If you're not being persecuted, you're not going hard enough
When is the last time you were 'counted worthy' of persecution? A word from Acts 5
The apostles had gotten off easy — with a flogging, rather than a crucifixion, a stoning or a beheading.
In Acts 5, at the urging of a Pharisee named Gamaliel, “a teacher of the law,” the Sanhedrin decides against martyring the apostles.
Citing the case of Theudas and Judas the Galilean, rebels who died for their causes, Gamaliel tells the Jewish council that “if their purpose or activity is from human origin, it will fail.
“But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God,” Gamaliel tells the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:38-39.
Gamaliel did not cite John the Baptist or Jesus among his examples of failed, man-made movements. Indeed, Jesus had birthed the apostles, who preached in Jesus’s name.
This was what the Sanhedrin feared most.
Twice — in Acts 4:18 and 5:28 — the Sanhedrin ordered the apostles not to preach in Jesus’ name. The apostles never listened, and never stopped preaching.
Between the first and second time, the council jailed the apostles. The only reason a second order was needed is because after an angel freed the apostles, they went right back to the courtyard, preaching the name of Jesus.
Acts 5:28 shows why the Sanhedrin feared this so.
“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” the chief priest told the apostles. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
The apostles’ teachings weren’t religiously offensive, they were politically-threatening.
The Sanhedrin had used Pontius Pilate as a cat’s paw, getting the Roman to kill Jesus by a Roman means, crucifixion. But the blame still attached to the council.
Apostles preaching in Jesus’s name would be talking about how he died, and who ordered him killed. If the council felt Pilate would be blamed for Jesus, a sentence like “you…are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood” would never be spoken.
The Jesus movement only grew after his death. Gamaliel’s advice to the Sanhedrin, then, was a warning against creating more martyrs. Kill someone only points to the power of their message.
So the apostles got off with a flogging, and another warning. They were happy to be flogged.
They took persecution as proof they were getting somewhere. Not as a reason to stop.
“The apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name,” reads Acts 5:41.
The apostles rejoiced at being “counted worthy of suffering disgrace.”
The apostles started every day awaiting persecution. They hoped to be counted worthy of that honor, and they kept showing up.
“Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that is Jesus Christ,” reads Acts 5:42.
We weren’t meant to read about them for entertainment. We were meant to follow in their footsteps.
But we don’t. Suffering disgrace? In this economy? We don’t want to get a mean tweet.