Before diving into the verse, let’s look at the verse in
context. The context of this verse starts all the back in the previous chapters,
chapter 3 and 4, for those chapters show us that this is not the first time. In
Acts 3, a miracle happens. Peter and John are walking in the temple courts when
they walk by a lame man. Peter takes the lame man by the hand, and by the power
of the Holy Spirit, the man can walk (3:1-10). This miracle lands them right in
front of the Sanhedrin, the acting Supreme Court, to testify (4:1-7).
Naturally, Peter gives all the credit to Jesus (4:8-12). When the members of
the Sanhedrin come together to convene, they are completely befuddled! For
starters, here they see two uneducated, untrained, common, ordinary men
speaking with the authority, boldness and confidence of a scholar, and they
don’t know how to deal with that alone. Furthermore, and even worse for them,
they have a formerly lame man literally standing before them, too. All the people
acknowledge this miracle, so much that even the Sanhedrin can’t deny what they
see (4:13-17). So all the Sanhedrin can do is command them to not preach in the
name of Jesus anymore (4:18). In Acts 4:19,20, Peter and John answer them, “Whether
it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must
judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” To me, this is
a passive statement. If I may paraphrase what Peter and John said in Acts
4:19,20, they are saying, “You have to decide on your own what’s the right
thing to do, but we know the right thing to do.” After that, the Sanhedrin let
them go. I suspect they thought, “Well, they technically didn’t say ‘no’”.
But then, a similar scene happens again. More miracles happen
in the name of Jesus Christ (5:12-16). Out of jealousy, the Sadducees have the
apostles arrested (5:17,18). The Sadducees might have thought this put an end
to miracles, but it only causes another miracle to happen. An angel of the Lord
frees the apostles from being behind bars, commanding them to return to the
temple grounds to preach the gospel message (5:19-21a). When the Sanhedrin
finally convenes and is ready to call the apostles forward, the officers cannot
find them in their cells. The Sanhedrin launches an investigation, but the
investigation leaves them befuddled again! The doors are locked and guarded,
but the apostles are nowhere to be seen. Finally, someone discovers the
apostles preaching in the temple court (5:21b-25). Once again, the captain and
the officers bring the twelve apostles before the Sanhedrin for questioning
(5:26,27), and once again, the Sanhedrin commands the twelve apostles to stop
preaching about Jesus (5:28). Now Peter, John and the rest of the apostles
answer more aggressively than before. They realize that the Sanhedrin had
backed them into a corner in choosing between the submitting to their religious
authorities and preaching what their rabbi Jesus taught them to do. For the
apostles, the real moral choice was clear, and they answer with a strong,
direct answer.
When I studied Acts 5:29 in my commentaries, the
commentators approached this verse with fear and caution, and rightfully so,
for this verse contains great power. In the wrong hands and with wrong
intentions, Acts 5:29 can be misused. It can be used for anarchy. An anarchist
might say, “In Acts 5:29, Jesus, through the mouth of Peter, tears down all
government by inspiring his disciples to revolt in revolution!” On the flip
side, religious leaders can misquote and skew this verse to get the average
church layman to blindly follow his leadership, even if sinful. Indeed, some of
the most wicked popes in church history have gotten Christians to submissively
obey them because the pope told the Christians this his acts were acts of God,
not as a man, the pope. Both sides would fall in error because the Bible has
safeguards against such interpretation in what Bible Hermeneutics calls the
immediate context, the near context and the far context.
The far context, or the verse in context to the other
passages of the Bible, does not support this. The apostle Peter, the same Peter
who boldly proclaims in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men!” will
later on say in 1 Peter 2:12,13, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to
every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme
authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong
and to commend those who do right.” Soon after the story in Acts 5, the church
will gain another apostle, named Paul. Eventually, the apostle Paul will write
to the church in Rome, Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority
instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to
governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend
those who do right.” Together, 1 Peter 2:12,13 and Romans 13:1,2 show the
Christian that Peter’s statement in Acts 5:29 is not a proclamation of anarchy.
