7/21/24
Acts 12:1-11
James Killed and Peter Imprisoned
1 About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
Background: The disciples were no loner experiencing persecution based on differing beliefs (which they had seen faced at the hands of the Sanhedrin, the High Priest and Saducees, the High Council, Paul and Pharisees). Now, they were facing a very real threat from Herod Agrippa I, one that would not stop with verbal warning and imprisoning. Herod, in an effort to make his authority well known, and to combat the claims that Jesus was the true King of the Jews, began by killing James (the brother of John, by the sword) and imprisoning Peter (who was being held until the Passover was complete with the intent of executing him as well). Herod was responding with force and action, not threats, not passivity, but with swift response to anything that threatened to dethrone him. Early Christians were facing a new more codified form of persecution…and it begs the question, by comparison and contrast what are we currently facing.
1) What are we currently facing?
Though there is a clear shift away from many values and morals rooted within the Christian faith, and though we often face rejection and resistance by those who we seek to share the gospel with our current situation is far less volatile than what was faced by 1st century Christians.
Acts 12:1-4
James Killed and Peter Imprisoned
1 About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people.
Agrippa I was thought of by the Jewish population as ‘their man’, trusted (more or less) by the Romans but also popular with his people. It was strongly in his interests both to show his Roman overlords that he would not tolerate dangerous movements developing under his nose and to show his own people that he was standing up, as they would have seen it, for their ancestral traditions. To kill someone with the sword, as opposed to having them stoned as Stephen had been, strongly indicates that Herod either saw, or wanted people to think he saw, the Christian movement as a political threat. Certainly a movement whose very name, by this stage, stakes out a claim for Jesus as the true, anointed ‘king of the Jews’ cannot have been anything other than threatening to the person who bore that title as the gift of the Roman superpower.
MLA 9th Edition (Modern Language Assoc.)
N. T. Wright. Acts for Everyone, Part One : Chapters 1-12. Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
2) Are you Praying that God would intercede? Do we actually believe that He will?
Acts 12:5
5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
In the midst of this evolving, politically driven persecution, God’s people prayed. But there is evidence that, ate least some of them, didn’t expect their prayers to be answered.
Acts 12:11-16
11 When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”
12 When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. 13 And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. 14 Recognizing Peter’s voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. 15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!” 16 But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed.
Rhoda believed…but she was so surprised that she didn’t answer the door and when she told the others they were in disbelief…to the point that they suggested that the one knocking was Peter’s angel.
When we pray we should have faith that God will respond.
3) God works in the midst of pour struggles for our benefit and for the benefit of others.
We’ve already talked about the nature of opposition that 1st Century Christian faced under the rule of Agrippa 1…in many ways he was striving to oppress them and the gospel that they preached. But this isn’t the first time that God’s people have experiences oppression. Consider if you will, Egypt.
What event eventually led to the Exodus? (The passover)
And what was the result? Freedom.
We encounter a very clear allusion to the Passover within the verses, specifically, vv.3-4
Acts 12:3-4
3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people.
Not once, but twice, Luke mentions the Passover…the moment with the angel of the Lord passed over Egypt and killed the first born of the Egyptians and everything that they owned except the Hebrews whom they oppressed.
This reference is not accidental. Luke was, in a sense, relating Peter’s experience as an example of that same salvation and illustrating the freedom that comes in Christ alone. This was an intentional reminder to the early church that, though they faced persecution, God was with them and that, though the oppression may lead to suffering and even death that God’s presence was with them and that God was working in the midst of every trial. Furthermore that in the trials God was further encouraging His people to respond boldly and faithfully.
Questions:
1) What are you currently facing that seem insurmountable? Or, perhaps better said, what is imprisoning you?
2) How do you respond to such trials? How do these trials change your attitude and your actions?
3) Do you respond to such things with earnest and persistent prayer? Do you expect God t respond?
4) When did you last experience a clear response to one of your prayers, from God? Share.
5) How has God worked in the midst of your struggles, and in response to your prayers, to bless you and those around you?
