Date: 18 Jun 2018 Comments: 0

In my career, I have found many folks that seem very bold and powerful in a group of their peers. They seem responsible and powerful and their comrades trust their words. However, as time goes by, if they are cross-examined by people with knowledge in their careers, it’s easy to see them shut down in the right situation. That is to say that we sometimes find power and boldness among our friends and peers but when we have no support, we must be able to defend our desires or decisions with true facts, not just a ‘cult of personality’. The same thing occurred to the priests of the Sanhedrin, those who were mostly responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus when they encountered Peter and John in Acts and I drew upon it for most of my reading today: “The members of the council were amazed whey they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13, NLT). This happened just after Peter healed the man at the Beautiful Gate as I referenced in my previous post. But when the Sanhedrin told Peter and John to ‘cease and desist.’ The men who had ‘been with Jesus’ were not afraid to shut them down. “But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20, NLT). In this case, the Sanhedrin were wise among their peers but when faced with the hard facts, their foolishness was overcome with the boldness of two apostles. How often in our lives, do we face challenges to our beliefs from those who are hostile to the Gospel and sometimes we let their jeers and aggression as a group make us afraid to speak what we truly believe. But those who deny that which is in Jesus, are foolish and will try to shut you down but you must be bold because the Scripture tells us to always support our truth with facts: “Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.” (Proverbs 18:13, NLT). We have a power that is often misunderstood and we can be ‘bullied’ out of standing up but that’s not what Peter did and we should learn to follow his lead because God’s boldness will stand against the foolishness of others.