And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ (Acts 5:42).

Isn't this remarkable? They imprisoned Peter and John. They flogged the apostles. They threatened Peter and John. Yet, none of this deterred them from teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. In fact, the apostles rejoiced in their sufferings as a privilege (cf. Acts 5:41).

Friends, I rarely see this kind of bold witness for Christ in our day. The disciples were huddled together scared in the upper room before the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, and too often I see Christians going back into that upper room, insulated from the world that we are called to impact for Christ.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Acts 5:42 closes a sequence in which the apostles are arrested, questioned, threatened, and flogged. Their continuing witness is therefore not the confidence of people who have never discovered what opposition costs. They know the consequences and continue to teach Jesus as the Christ. Luke’s notice that they rejoice in being counted worthy to suffer for the name gives their perseverance a theological center: the shame imposed by the authorities is interpreted through their belonging to the risen Lord, not through the authorities’ judgment of them.

Their courage also has a communal history. In Acts 4, the believers pray for boldness while acknowledging the threats, and their prayer recalls God’s sovereignty over opposition to his anointed One (4:24–31). They do not ask to become impressive heroes. They ask for the ability to speak faithfully in the actual circumstances before them. The community’s prayer and shared life matter because courage is not merely an individual personality trait. A naturally confident person may misuse boldness, while a fearful person may learn faithful speech through support and dependence upon God.

The message itself remains specific. They teach and announce Jesus as the Messiah in public and domestic settings. Their persistence is not a general celebration of defiance or a refusal to listen to every authority. Earlier they distinguish obedience to God from compliance with a command to cease the witness entrusted to them (5:29). That distinction requires a genuine conflict with God’s commission, not merely a leader’s feeling that criticism is persecution. We should not assume that every consequence of Christian conduct vindicates the conduct that produced it.

The original contrasts their public witness with believers retreating into protected spaces. That challenge can be fruitful, but an upper-room image should not erase the constructive role of gathered prayer, teaching, and mutual care. The problem is insulation that becomes permanent avoidance, not the existence of a sheltered place in which disciples are strengthened. Similarly, caution under real threat is not automatically cowardice. Acts also portrays escape, relocation, and strategic use of legal protection. Courage takes its shape from the mission and circumstances rather than from a demand to choose the most dangerous option.

For many readers, the next act of witness will be less dramatic than the apostolic ordeal. It may involve answering a sincere question, identifying honestly as a Christian, speaking with a family member, or refusing to hide a conviction merely to protect social ease. Such acts should be marked by patience and respect rather than by provocation. We can ask for the boldness to speak clearly and the wisdom to know how. The apostles’ example does not require us to enjoy pain or seek rejection. It teaches that opposition need not become the final authority over a life whose message and hope have been entrusted to Christ.

"Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them" (Acts 4:8). And when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness (a paraphrase of Acts 4:31).

In both instances believers were filled with the Holy Spirit, and in both, after being filled, they spoke the word of God with boldness.

This was in keeping with Jesus' promise that the Holy Spirit would empower their witness: they would receive power when the Spirit came upon them and be His witnesses to the end of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8).

This is all well and good, but how can we today be "filled with the Holy Spirit"? How can we have power to be bold witnesses for Christ?

It is clear that those filled with the Spirit in Acts 4 were believers who already possessed the Spirit (cf. Romans 8:9). Yet they still needed to be filled with the Spirit to speak God's Word boldly. So the Spirit's presence within them did not guarantee a continuous stream of power. In Acts 4:31 the filling happened in answer to the believers' prayer for boldness. In Peter's case, the filling seems to have come upon him suddenly when the religious leaders challenged him to defend his act of healing and his message.

The latter example was in keeping with Jesus' promise that when they were brought to trial they should not be anxious beforehand about what to say, but say whatever was given them in that hour, "for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit" (a paraphrase of Mark 13:11).

While these examples show how the early disciples were filled with the Spirit, they still do not show us how we today can be filled. After all, we are commanded to be filled: do not get drunk with wine, "but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18).

What is interesting is that the text does not say, "Fill yourselves with the Spirit." It says, "Be filled with the Spirit." It is similar to the command, "be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Romans 12:2).

We are not the active agents of the filling or the transforming; it is something that happens to us. So we must ask, "What brings it about?" What causes us to be filled? What causes us to be transformed?

