17 March 2026
17 March 2026
A healing that no one can deny becomes the spark for the first real clash between the apostles and the Jewish authorities. Peter and John are arrested, hauled before the Sanhedrin, and asked the one question that matters: by what power, and in what name, did you do this? Their answer — bold, respectful, and utterly uncompromising — forces the rulers of Israel to decide what to do with two "unschooled, ordinary men" who will not stop talking about Jesus.
Editor's note: This article is a written summary based on the substance of Harry's Bible study on this passage. It is not a verbatim transcript, and while it aims to reflect the heart of the teaching faithfully, it cannot fully convey the warmth, care, and encouragement of the class itself.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your word and for the privilege of gathering together in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. As we open the Scriptures today, we ask that your Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds and soften our hearts, that we might hear your voice, grow in the knowledge of you, and be equipped to live and speak for Christ. We commit this time of study into your hands, in Jesus' Name, Amen.
Harry began by setting the scene: the Sanhedrin was the supreme Jewish legislative and judicial council, seventy elders plus the high priest (the Great Sanhedrin), drawing its name from the Greek synedrion ("sitting together"), and it oversaw religious, civil and criminal law under Roman authority. This was the same body that had conducted the mock trials leading to Jesus' crucifixion, beginning with an informal hearing before Annas (John 18:12-14, 19-23) and moving to a formal session before the whole council (Matthew 26:57-68), where the decision was taken to hand Jesus to Rome. Now, not long after, Peter and John find themselves standing in the very same dock.
Harry stressed that this passage is fundamentally about responsibility — we are all answerable for what we believe and for our own words and actions. The same miracle, the same words, can be seen and heard by different people who then draw entirely different conclusions: some refuse to believe, others come to faith and give God thanks and praise. This responsibility falls most heavily on religious leaders, and Harry backed this up with James 3:1 ("Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly") and Luke 12:48 ("From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded"). He also pointed to Jesus' own warning about these very leaders in Mark 12:38-40, who "like to walk around in flowing robes" seeking honour while devouring "widows' houses" — men who would be "punished most severely." This encounter, Harry noted, is the first confrontation the apostles have with the Jewish leadership and the first persecution of Christians in Acts, continuing the pattern Luke's Gospel had already flagged, where the chief source of rejection of Jesus is the leadership itself (Luke 22:1-6; 23:1-25).
Turning to verses 1-3, Harry focused on why the Sadducees in particular were so disturbed: the apostles were teaching the people and "proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead." He explained who the Sadducees were — an aristocratic sect tracing its roots to Zadok, high priest under Solomon (1 Kings 2:35), whose family had controlled the temple for centuries. Materialistic in outlook and dependent on cooperation with Rome for their status, the Sadducees denied any resurrection, as Jesus himself exposed in Mark 12:18-27 when they tried to trap him with a question about a widow married to seven brothers, and as Paul later exploited before this same council in Acts 23:6-11. For the Sadducees, all of God's blessings were to be experienced in this life alone, so the apostles' resurrection preaching threatened not just their theology but their comfortable political arrangement with Rome. Harry noted that Jesus had already warned the disciples this would happen — Luke 21:10-19 promises that they would be seized, handed over, and brought before rulers "on account of my name" — and observed that in doing this, the leaders were disregarding the very words of Moses that Peter had just quoted in his previous sermon (Acts 3:22-23, echoing Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19), showing they lacked the spiritual eyes and ears to respond to God.
Despite the arrest, verse 4 records that many who heard the message believed, bringing the number of believing men to about five thousand. Harry drew out the trajectory of growth across Acts so far: 120 in the upper room (Acts 1:15), 3,000 added at Pentecost (Acts 2:41), daily additions noted in Acts 2:47, now 5,000 here, and still more men and women being added later in Acts 5:14. He linked this to the observation from studies in church growth that the church often thrives under persecution, and identified three levels of contact through which the early church grew: public preaching, preaching in the synagogues, and the attraction of believers caring for one another in home-based fellowship. It was this last dimension — hospitality and worship experienced at the most intimate level of people's lives — that Harry singled out as often the real key to a church's vitality.
