In order to understand the story, we're reading 4:1-12 - I'll need to talk about why Peter and John are in prison in the first place. Essentially, they came across a guy who was lame from birth. The guy asks for money; instead, since they knew that Jesus lived his life with love and compassion and healing and justice, they decided to go deeper. They don't offer him charity - they offer him healing. They give him his dignity back, he no longer needs to beg. They give him his life back - now he can presumably work for a living.

This is where we pick up the story. The religious leaders are upset because Peter and John are teaching about Jesus the resurrected one. They're trying to figure out where their power comes from - presumably they feel threatened. So they bring in the very same people (the high priest) who gave the go ahead for Jesus to be put to death.

Peter defends the two of them - they haven't come to disturb anything, they've come to bring the things that Jesus brought - love, compassion, healing, and justice. In Jesus, God is putting the world back together again. He is the "capstone" - he is unique - in Jesus, God is up to something new in the world and we get to be a part of it.

The message Peter is trying to get across is something like this: you want to make sense of what you think you know about the divine? You want to know what God is truly like? You want to make sense of your own life and what it means to be a human being? Look at Jesus. Love. Compassion. Healing. Justice. That's what God looks like - that's God's dream for us human beings.

This is why I haven't given up on religion - haven't given up on faith, even though Christians have given me lots of reasons to do so. Jesus is unique - extraordinary. We turn our lives toward him and then pattern our own lives after his. We make our own lives about love, etc.

Speaker: Aaron Vis

Scripture: Acts 4:1-12