I believe there is some mystery and sovereignty in the Holy Spirit's activity in empowering believers to be bold witnesses. However, this filling always seems to accompany those who are diligently trusting and obeying God.

John Piper has a good exposition of Ephesians 5:18 that also addresses how we might be filled with the Holy Spirit. While I disagree with his conclusions about the continuation of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, I heartily agree with his understanding of the filling of the Spirit as taught in Ephesians 5:18.

In summary, Piper notes that the present tense of the verb means "keep on being filled." The key is the contrast with drunkenness: people turn to alcohol in "evil days" for relief, carefree joy, and song, but Paul says to turn instead to the Spirit, who gives more than alcohol ever could. Being filled with the Spirit, Piper argues, is fundamentally being filled with joy in God that overflows in song — as when "the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 13:52) — and that joy is also what makes believers bold witnesses, since "the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10). How do we obey a command to be filled when we are not the one who fills? Piper answers that God fills us through faith: Stephen was "full of faith and of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 6:5), Barnabas "full of the Holy Spirit and of faith" (Acts 11:24), and Paul prays that God would fill us with all joy and peace "in believing," so that by the Spirit we may abound in hope (Romans 15:13). No one stays full all the time, he says, but it should be our aim, and we pursue it by fighting the fight of faith — preaching hope to our own souls, as in Psalm 42 — and feeding on God's promises.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Luke uses "filled with the Holy Spirit" in two slightly different ways, which helps explain what the comment observes. Sometimes it describes a sudden empowering for a particular moment, especially for bold speech — Peter before the council (4:8), Paul confronting Elymas (13:9). Other times it describes an ongoing character: the seven deacons were to be men "full of the Spirit and of wisdom" (6:3), and Barnabas was "full of the Holy Spirit and of faith" (11:24). The first kind is given for specific occasions; the second is recognized in a life over time. Both appear in Acts 4, where a church already marked by the Spirit prays and is filled afresh.

The prayer in Acts 4:24–30 is worth noticing for what the believers asked. Facing threats from the same council that had crucified Jesus, they did not ask for safety, but "grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness" (4:29), and that God would stretch out His hand to heal and do signs. They began not with their danger but with God's sovereignty — "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth" — and with Psalm 2, reading their situation in light of Scripture. The shaking and the filling came in answer to that prayer. The comment's link between the Spirit's filling and trust and obedience finds a clear example here: a praying, Scripture-saturated church asking for courage.

Acts 6:15 records that all who sat in the council, gazing at him, saw that Stephen's face was like the face of an angel.

This description may connect to Jewish tradition regarding angels. I suspect what they saw was a face unwavering in dedication, as if fully anticipating every word and motion, filled by the Spirit. Beyond simply being powerful, angels are presented as unwavering and God-centered, as Jesus was God-centered. Jesus had pity on our discomforts in life, but He never took His eye from God, even through His own death. I suspect Stephen's face was like that — as chapter 7 goes on to demonstrate.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The reading is a fair one and chapter 7 supports it. What follows the description is not a defense in the ordinary sense — Stephen is on trial for his life and responds with a long recitation of Israel's history, arriving only at the end at the charge he actually levels. His composure is the point of the description, and Luke has told the reader about the face before the speech so it will be read in that light.

Worth adding the bookend Luke supplies. At the close of the speech, as the stoning begins, Stephen sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand, and prays for his killers not to be held accountable — echoing what Jesus prayed from the cross. Luke includes a young man named Saul holding the coats, which is the first the reader hears of him. The face like an angel at the beginning and the prayer for enemies at the end frame the whole account.

The priests, the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees came to Peter and John while they were speaking, greatly disturbed because the apostles were proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead (a reference to Acts 4:1–2).

The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in resurrection, which is probably why they were greatly disturbed. The resurrection of Jesus is central to the gospel. Often when people preach the gospel today they mention that Jesus died for sins and forget the part about God raising Him. The good news is good because of the resurrection — read 1 Corinthians 15. Paul writes that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (a paraphrase of Romans 10:9).

