Acts 5:12-32; A Strange New World II

This section likewise breaks down into three parts. First is the jealous reaction of the Jewish community leaders. Then is the angelic release of the Apostles from prison. Finally, we have the questions of what one commentator called the "ludicrously embarrassed" Jewish officials. Even though the action seems to focus on what the officials are doing and how they try to cope with this uncontrollable phenomenon before them, the Apostles in fact are front and center. Anyone "filming" this scene would place the prison in the center of the action. And, if I were filming it, I would ring the scene with a verse from Ps. 2--"Why do the nations so furiously rage together...and why do the peoples imagine a vain thing?"

Rulers become jealous when they lose the source of what makes them rulers--obedient subordinates. The jealousy described here will also be part of the Apostolic reception a few chapters later: "The next sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy..." (13:44-45).

Digression on "The Jews"

And, I ought to add a word here about "the Jews." I was trained in New Testament Studies (Ph. D. from Brown University; DAAD at the University of Tuebingen, Germany), and during my doctoral studies (1977-82) there was a lot of ferment in the field of NT studies regarding who actually killed Jesus--Jews or Romans. To place this issue in historical context, the Church had, for years, justified persecution of Jews because they were "Christ killers," and the Church used various NT passages to try to justify this persecution. But scholars in the 1970s wanted to "get beyond" this approach by emphasizing the Roman responsibility for Jesus' death. Thus the Jews would, as it were, be "off the hook," and Christians could no longer (if they ever really could) "justify" persecution of Jews on the ground that the Jews "killed" Jesus.

This approach took on the fervor of any new movement, and it became de rigueur to blame the Romans for the death of Jesus. Of course, the Romans had no lobbyists in Washington DC or at the conventions of the Society of Biblical Literature, so they could easily be blamed for it.

And, in fact, there were good historical reasons for so doing. The method of Jesus' crucifixion, the complicity of Roman officials as the Gospel counts indictate, all point to Roman responsibility for the death of Jesus. But a person who reads the NT text in the wake of this raging debate of 30 years ago, must do so with an awareness of the debate and a little skepticism about the nature and result of the debate. Certainly I will grant that the Romans killed Jesus. Certainly I will admit that justifying persecution of Jews because their ancestors were "Christ killers" is inhumane and wrong. But I would be untrue to the words of the Scripture and to the nature of how religions work if I were just to dump all the blame on the Romans. That is, when religions separate from each other (as Christianity did from Judaism), it is like a bad divorce. The once intimate partners find it very difficult to say nice things about the other. So it was at the beginnings of Christianity. The early Christians "separated" themselves from Jews by blaming them for the death of Jesus. The Apostolic preaching included these accusations. But just as we cannot return to the miracles of this time or the unity of this time, why return to the polemics of this time? That is, why have the early Christian prejudices, which no doubt were driven by the "divorce" with Judaism, be our prejudices? Thus, rather than denying that Jews were responsibile for the death of Jesus and jealousy at Apostolic preaching, why not just take these as a true reflection of the animosity that characterized relationships between the two communities of faith in those days?

III. The Apostolic Defiance (29-32)

Even though the Jewish officials had strictly warned the Apostles (and the Greek uses a powerful intensive form--"charging you, we charged you") to desist from preaching, they continued with it. Their reason? "We must obey God rather than humans." In writing this, Luke has taken a line almost verbatim from a classic source--Plato's Apology. In that work Socrates is on trial for his life, supposedly because he perverted the minds of the Athenian youth, disbelieved in the gods of the state and introduced new and strange gods. In his defense (29D), Socrates said that "we must obey the god rather than humans." Luke may have been crafting his picture of Apostolic intransigence in the context of this line from Plato. If so, the educated reader of his day would understand the Apostolic preaching in a new way. Not only were they healers and preachers of the truth, but they would be willing to preach this truth in the face of opposition that might lead them to their deaths.

The result of the preaching is predictable: the people want to kill the Apostles (v. 33). Most of our lectionary readings stop just before this reference to killing. Maybe they should. In any case, however, we see that from the earliest times in the Church we have a struggle for power and for the hearts and minds of people. The "good guys," i.e., the earliest Christians, were not armed with weapons or political or numerical clout. But soon they would be those who would "turn the world upside down" (Acts 17:6).

Conclusion

It really is a remarkable story of healing, unity, power against power, defiance and victory. Let's relive that story today, not because we believe it can be fully our story today but so we can see where we came from. Within twenty years Paul would be emphasizing that the key to his ministry was to become "all things to all people" in order that he might save some. But we are not there yet. We are, in fact, only a week past Easter, and the Church is in the first excitement of its resurrection power. Let's celebrate with the early Church, and pray for a measure of that power to be in our lives and love today.

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