religious authorities are telling Peter and the apostle in verse 28. They had given them specific instructions and now, the disastrous results had taken place. The Greek verb used in verse 28 conveys the idea that the apostles had filled Jerusalem to overflowing with the teaching about Jesus. And then, at the close of the verse, they reveal their real motives, “and you want to make us responsible for His death!” (Good News Bible) [literally, “to bring the blood of this man upon us”]
Let’s consider this idea in reverse order. The religious authorities are not comfortable with the fact that they may have made the wrong decision about Jesus. But, as is becoming all too often the norm in modern society, instead of facing up to their failure, they attempt to cover it up by shushing up the apostles and don’t actually accomplish anything to better their circumstances. In the same way, those who are hostile to the gospel in today’s world aren’t comfortable with their wrong decisions, either. We call those wrong decisions—sin!
The world doesn’t want to be reminded that God might have a better plan for the lives of individuals than they have for themselves. The world doesn’t want to be reminded that selfish behavior is destructive to us as individuals and to those around us—eventually, even to society as a whole. The sexual revolution brought about plenty of disease and unwanted children, as well as broken families and children with low self-esteem. Wholesale abortion and violence as a bad solution to many problems have given our society the idea that life is cheap. Yet, we don’t want to admit that racism, that oppressive working conditions and living conditions for the poor, that violent outbursts like Columbine and Virginia Tech, that government corruption in both parties, that the lack of discipline for schoolchildren, and the crisis in American homes has anything to do with our disregard of God’s will and God’s purpose for our lives as taught in the Bible.
Next, the irony of the question from the religious authorities is: “Look what you’ve done!” Yes! Look what the church has done—established some of our finest institutions of higher learning, ministered to the poor and helpless through shelters, food banks, and building of low-cost homes, paved the groundwork for elementary education for all on the western frontier, opened their buildings for groups trying to help alcoholics, drug addicts, and illiterates, given millions of dollars and thousands of hours in disaster relief, helped people out of addiction, provided wholesome places for recreation and entertainment, and that doesn’t even begin to address the primary objective of our work—bringing forgiveness of sin and the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ to individuals so that they can find that inner joy and peace God wants them to have and be FREE from the fear that this is all there is, FREE from the fear that life has no meaning, FREE from the idea that things can never get any better, FREE from the idea that there is no wisdom that can help us find contentment and purpose in life, and FREE from the fear of a real and terrifying hell—eternal destruction and infinite entropy as symbolized by a lake of fire and brimstone than none of us would want to be in for a second.—a symbol that is only part of the reality.
But the Sadducees of today want to accuse us of being responsible for wars. They label our demands for righteousness, for conformation to God’s will as hate speech. They would prefer that we never call for responsibility in human action unless it follows their terms. People were being healed. People were finding purpose! People were being freed of all the things that had held them back for years! And what did the Sadducees say? They essentially claimed that the apostles were filling Jerusalem with trouble—such trouble, we all could use.
God’s Prime Directive
The apostles have an interesting answer. First, they (apparently with Peter as the spokesperson) state that they have a prime directive to obey God rather than man. The Greek verb used here is interesting. One part of the root has the idea of being totally convinced, totally persuaded in order to obey and the other part of the verb has the idea of preeminence—a matter of priority. The apostles simply state that they have placed their priority on what God has convinced them of.
Don’t get the wrong idea in the clash of worldviews that we are facing in the modern world. We are not going to change the hearts and minds of humankind by debating Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. As soon as we enter into debate with them, we are playing by their rules instead of God’s. It is their desire to build the logic on their assumptions of materialism and empiricism. But it isn’t necessarily so!
Pardon me while I draw an example from modern animation. When I was a child, the most glorious cartoons were 2-dimensional animations where thousands of painted cels were photographed and shown in rapid succession. Today, children who are used to the 3D graphics of Cars, Shrek, and the like have less appreciation for the 2D art of previous generations. Oh, there is still room for 2D animation on television for budgetary reasons, but motion picture animation is clearly dominated by 3D work. Why would anyone want to go back?
Yet, when we consider God’s presence in eternity compared with our existence in finite limitation, why would God want to conform His revelation to the 2D, if you will, standards of finite limitation, when He can animate all of reality in the 3D splendor of the eternal. Yet, these foes of the gospel demand that we present our theology in the 2D of their limited worldview in order to convince them of a 3D world that they automatically exclude.
