A Study of Acts: Peter and John Return to Their Companions
Acts 4:23-31; Psalm 2:1-3 - God will fill us with the Holy Spirit, shake walls and sell cattle in answer to prayer!
“When they had been released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said,
‘Why did the Gentiles rage, And the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, And the rulers were gathered together Against the Lord and against His Christ.’
For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”
Acts 4:23-31 NASB1995
Peter and John return to their own companions and report on all that has taken place and what was said to them. The first church community meeting is held! The response is to pray in unison to God. God is the Creator of all things and they acknowledge Him as Lord. Let’s look at the word for Lord in this case: This noun comes from the Greek word δεσπότης or despótēs, meaning an absolute ruler or master. They are praying to the One who is in ultimate control. Even with the knowledge that persecution is imminent, they pray with praise.
Here’s some commentary on this from Enduring Word:
Reported all that the chief priests and elders had said: Peter and John had good news to report. We can picture them saying, “We got to tell them about Jesus! They realized we were like Jesus! They told us not to tell others about Jesus!”
In response, the early Christian community – their own companions, probably the apostles and some others – had a prayer meeting. Important events moved them to prayer.
They raised their voice: They prayed vocally. It is certainly possible to pray silently in our minds, but we focus our thoughts more effectively when we speak out in prayer.
Voice is in the singular. This means that they did not all pray individually, speaking at the same time. One person prayed and all agreed with that one, so that they were really praying with one voice.
“With one accord they lift up their voice to God. This does not mean that they all prayed at once. That would have been confusion. Disorder in meetings, a number of people talking at the same time in a boisterous way with outward demonstrations, is an evidence that the Holy Spirit is not leading, for God is not a God of disorder.” (Arno Gaebelein)
With one accord: They prayed in unity. There was no strife or contention among them. There wasn’t one group saying, “We should pray for this” and another saying, “we should pray for that.” They had the same mind when they prayed.
Lord, You are God: They began by reminding themselves who they prayed to. They prayed to the Lord of all creation, the God of all power.
This word Lord is not the usual word for Lord in the New Testament; it is the Greek word despotes. It was a word used of a slave owner or ruler who has power that cannot be questioned. They prayed with power and confidence because they knew God was in control.
When we pray, we often forget just who it is we pray to; or worse yet, we pray to an imaginary God of our own ideas. The disciples had power in prayer because they knew who they prayed to.
That last bullet is particularly important. Who are you praying to? Do you have an imaginary God in mind or the Lord of the Universe? Is He an old bearded man on a throne or something that can only be the Creator of everything we see, a Being and Lord beyond our imaginations? As I’ve noted before, we have enjoyed “The Chosen” streaming series about Jesus and His disciples. They have a rabbi consultant for the series who keeps the cast cognizant of the proper Jewish prayers and rituals. Ironically, a friend of ours who does not like this series (calls it “heretical”) has criticized the fact that they have used a rabbi to help with authenticity. I guess I should break the news to this person that Jesus and His disciples were Jewish and they would pray Jewish prayers. I can just picture these early church members praying as they have always been taught to pray!
Here is how the Hebrew prayers and blessings to God begin in many cases (from this Link):
ברוך אתה ה’ אלהינו מלך העולם עושה מעשה בראשית
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe maker of the works of Creation.
Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, oseh ma’aseh b’reishit.
The next part of this prayer in Acts 4 is a prayed version of the first verses of Psalm 2, with Christ specifically mentioned as His anointed.
“Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed,
saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!””
Psalms 2:1-3 NASB1995
The rest of this Psalm of David talks about how God wins and we should always worship Him with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Here’s more good commentary from Enduring Word:
Why did the nations rage, and the people plot vain things? Their unified prayer quoted Psalm 2 because the disciples understood what happened by seeing what the Bible said about it. From Psalm 2, they understood that they should expect this sort of opposition and not be troubled because of it because God was in control of all things.
Psalm 2 expresses complete confidence in God and His victory. “He is the King. He is ruler in Zion. Servants you can bind, but the Word of God is not bound. And that unleashed, unbound, powerful Word of the gospel reached out from Jerusalem, that remote city of the Roman Empire, to permeate and eventually transform the entire world.” (James Montgomery Boice)
When we pray, we must see our circumstances in light of God’s Word. For example, when we are in conflict, perhaps we need to know we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age (Ephesians 6:12).
Seeing our circumstances in light of God’s Word also means seeing when there is a sin problem. Then, we should say with the Psalmist, “When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.” (Psalm 32:3-4, Peterson). Perhaps we are in the same place the Psalmist was, in sin and needing to confess and be made right with God.
We also use Scripture in prayer to pray the promises of God. When we need strength, we can pray according to Ephesians 3:16: That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. God’s Word will speak to our situation.