Then: salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved (a reference to Acts 4:12). This stands alongside John 14:6 in showing that there is no other way of salvation. That means Old Testament believers, who knew a fraction of what we know, were also saved only through Jesus. How? I am not certain, but perhaps God applied the death of Christ to their account — just as some looked forward to the Messiah and we look back, perhaps others simply trusted God, and God applied it accordingly.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The observation about resurrection-shaped preaching is a fair correction, and Paul's own summary of the gospel he received puts death, burial, and resurrection together as a unit (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). He goes on to say that if Christ has not been raised, the preaching and the faith are both empty, which is about as strong a statement of centrality as could be made.

On the question of Old Testament believers, the comment's speculation is close to the standard Christian answer and the New Testament gestures toward it. Paul says God had passed over former sins in His forbearance, and demonstrated His justice in presenting Christ as the atoning sacrifice (Romans 3:25–26) — the argument being that the cross vindicates God's earlier forbearance retroactively. Hebrews 11 says the faithful of the old covenant did not receive what was promised, since God had planned something better so that they would not be made perfect apart from us.

That the comment offers it as speculation and says so is the right register. Scripture states the principle and does not detail the mechanism.

Friends, I would like to make a comment about the nature of New Testament healing from our recent readings. In Acts 3 and 4 we get the story of the healing of a lame man by Peter and John. Notice in Acts 3:2 we read,

Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.

Why do you think, Luke, the author of Acts, found it necessary to include such details, like the fact that this man was "lame from birth" and that he was someone who was carried "every day" to the temple gate "called Beautiful"?

Later on, after he was healed, we read that the people were amazed at him because "they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful" (Acts 3:10). They did not see the act of healing, but they observed that he was indeed miraculously healed. Why? It is because they recognized him as the same man, who was daily carried for many years to the same spot to beg for alms.

Further, when Peter and John were before the religious rulers, we read something remarkable:

But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say (Acts 4:14).

Again, we get another narrative comment by Luke:

For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old (Acts 4:22).

Friends, was it just that they saw any man standing next to Peter and John? No. They saw the very man that everyone recognized as the lame man, who was carried daily for a good part of forty years to the temple gate called Beautiful to ask for alms. The Pharisees were speechless, because even they probably recognized this man. Everyone knew that he was truly lame, and that for a very long time.

This is what we call a "documented" and "organic" miracle. Even though medical expertise may have been limited in Jesus' day - though Luke, a doctor, acknowledges the man was lame - there was still the forty-year record of those that saw him daily. This validated the miracle as genuine.

The tragedy of what passes for miraculous healings today by "faith healers" is the lack of any documentation. Considering the voluminous claims, you would think there would be at least some. But amazingly, a testament to the tragic gullibility of many, there is none. And throughout the twentieth century, where so-called "faith healers" have been challenged by each generation, there has never been any documented healings. There have been many claims, but none with any sort of documentation.

Further, it was an organic healing, and not merely "functional." The man was crippled in his legs. The organs of bones, ligaments and tendons were lame. In functional healings, headaches are relieved, back pains are eased, shoulder pains are removed, legs are "lengthened" (i.e. hips are adjusted), arches are restored to the flat-footed (i.e. the body is relaxed and adjusted). Some people call functional healings "psychosomatic," because there is no real organic damage being healed. It seems miraculous to the persons receiving the help because they themselves did not know what to do to relieve their discomfort. Functional healings are much of what passes for the miraculous today as performed by "faith healers." Since all of the detailed miraculous healings by Jesus, the apostles, and in the NT are organic in nature, the presumption is against what is practiced today. What passes for miraculous healing by faith healers today is certainly not the same as what we find in Scripture.

Finally, I can personally testify that even among those receiving these functional healings, at least three out of the four I know about had a recurrence of the very thing from which they were allegedly healed, and this was just within months of the healing. I surmise that if I tracked down the fourth person, I would get a similar testimony of failure.

Please note what Peter says in Acts 3:16, "It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see." The lame man was completely healed, so that he would not be lame again but pursue a normal life. There is no indication in any of the NT healings that any of those that were healed fell back into the same malady. The blind, who were made to see, did not become blind again. The deaf, who were made to hear, did not become deaf again. Now, the dead, who were raised, likely died again, but only after a normal and full life. I asked a pastor, "Since you believe in the gift of healing, even faith healers, and you say you were healed by one recently, how is it that you are experiencing the very same pain again today." I appreciated his honest response: "I don't know." As I read, ask, and search these matters out, I am more convinced than ever that what passes for "the gift of healing" today is no gift of God, and what passes for "faith healing" today is no miracle.