So, what do we do? We do exactly what Peter and the apostles did. We state our intent to obey God. God’s will is our Prime Directive. You remember the original Star Trek series don’t you? Well, no matter what happened, they had one unbreakable ideal—not to interfere with the development of other civilizations. Now, we won’t win a lot of prestige with this approach—putting the Bible ahead of secular wisdom and knowledge. We won’t win a lot of points by asserting that God is Creator and that there are some absolutes with regard to morality and His presence. Our Prime Directive, like that of the apostles, is to obey God rather than humanity.
This doesn’t mean that we have to be obnoxious, argumentative, or uncontrollable with regard to issues of public safety and health, but it does mean that our primary loyalty, our first decision needs to be to follow God’s commands because God is correct. But, even though God is correct, God is faithful, just, and patient. The apostles turned the controversy into an opportunity for the Jewish leaders to repent and discover what they discovered (v. 31). If there is anything we need to do, it is to live such that we invite people to discover what we’ve discovered.
Of course, taking this approach to life may mean that there could come a time for civil disobedience. If the government says we can’t teach or preach the Bible because it is hate speech, some of us may have to go to jail. If the government says we can’t home school, some of us may have to go to jail. If the government says we can’t have Christian schools, some of us may have to go to jail. We don’t know exactly what issues we’ll face in the coming years, but we do know that the answer is the same now as it was for Peter and the apostles—we must obey God rather than humanity.
Note also that the apostles didn’t get off scot-free. In verse 40, we see that they were beaten, presumably with the 39 lashes expected by the law. Remember that if it does come to a point where we must act in civil disobedience, the proper effect requires paying the price. The apostles were willing to go to prison, take beatings, and even face death in order to carry out the Prime Directive—obeying God and taking the gospel to the entire world. We should prepare ourselves likewise.
What if We’re Wrong?
In Acts 5:33, the religious leaders were ready to put the disciples to death, but in verse 34, one of the wisest rabbis in the Jewish tradition, Gamaliel rises to the occasion. Although he doesn’t accept Jesus as his savior and he doesn’t become a Christian, Gamaliel does something very wise with regard to a matter of faith. He observes that groups built around personalities seem to disintegrate in time while the things of God seem to grow and survive.
We don’t really know anything about Theudas’ rebellion (v. 36). It would be tempting to associate him with the Theudas who gathered a group about him and promised to part the river. The Roman Consul of the era, Cuspius Fadus, brought enough cavalry against them to disperse the crowd and decapitate Theudus. It would make an interesting tie-in, but unfortunately, the Theudas rebellion that we know about occurred between A.D. 44-46—probably a decade after Gamaliel’s speech. But Theudas was a common name and there were countless Jewish rebellions.
Historically, we’re on more certain ground with Judas the Galilean. In 6 BC, a man named Judas came down from the Golan Heights, declared that God was the true King of Israel and led people not to pay tribute to Caesar. Although the Romans crushed the revolt, the Zealots continued.
But Gamaliel is wise and states that man-made movements will lose their impact, but God’s movements cannot be defeated. We have to be careful lest we oppose God. Believe it or not, folks, there have been times when I was convinced that certain leaders and pastors were such hypocrites that I thought I should oppose them in public. This passage came to mind. And now, I’ve seen the Jims and Jimmys and Teds exposed. And now, I know that “but for the grace of God…” Sometimes, we just need to watch and see what God’s really doing—even when we think it’s wrong. We don’t want to fight God, do we?
So, the apostles took the lashing. But instead of leaving defeated and silenced, verse 41 tells us that they were rejoicing because God had considered them worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name. Recently, I was sharing my faith with a person who does not believe in God. At one point in the discussion, the individual actually said, “You seem like an intelligent person, but …” Let me translate that for you. I SEEM intelligent, but I couldn’t possibly be because I don’t fit the presupposition that he has for an intelligent person. We are colleagues and friends, but deep down, I rejoice that I am counted worthy of being an ignoramus for Jesus. I don’t want to be a Jerk for Jesus. I just want to obey God rather than some amorphous humanistic notion.
To serve Man? Nope! It cannot be done without serving God who made Humankind first and foremost.