We pray to the Lord and Creator and we pray Scripture to help us understand when we are in need of repentance and to assure ourselves of His promises. The early congregation also prays about the leaders who were against Jesus, but this was predestined by God to occur.
Acts 4:29-30 is a beautiful ending to this prayer! I’ll repeat those verses here so you don’t have to scroll to the top:
And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.
Look at what they ask for:
That the Lord will note of the threats against them.
That the Lord will grant His bond-servants the ability to speak His Word with confidence.
That the Lord will extend His hand to heal.
That signs and wonders will take place through the name of Jesus.
These early believers don’t ask for the Lord to stop the persecution. They don’t ask for Him to lead them to a peaceful hideout, away from the trouble, but to give them the strength to speak His Word with boldness. They don’t ask the Lord to strike back at the persecutors in vengeance, but to extend His hand in merciful healing. They also ask for signs and wonders through the name of Jesus to confirm to the Jews that the message and supernatural power of Jesus are different than anything they have heard. One more commentary excerpt from Enduring Word:
Grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word: This request is consumed with God’s cause and glory, not the comfort and advancement of the disciples. They ask for things that will lead to more confrontation, not less.
By stretching out Your hand to heal: They did not ask to do miracles themselves. They understood that Jesus heals by His hand; and that He does it from heaven through His people.
It is a snare to long to be used to do miraculous things. It is often rooted in the pride that wants everyone to see just how greatly God can use me. I should be delighted in the power of God, not because He has used me to display it.
Some present-day churches have thrived on the trap of wanting to do miraculous things just so they can boast in those things and drive up membership. This has led to scandals and accusations of wrong-doing for people who want a miracle and are duped into thinking they got one, when they didn’t. True miracles will be like the one that Peter and John did and they will often be stunning. Here is commentary from John Stott from Precept Austin:
Certainly the thrust of the Bible is that miracles clustered round the principal organs of revelation at fresh epochs of revelation, particularly Moses the lawgiver, the new prophetic witness spearheaded by Elijah and Elisha, the Messianic ministry of Jesus, and the apostles, so that Paul referred to his miracles as ‘the things that mark an apostle’. (2 Cor 12:12) There may well be situation in which miracles are appropriate today, for example, on the frontiers of mission and in an atmosphere of pervasive unbelief which calls for a power encounter between Christ and Antichrist.
But Scripture itself suggests that these will be special cases, rather than ‘a part of daily life’.... If, then, we take Scripture as our guide, we will avoid opposite extremes. We will neither describe miracles as ‘never happening’, nor as ‘everyday occurrences’, neither as ‘impossible’ nor as ‘normal’. Instead, we will be entirely open to the God who works both through nature and through miracle. And when a healing miracle is claimed, we will expect it to resemble those in the Gospels and the Acts and so to be the instantaneous and complete cure of an organic condition, without the use of medical or surgical means, inviting investigation and persuading even unbelievers. For so it was with the congenital cripple. Peter took his miraculous healing as the text of both his sermon to the crowd and his speech to the Council. Word and sign together bore testimony to the uniquely powerful name of Jesus. The healing of the cripple’s body was a vivid dramatization of the apostolic message of salvation. (The Message of Acts).
The early believers pray this prayer and the place they were in was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. God demonstrates His power with what appears to be a localized earthquake. Their prayers are being answered and the Holy Spirit again fills each one of the believers so that they can speak boldly. Prayer works! It may change us to do something He wants us to do or it may change circumstances. I love this anecdote from Precept Austin to end this devotional:
Shortly after Dallas Theological Seminary was founded in 1924, it almost came to the point of bankruptcy. All the creditors were going to foreclose at noon on a particular day. That morning they met in the president’s office for prayer that God would provide. In that prayer meeting was a man by the name of Harry Ironside. When it was his turn to pray, he said, “Lord, we know that the cattle on a thousand hills are Thine. Please sell some of them and send us the money.” While they were praying a tall Texan stepped up to the business office and said, “I just sold two carloads of cattle in Ft. Worth. I’ve been trying to make a business deal but it fell through and I feel compelled to give the money to the seminary. I don’t know if you need it or not, but here’s the check!” The secretary took the check and knowing how critical things were financially, went to the door of the prayer meeting and timidly tapped. When she finally got a response, the president took the check out of her hand. It was exactly the amount of the debt! When he looked at the name, he recognized the cattleman and turning to Dr. Ironside said, “Harry, God sold the cattle!”
My next devotional examines Acts 4:32-36 - Sharing among believers.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - I pray Acts 4:29-30 - And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
The Blue Letter Bible was accessed on 8/23/2024 to review the lexicon for Lord.
Commentary from Enduring Word by David Guzik is used with written permission.
Precept Austin was accessed on 8/23/2024 to review commentary for Acts 4:23-31.