6th Day of Easter, Friday April 17, Acts 4:1-22

Here come the ‘them’! Priests, captain of the Temple, and Sadduccees come arrest and lock Peter and John. But the people – ‘we’, the religious – 5000 more of us bought the apostles’ pitch. Don’t demonize ‘the Jews’, as Christians have too often in lazy reading of Acts. Suspect our own clergy. Worry about those managing the institutions of what we’d call not only religion, but also health, education and social service, among the functions of ‘temple’. Keep your eye on our own affluent pious conservatives. You might hear the word, then.

Peter makes another speech, to these clergy and civil servants, this elite of the people, ‘speaking the truth in love to power’. They are surprised since Peter and John are uneducated and ordinary folks, part of the people, not the elite. ‘Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you are on – class analysis is knowing who’s there with you’. Who’s preaching to whom here?

Well the leaders let them go. Why? Because the leaders knew that the people knew that a guy was healed, and the truth was told. They told the apostles to stop, but the threats didn’t work. This captures a truth - but not anti-Semitism!