The near context, or the verse in context to other verses in
the chapter, does not support such bad interpretation. In Acts 5:30-32, Peter
goes on to say, “The God of our fathers
raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God
exalted him to his own right hand as Prince
and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We
are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” I personally
bolded some words and phrases in those verses for emphasis. I like to call them
“juicy nuggets.” These juicy nuggets demonstrate Peter is not pushing an
anarchist agenda. First, Peter wisely uses the phrase “God of our fathers.” By
doing so, Peter explains to the Sanhedrin that the apostles do not worship a
new God or a different God. They were obeying the same God the Sanhedrin
worshiped and the same God that both the apostles’ and the Sanhedrin’s
ancestors worshipped. The difference was the apostles began following Jesus as
God’s promised messiah, and Peter invites the Sanhedrin to accept Jesus as
Messiah, too. Second, Peter gives Jesus the title “Prince.” This word has a
heavy leadership connotation, especially in regards to government. The apostles
may not be submitting to the Sanhedrin’s leadership, but they are submitting to
Christ’s kingship. Third, Peter clarifies that God pours out the Holy Spirit to
“those who obey him.” For Peter, and the reader as well, the Holy Spirit stands
as proof of an apostle living a life of obedience, for the Holy Spirit indwells
in Christians who live a life of obedience. (And just to clarify on my part,
that obedience is not a list of commands, but rather that obedience is
accepting and receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior)
The immediate context, or the context of the words and
phrases within the verse, safeguards the passage from bad interpretation. This
one a little harder to see without reading the original Greek text. The word
used for obey in Acts 5:29 is πειθαρχειν (peitharchein),
which is not the common word used to define obedience, which is the Greek word ὑπακούω
(hupakoúō). Once again, Peter
carefully choses his wording in his defense. The word starts out with peith, deriving from the Greek word peitho, meaning to persuade. The middle
part, arch, you might recognize from
words like “archbishop” or “archenemy.” The Greek word arche, most literally means “first,” but can mean “first” as in
supremacy, the highest. Therefore, the Greeks would commonly use the word for a
leader or a ruler. Put it all together. The obedience that peitharchein talks about is an obedience out of persuasion by
higher authority, such a ruler or an expert. Honestly, that “persuasion” could
simply a ruler exerting his power, as in, “Obey my laws or suffer the
consequences.” But I believe it was different for Peter and the other
disciples. The disciples had spent the past few years listening to Jesus teach.
They heard Jesus teach with authority, and such powerful teaching persuaded the
disciples that Jesus had the way, the truth and the life from God. Then the
Holy Spirit comes down on Pentecost, and when the disciples listen to the Holy
Spirit speaking in their hearts, the Holy Spirits reaffirms the truths Jesus
taught and persuades the disciples even more. For Peter and the disciples, they
are persuaded by the Holy Spirit that they are not living a life of rebellion,
but a life of obedience to a higher authority.
Still, as we read Acts 5:29, we have to stand in awe at the
boldness and confidence of Peter and the apostles. Keep in the mind that the
high priest and the Sanhedrin was the highest religious governing body of the
day. They ruled on all matters religious and spiritual. They determined the
difference between the godly and the ungodly, the righteous and the
unrighteous, the clean and the sinful. And the Sanhedrin would tell you that
God instituted them for that role. Peter and the apostles had been raised all
their lives believing that. So when that governing body of 70 men tells them
that one rabbi they listened to was off his rocker and a little crazy in the
head, How could Peter and the apostles find the courage to stand so boldly and
confidently to reply to the Sanhedrin, “No, you’re crazy for not listening to
Christ Jesus”? I’ve already mentioned how Jesus taught with authority, and I
went over how the Holy Spirit speaking the in apostles’ hearts, but I believe
there’s more to it than that. I believe that piece is the Scriptures. We all
know that famous verses 2 Timothy 3:16, which reads, “All Scripture is
God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness.” What we all have a habit of forgetting is that the “Scriptures”
that Paul is referring to what we call the Old Testament, the books from
Genesis to Malachi. They did not have the New Testament yet. Luke 24:35 tells
that after Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus “opened their mind to the
Scriptures,” once again referring to the Old Testament. When the apostles read
the Old Testament, they did not see the Sanhedrin’s interpretation; they saw
Jesus.