Some have asked me why I harp on these issues so much - like election, spiritual gifts, tithing, etc. - why I keep rocking the proverbial church boat? My answer is that these are only symptomatic of a larger crisis in the church, namely, a growing ignorance, neglect, and departure from the truth and authority of God's Word.

The influence of the occult on neo-charismatic worship, the growing priority of tradition and church dogma over Scripture, the allegorization of Scripture allowing for things like the denial of a literal hell and the acceptance of homosexuality, and the prevailing acceptance of the prosperity gospel should not surprise us. These have all arisen because of the church's ignorance, neglect and departure from God's Word.

Sometimes it is not sufficient just to stay "positive," although I don't feel that I'm being negative by bringing these issues to light, but as the part for the whole, so I am using these specific issues to raise interest, deepen concern, and draw believers back to the larger matter of the truth and authority of God's Word.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Luke supplies details that make the healing publicly recognizable: the man's lifelong disability, his familiar place at the gate, the crowd's recognition, and his presence before the authorities. The event is not presented as a private sensation that no observer can assess. Peter then explicitly denies that personal power or godliness explains it and directs attention to the risen Jesus. Evidence and interpretation belong together: the restored man is visible, and the apostolic preaching explains what the sign signifies. Read Acts 3:1–16 and 4:13–22.

Several inferences in the original extend beyond those details. The man is over forty and lame from birth, but Acts does not say he had been carried to that same gate for all forty years. Nor does it supply a modern diagnosis identifying the precise condition of his bones, ligaments, or tendons. The distinction between “organic” and “functional” should not be used to imply that unexplained pain is unreal or that symptom relief never involves physical disease. Those medical classifications require evidence outside the narrative.

The universal claim that no modern healing report has any documentation is also broader than this passage can establish. Particular claims should be investigated individually, including what condition was established beforehand, what changed, and whether improvement persisted. The author's personal examples are relevant to his experience, but they cannot serve as a census of every claim. Likewise, Scripture does not give the later medical history or lifespan of every healed person, so the assertion that all remained free of the same condition or lived full normal lives is not demonstrated.

The constructive concern remains important: spiritual authority should never require people to suspend truthfulness or accept an unsupported report because a confident minister offers it. Churches can pray for healing, support appropriate care, and test claims without humiliating the sufferer. Discernment should direct trust toward Christ rather than make skepticism itself a mark of superiority. The return to Scripture is strongest when accompanied by the same evidential care the original rightly admires in Acts.

Praise the Lord for whoever may understand the depth of His grace! Once again, reminded of who I used to be, I've become humbled before the Lord, and my eyes are in tears over His fathomless love. I have nothing to boast about, not before God (a paraphrase). Amen to every word of encouragement! Keep on, Yujin!

AI-Expanded Reflection

This response — genuine tears over grace rather than argument over its mechanics — is itself a fitting close to the extended theological debate running through the surrounding comments. Whatever one concludes about the precise relationship between divine sovereignty and human choice, Paul's own reaction to contemplating these same truths in Romans 9–11 ends not in a tidy resolution, but in worship, marveling at the depth of God's riches, wisdom, and knowledge, and the unsearchable nature of His judgments (a paraphrase of Romans 11:33). This comment lands in exactly that same posture — awe and gratitude, rather than a fully settled argument.

A little while ago, I addressed the purpose of prayer, asking what makes a prayer "good." I cited Acts 4:24–31 as an example. Facing persecution from the Jewish authorities, the disciples pray together for boldness, addressing God as Sovereign Lord, Creator of heaven, earth, and sea, quoting Psalm 2's question of why the nations rage and rulers conspire against the LORD and His anointed one (a paraphrase). They acknowledge that Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel had indeed gathered against Jesus in this very city, doing exactly what God's power and will had already decided beforehand would happen — then ask God to consider the threats against them, and grant boldness to speak His word, stretching out His hand to heal and perform signs through Jesus's name (a paraphrase). After they prayed, the place was shaken, and they were filled with the Spirit, speaking God's word boldly.

This was a good prayer in its result, since God answered exactly what they asked, and good in its content, since it aligned with God's will — which we know because they cited Scripture (Psalm 2, a Messianic psalm) and applied it accurately to their situation. One of the best ways to pray is citing and applying Scripture directly. In fact, nearly every prayer in the New Testament, even praise, is saturated with biblical citation and allusion.