Verses 5-7 bring Peter and John before the assembled rulers, elders and teachers of the law, with Annas, Caiaphas and other members of the high priest's family present. Their question — "By what power or what name did you do this?" — is, Harry pointed out, the identical question these same leaders had once put to Jesus himself in Luke 20:1-8, when Jesus turned it back on them by asking about the authority of John's baptism. Peter, however, had already effectively answered the question in his earlier sermon, insisting the healing came "by faith in the name of Jesus" and not by his and John's "own power or godliness" (Acts 3:12, 16). Harry also noted that part of the leaders' concern was whether sorcery or magic might have been involved.
Peter's reply in verses 8-12 was the heart of this section for Harry. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, addresses the council respectfully as "Rulers and elders of the people" — Harry linked this courteous approach to 1 Peter 3:15 — while fulfilling Jesus' promise in Luke 12:11-12 that the Spirit would give the disciples the words to say when brought before rulers and authorities. Harry noted that the word for being "called to account" (anakrino) is a technical legal term for judicial examination, precisely describing what was happening to them. Respectful as he is, Peter is also bold: he tells the council directly that the healed man stands before them "by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead" (Acts 4:10), and applies to Jesus the image of "the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone" (Acts 4:11, echoing Psalm 118:22). Harry explained the picture behind this: the cornerstone was the great foundation stone at the base of a structure that anchored and aligned two intersecting walls — what the builders threw out, God made central. Peter presses the point to its sharpest edge: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12) — even the Jews, who of all people had the greatest access to God's revelation, still need Jesus, because he is the only way anyone can be saved.
Verses 13-17 record the council's reaction: astonishment at the courage of Peter and John once they realised these were "unschooled, ordinary men" — and the leaders could only account for it by recognising "that these men had been with Jesus." Harry drew out how neither apostle had tried to curry favour with the council; instead they had made the leaders directly culpable for crucifying Jesus. Compounding the council's difficulty, the healed man was standing right there in front of them, undeniable proof of what had happened, so there was nothing they could say against it. Needing time to decide, they sent Peter and John out and conferred — echoing, Harry noted, the same trapped position they had been in when Jesus questioned them about John the Baptist's authority. Unable to deny the miracle but determined to stop it spreading, they settled on warning the apostles to speak no more in this name. Harry pointed out that the word translated "warn" can also mean "threaten," and appears only three times in Scripture — its force illustrated by its other use in Genesis 27:42, where Esau threatens to kill Jacob.
In the final section, verses 18-22, the council commands Peter and John not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. Peter and John's reply — "Which is right in God's eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:19-20) — is, Harry noted, again spoken with boldness, and implicitly tells the leaders that they no longer represent the expression of God's will. Since Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, any government, king, ruler or earthly authority that forbids his followers from speaking about him must be resisted: believers are to obey God, not man. Unable to decide on a punishment, and with all the people praising God for what had happened, the council let them go — and Harry closed by underlining the detail in verse 22, that the man who had been miraculously healed was over forty years old, making the sign impossible to explain away.
Harry's real burden in this session was personal responsibility in the face of evidence. Everyone in this story — the crowds, the council, the apostles — sees or hears the same undeniable facts, yet responds in opposite ways; some believe and praise God, others harden their hearts and try to shut the message down, and Scripture is clear that those in positions of teaching and leadership carry the heavier accountability for how they respond. Against that, Harry held up Peter and John as the model: filled with the Spirit rather than fear, they were courteous to authority but refused to let it override their obedience to God, and their confidence rested not in their own credentials — they were, after all, "unschooled, ordinary men" — but simply in having been with Jesus and having a name, Jesus', that saves and cannot be silenced. The challenge Harry left the class with was whether they, too, would keep speaking about what they had seen and heard even if it cost them, and whether their own answer, when tested, would ultimately be "we cannot help it."
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you that we are gathered here in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit, open up our hearts and our minds that we might understand your words in the Scriptures and get to know you more, that we might live holy lives, and that we might share the Good News about Jesus in the power of your Spirit, for the building of your Church and the extending of your Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, in and through Jesus Christ, Amen.