But don’t think that the 1st century understanding of 2
Timothy 3:16 should be the same for the 21st century. For us in the
21st century, 2 Timothy 3:16 applies to New Testament Scripture,
too. In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter puts Paul’s letters on the same level as the Old
Testament Scripture. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul starts out by saying, “The
Scriptures say,” and then quotes the Gospel of Luke. Already by the 1st
century, the apostles recognized that their words were not the words of their
own heart and their own will, but rather, their words were the words were the
words of God the Holy Spirit speaking through them. So when a few generations
later, when the Early Church Fathers convened to officially the create the New
Testament canon of Scriptures, for the most part, they did the with great ease.
Christians of generations past had already recognized those 27 books as
God-inspired revelation, not just because the teaching had authority, but also
because these had been equipping, edifying and encouraging the church for
decades.
So why do I think Acts 5:29 is the most Mennonite verse in
the Bible? Let’s fast forward in history to the 1500s for some Anabaptist
history (for those of you who don’t know, the Mennonites would come from the
Anabaptists). Actually, let’s start with some Anabaptist pre-history. Ulrich
Zwingli had begun a Reformation in Zurich, Switzerland, question both Catholic
doctrine and Catholic church practices. In fact, the Anabaptist forefathers
George Blaurock, Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz were disciples of Ulrich Zwingli.
They looked up to him, but they saw that he had one big flaw, which Zwingli did
not see as a flaw at all! Zwingli had a high view of church and state.
Therefore, Zwingli would always ask the city council for permission before
making a reform, and Zwingli would only go through with it if he received the
city council’s stamp of approval. The Anabaptist forefathers, Blaurock, Grebel
and Manz sharply disagreed with Zwingli on this practice. They believed the
city council had no authority to make decisions for the Christian or for the
church. They believed only the Bible had the authority to do so. This caused
the early Anabaptists to hold their own Bible studies, in which they read and
re-read the Bible in order to learn how to live life as the Bible says to live
life, not as any governing body said so.
At the time, the pressing issue just happened to be infant
baptism. Ulrich Zwingli had actually played around with the thought of removing
infant baptism, but when the council refused to get rid of infant baptism
because they used the infant baptism as their method of taking census, Zwingli
submitted and ceased to play around with the idea anymore.
The Anabaptist
forefathers, Blaurock, Grebel and Manz could not submit so easily. When they
read the Bible, they could not find infants being baptized, but they saw adults
being baptized as a symbol of voluntarily joining the church and the kingdom.
Therefore, Conrad Grebel refused to baptized his daughter, and George Blaurock
had Conrad Grebel baptize him as an adult, for Grebel and Blaurock believed
that they followed the Bible more closely by doing so. So let me make a big and
bold interpretation of history, for all history is interpreted. The initiation
and foundation of the Anabaptism is not adult baptism, as the name hints. If
big issue of the day would have been communion, we would have been known as the
memorialists. If the big issue of the day would have been war, we would have
been known as the pacifists. The initiation, foundation and driving force
behind the Anabaptists and the Mennonites is the belief that the Bible, as
God’s inspired Word, is the ultimate authority on truth and righteous living
not man. To sum it up, I would use our verse, Acts 5:29, “We must obey God
rather than men!”
If you need anymore, listen to this quote by Anabaptist
forefather Felix Manz. At his trial, he gave this simple defense, “I wish to bring together those who were
willing to accept Christ, obey the Word,
and follow in His footsteps, to unite with these by baptism, and to purchase
the rest in their present conviction.” As simple as Manz’s defense is, it’s
also complex. Not only does Felix give the obedience of the Word a priority in
his belief, he also recognize the only way a person can transition from
accepting Jesus to following in Christ’s footsteps is obeying his word.
Let’s catch to
the present day, to the 21st century. How do we can continue on the
tradition of acknowledging God’s Word as the authority on how to live our life,
just like the apostles did in the 1st century and the Anabaptist
forefathers did the 16th century? First, we have to know the Word.
We cannot follow the Word unless we know the Word. This involves reading our
Bible on a daily basis. This involves reading that Bible story for the hundredth
time, if not more. That means taking to the time read and listen on what other
Christians had to say about that passage, in both the past and present. And it
involves taking the time to meditate and reflect on the Scriptures that are
read. We cannot obey and follow unless we know what to obey and follow.
