Every generation of Christians must learn to read the story that they’re in. This means saturating themselves in the word of God and bringing it to bear on their own lives and times. Several years ago, I preached a message on “Acts for Americans,” exploring the series of escalating collisions between the early Christian movement and the regnant authorities in Jerusalem in the early chapters of Acts. Four groups repeatedly come into contact: the apostles, the nascent church, the Jewish leaders, and the mass of unbelievers before whom the collisions took place.
In the first collision, the apostles are arrested because they “greatly annoyed” the Jewish leaders and are released with a warning: “Stop preaching in the name of Jesus.” We’re told that the leaders were amazed at the boldness of these uneducated fishermen.
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