Thoughts on Acts 4

Today’s reading: Psalms 132-135; Acts 4

I know we’ve talked about this already, as we were going through the gospels, but it is amazing how little evidence matters when someone has already decided that Jesus is not who He says He is.

I first came to trust in Jesus when I was 20. I grew up Catholic and, in our youth group, we were primed against the gospel. We were proactively taught that the “Protestant view of salvation” was untrue, and that if we turned to it from Catholicism, we would be forfeiting our potential salvation. As a result, though I knew Christians, and multiple times had them try to share the gospel with me, I was never even willing to hear or consider their arguments. It wasn’t until I was 20 that I was first willing to listen. I hit a point in my life where I could not stop sinning (which I now realize is the norm, but Catholic teaching on sin and salvation led me to believe other people simply had more self control than I did since they believed they were going to heaven), and so walked away from Catholicism. I didn’t walk away because I didn’t believe, but precisely because I did believe, and I knew, despite all my efforts to the contrary, that I was going to Hell, and if I was going to Hell anyway, I might as well enjoy my life on the way there instead of being miserable, trying to follow God, only to end up condemned anyway. That choice to walk away created a space for me, for the first time, to be willing to consider the gospel, and within days of that decision to walk away, God put Christians in my life who took me to the Word, showed me the message of salvation by faith alone, and led me to put my faith in Jesus. It was about a 4 month process of study and exploration before I made that decision, but once I started down that path, really willing to consider the evidence, the choice was an inevitability for me.

I tell that story because, for a long time, it led me to assume that those who did not accept the gospel as truth simply had not considered it or weighed the evidence. Placing my faith in Christ was primarily a logical question for me, and I assumed it would be the same for others as well. I mean, if you are overwhelmed by the evidence, what other choice could you possibly make??

The Jewish leaders show us, in Acts 4, what other choice you could make, simply ignoring those overwhelming pieces of evidence you find most inconvenient…

We saw this over and over again throughout the gospel accounts while Jesus was still alive, that despite every work and wonder Jesus performed to validate His message and ministry, the Jewish leaders would reject Him. Very often, they weren’t even coming up with excuses for why they could/should reject Him, but were acknowledging they didn’t have an answer and were rejecting Him anyway. They even, at one point, wanted to put Lazarus to death because Jesus had raised him from the dead and people were believing in Jesus as a result. They had so little argument against Jesus that their only response was to try to murder a man whose only crime was having been resurrected by Jesus, in order to cover up the fact of the miracle.

And here again, in our reading this morning, Luke gives us a behind the scenes view into their thinking. They recognized and admitted that a miracle had been performed by Jesus’ disciples and in His name, but their only concern was how to suppress it. There was no consideration of, “Maybe we got this one wrong, given everything Jesus did and now what His disciples are continuing to do.” They see the evidence, have no answer to the contrary, no way to rightly reject it, and reject it anyway because to accept it would be too inconvenient.

I think this is the reality for a lot of people. It’s not that they aren’t willing to hear or consider the evidence for the biblical teaching about salvation by faith in Jesus, but that no amount of evidence will overcome their desire to rule their own lives, and the idea of admitting that God might know better than them how they should live is entirely unacceptable. For these people, there is no argument they need to hear or evidence they need to consider, because everything they hear and everything they consider will fall short.

I don't say this to say that we shouldn't be willing to make the case for our faith, in fact, Peter tells us expressly that we should be ready to defend our faith. But we shouldn't be surprised when we encounter people who don't want to hear. I have talked to people before that look at the evidence, admit it's compelling, and admit they have no argument to the contrary, but are entirely uninterested in placing their faith in Jesus. In these situations, no further evidence or better argument will tip the scales. In fact, I would actually say it is likely better, in such situations, to let it go and stop trying to convince them. Maybe they will change their mind and be willing to consider it later in life, but they more they actively reject it, the less likely it is for that to change because they have already gone so far in their rejection.

And the fact of the matter is, the existence of these details in Acts 4 give us hope for people in this position. Luke had to get the details of this closed-door conversation from someone, and those antagonistic to the cross aren't going to admit they had no answer to the miracle. That means that, very likely, one or more of those Jewish leaders who were in that room trying to shut down the teaching of Jesus, despite the associated miracle, came to faith in Him later on such that they were willing to tell Luke what happened.

So we should never be shy about our faith, and we should always be willing to argue for and defend our faith, but that doesn't mean we never back off the conversation when someone clearly isn't going to listen. That doesn't mean we give up on them, but I think it may better serve them to not carry on trying to convince them when it is clear they are unwilling to be convinced. And who knows? Maybe it won't be all that long before God is able to change their heart and lead them to reconsider what they have seen and heard.