If you’re a
teacher, or even took one teaching class in college, you’ll know there was this
guy with the last name Bloom, who had a taxonomy, famously called Bloom’s
Taxonomy. On Bloom’s Taxonomy. Bloom's taxonomy displays the levels of
learning. On the lower end, the base of the pyramid, you have lower end
learning, "knowledge," which is as simple as remembering, even if
it's by rote memorization. On the higher end, the top of the pyramid, you have
higher learning, like analysis (breaking things down), synthesis (putting
things together), and evaluation. The reason for the pyramid shape is that
higher end learning cannot happen without a base of lower end thinking. Let's
look at an example. Consider the question, "Would Augustine have justified
World War II with his Just War Theory?" That's a high-end learning
evaluation question. In order to answer that question, you needed a base of
lower-level thinking knowledge. From the question alone, you need to know who
Augustine was, what his Just War Theory was, and what World War II was. After
finding out those answers, you'd have to build another base of knowledge and
comprehension by making connections. After learning that Augustine's Just War
Theory says that all other possible means must be exhausted before declaring
war, you'd have to look into what other nations attempted to do to stop Hitler
prior to World War II. After learning that Augustine's Just War Theory states
the least destructive methods have to be used, you'd have to learn about the
weapons and armor used in World War II, from the H-bomb to the fire bombings of
Tokyo. See what I mean? If we want this generation of Christians, and the
future generations of Christians, to live out a Christian lifestyle, we must
start by building a foundation of Biblical knowledge. Without that foundation
of Biblical knowledge, how can we expect future Christians to know how to apply
a Christian lifestyle to the world that they live in?
If you still need
convincing, you need to read unChristian
by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. In most of the book unChristian, Kinnaman and Lyons focuses on surveying non-Christians
to understand how they see Christians, but a few times, they survey Christians,
and those surveys are quite eye-opening. When surveying Christians, David and
Gabe wanted to make sure they were really surveying Christians, not just people
who said they were Christian. So in order to qualify as Christian, the person
had to call himself or her a “born again Christian,” a “fully devout Christian”
or a Christian who “accepted/received Jesus as Lord/Savior.” I think we can
agree that those people are indeed genuine Christians. They then wanted to see
if those Christians had a Biblical worldview, meaning that they saw the world
as the Bible sees the word. In order to have a Biblical worldview, the
Christian had to believe that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator of
the universe, Jesus was sinless, Satan is real, salvation is a gift from God than
cannot be earned, a Christian has the responsibility of sharing his/her faith
with other people, the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches,
there is such thing as unchanging moral truths, and the Bible tells us what
those moral truths are. Once again, I believe we can all agree this is the bare
minimum of a Biblical worldview. Guess how many Christian could say they have a
Biblical worldview because they hold to all 7 beliefs. It’s not half of the
Christians at 50%. It’s not a third of Christians at 33.3%. It’s 25%, 20%, 17.6%,
12.5% or even 10%. It’s 3-9%. Among Christians between the ages of 20 to 40,
only 3% had a Biblical worldview. That’s roughly 1 out of 33. Among Christians over
the age 40, only 9% of Christians had a Biblical worldview. That’s roughly 1
out of 11. Wow.
That’s the not
even the shocking part! After determining which Christians had Biblical
worldview, Kinnaman and Lyons asked all the Christians in their survey about
their lifestyle choices. David and Gabe found that the Christians who signed
off on all 7 beliefs of a Biblical worldview live a lifestyle completely
counter cultural to the world around. The Christians who could not sign off on
any of those beliefs, and the Christians who signed off on only a couple or a
few of those beliefs, lived lifestyles very similar to the world and the
culture around. We need to realize that the way we think does affect the way we
act. It all starts in our brain and in our hearts, and it flows out of our
hands. If we want to live out a Biblical worldview, we need to start by
thinking a Biblical worldview.
But as the
Parable of Wise Builder and the Foolish Builder reminds us, it’s no good to
just listen to God’s Words. We must apply it, and we must obey it. I could say
so much about that. Of course, if the Bible says do it, you do it. If the Bible
says don’t do it, then don’t do it. If you’re unsure, consider doing whatever
is counter culture. Sure, it might be sinful, Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians,
that while it may not be sinful, we still need to consider if it helps or
hinders our spiritual growth and relationship with God. Most often than not,
when we choose to live counter-cultural to world around us, we grow spiritual
and become closer to God.