As an aside, did you notice the line acknowledging that everything done to Jesus had been decided beforehand by God's own power and will? That's a text easily skimmed past, but profound in its implications — right after declaring Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the Jews guilty in Christ's death, the disciples immediately acknowledge all of it was predestined by God. The people were guilty in their intentions, while God remained in control of their actions. As Proverbs puts it, people plan their own course in their hearts, but it's the LORD who establishes their steps, and gives the proper answer of the tongue (a paraphrase of Proverbs 16:1, 9).

Someone once asked me how to reconcile human free will and God's sovereignty without discounting human responsibility or minimizing God's power. This prayer shows exactly that reconciliation. Once you accept that all have sinned and fall short of God's glory (Romans 3:23), and that no one is righteous, no one truly seeks God, no one does good — not even one (a paraphrase of Romans 3:10–12) — you see that people, exercising their own "free will," stand genuinely guilty before God. Left entirely to themselves, like the generation before the Flood, humanity would self-destruct. Yet even while wickedness remains the condition of every human heart, God directs human actions so His own purposes are still accomplished — just as He restrained Satan's hand against Job, He both restrains and releases human wickedness to accomplish His purposes according to His Word.

Regarding salvation specifically: because of our natural condition as children of wrath (cf. Ephesians 2:3), God had to overcome our "free will" with His own sovereign will in order to save us. Faith doesn't arise from free will, but from the Spirit's power (cf. John 3:5–8), according to God's grace (cf. Ephesians 2:5, 8–9). There's a reason John 3:16 follows John 3:3 — no one can believe without first being born again by the Spirit, and this new birth isn't something a person wills into happening, but God's own activity (cf. John 1:12–13). Many of us, like Nicodemus, wonder how this can be (John 3:9). Jesus explained that God accomplishes it entirely according to His own pleasure, just as the wind blows wherever it wishes (a paraphrase of John 3:8) — people are saved by God's completely free, sovereign will, uninfluenced by anything outside Himself. Why couldn't Nicodemus grasp this? For the same reason many today still assume faith arises from unaided free will — caught in a humanistic philosophy that treats "human free will" as untouchable dogma, though it appears nowhere in Scripture this way. This is human wisdom, not God's — as Paul writes, we've received the Spirit who is from God, not the world's spirit, so that we can understand what God has freely given us, expressed in Spirit-taught words, since the person without the Spirit can't accept, or even understand, spiritual truths, which are discerned only through the Spirit (a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 2:12–14).

How is it, then, that many still think an unregenerate person can simply choose to believe? Paul teaches clearly that understanding and accepting the gospel without the Spirit is impossible — one must first be born again, and only then can they understand and accept spiritual truth. Some accept this much, but then argue a person born again by the Spirit could still later reject the gospel — which would logically mean someone born again could later become "unborn." If the free will to believe exists, wouldn't the same logic grant free will to stop believing? This shows how far some will go defending a notion of "free will" that Scripture doesn't actually teach.

Even the best representative of humanity, walking with God directly in Eden, still sinned — if anyone ever had genuine "free will," it was Adam, and look where it led him. No human being after him has been sinless (cf. Romans 5:12). David himself wrote that he was sinful from birth, sinful from the moment his mother conceived him (a paraphrase of Psalm 51:5). Free will? Genesis itself says every inclination of the human heart was only evil, all the time (a paraphrase of Genesis 6:5). But praise God, He purposed before the foundation of the world to overcome our "free will," so we might be counted among a remnant, plucked from unregenerate humanity, to sing His praises in heaven forever.

AI-Expanded Reflection

As with the other extended arguments for divine election in this series of comments, it's worth naming clearly: this is a forceful case for one historic Christian position on a genuinely long-running, sincerely contested question, and thoughtful, Bible-believing Christians in the Arminian and Wesleyan traditions read the same texts differently — Ephesians 2:8's "by grace you have been saved, through faith," for instance, is read by many as describing faith as the God-enabled but still genuinely human response to grace, rather than something God unilaterally produces without any human assent involved at all. Both traditions affirm human sinfulness is real and salvation is entirely of grace; they differ on precisely how grace and human response relate to each other at the moment of conversion. This remains one of Christian theology's most substantial ongoing internal conversations, not a settled matter with only one side reading Scripture in good faith.