Speaking of
counter culture, one of the best way to continue the tradition of Biblical
obedience that the apostles started in the 1st century and the Anabaptist forefathers
continued in the 16th century is to be a witness by your
counter-cultural obedience. When we talk about being a witness, we usually
think of Christians witnessing to non-Christians, and rightfully so, for this
is where our priority should be. But I believe that Christian denominations can
be witnesses to other Christian denominations that certain beliefs work. And
what a witness the Mennonite church has been!
Indeed, the
Mennonites have influenced the church in the past, and the Mennonites are
influencing the church in the present. Don’t believe me? In the United States
of American, a majority of the churches (dare I say “most”) practice adult baptism; only a minority still
practice infant baptism. Who began that? The Mennonites. In many American
churches (dare I say “most” again?), if you ask the pastor about the church’s
view of communion, or read the booklet or pamphlet on church beliefs, you’ll
discover that they hold a symbolic view of communion, most similar to what the
Mennonites belief. Who started that? The Mennonites. And the Mennonites died
over such issues! Those other American churches didn’t start agreeing with the
Mennonites until it was safe to come out of hiding.
But the
Mennonites’ influence does not cease in the past. The Mennonite still witness
to other denominations in the present day. As a seminary student, I try to stay
up-to-date with what pastors and theologians. I can’t count the number
evangelical pastors who are beginning to say, “You know what? Christians
joining the military to fight in a war doesn’t make sense. I can’t see Jesus
enlisting to fight, nor can I see any Jesus wanting anyone to enlist. It would contradict
what Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount.” And these are the most
patriotic evangelical pastors, the ones who preach from a pulpit that stands
next to the American flag! I can’t help but wonder if the Mennonites gave these
evangelical pastors that idea. I’ve read many emergent pastors talk about
bringing about the kingdom of God with social justice and social reform. The
talk and language they are using is very similar to what I heard Mennonite
pastors preach decades earlier. I can’t help but wonder if the Mennonites gave
those emergent pastors these ideas. And churches all around the nation are
beginning to introduce foot washing into their church practices. It began
sneaking in as something a couple would do in a marriage ceremony. But as the
pastors would prepare for the wedding ceremony and the foot washing, they began
reading John 13, and they realized that this was a practice everyone was
involved in, right alongside communion. And so pastors are beginning to
introduce this idea of foot washing into the church. Now, they have to
introduce it slowly and safely. Some churches are doing hand washing instead of
foot washing; other churches have only the pastor administer the washing to the
congregation. Still, the Mennonite witness proved that this practice spiritual
benefited the church, and now other churches in America are having the same
experience.
And I believe the
Mennonite church can continue to be that faithful witness. I am slow to mention
on how we can because it is a hot topic issue, but it recently has become very
relevant in the Mennonite church. The Mennonite church is become more divided
over the topic of homosexuality. At the last national conference, the Pink
Mennonites (pro-gay Mennonites) were aggressively pushing the Mennonite church
as whole to accept homosexuality and reject the idea that homosexuality is a
sin. And so Mennonite USA passed a forbearance resolution. If I may be so bold,
let me boldly proclaim that I believe our Anabaptist forefathers would be
embarrassed to see what we become. Honestly, if I woke tomorrow morning, and I
heard the news say, “The federal government has passed a law requiring all
church to practice infant baptism. Anyone found baptizing adults will be imprisoned,
tortured and killed.”, I would have to pause and ask myself, “Is that really
worth dying over?” Our Anabaptist fathers thought it was. They were willing to
be imprisoned, tortured and killed in order to Bible exactly to the letter. And
here were are, in the 21st century, falling in and conforming just
because we don’t want to be ridiculed, made of fun, or appear as unloving. We
have a wonderful opportunity to be that witness again! What an amazing witness
it could be, too. Imagine all the other Christian denominations looking upon us
and thinking, “Wow, those Mennonites believe homosexuality is a sin, but they
are still a loving people, being nice and kind to everyone, even the gays and
lesbians. I guess you really can be loving and opposing homosexuality as sinful.”
We can be that, but we must stand our ground, despite what our surrounding
culture says, both Christian and non-Christian.
Lord, thank you
for the Bible. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for wanting to talk to us.
May we receive it and show how much we appreciate it. May we use your Word to
love and uplift one another, and most importantly, may we use your Word to love
you and glorify you. Amen.
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