Living Epistles

“But seeing the boldness of Peter and John, and perceiving that they were unlearned and uneducated men, they marveled. And they recognized them, that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)

While I have included this Scripture sometimes in different messages, let’s see what the Holy Spirit has to teach us this time. Peter and John were in Jerusalem preaching Jesus in Solomon's Portico. It was a colonnade or two rows of columns supporting a roof that was on the eastern side of the Temples Outer Court and also known as the Women’s Court. After the ascension of Jesus, Christians gathered there. While Peter and John were speaking, the priests, and the temple commander, and the Sadducees took hold of them because they were preaching Jesus and the resurrection after death. Of the five thousand men there many believed.

Peter and John were put under guard for the morning when they would be brought before the counsel. When they were asked by what power or authority, they did this, Peter preached the Gospel to them. (Acts 3:11-4:3) What is interesting is that they recognized that these uneducated fishermen spoke with boldness. (Acts 4:13) The Scripture tells us that they marveled. The Greek word that was used means to wonder with admiration. Uneducated men in those days were timid and subservient due to their ignorance. The Sanhedrin recognized that Peter and John had been with Jesus. Peter had spoken with the intelligence and boldness of an assured orator. To illustrate this, it would be like listening to a five-year-old explain the constitution.

They had been with Jesus and had learned from Him. They also had the Spirit of the living God indwelling and anointing them to preach the Gospel with boldness. Jesus had told them, “But you shall receive power, the Holy Spirit coming upon you. And you shall be witnesses to Me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) The Greek word that was translated power was “ dunamis” which means miraculous power, ability and strength. And that is what the Sanhedrin recognized and associated with Jesus.

Are you a Christian? Have you been reborn again of the Spirit of God? Do you have the Holy Spirit indwelling? If your answer is yes to these questions, you too have dunamis power, ability and strength to preach the Gospel. When you speak of Jesus do others recognize that you have been with Jesus? There are two important things here in this teaching. If you have the Holy Spirit indwelling, you have dunamis power to preach the Gospel. And the other is that people should recognize that you have been with Jesus.

You may say, I don’t know enough Scripture, or I haven’t been to Bible College. Some of the best preachers I have listened to maybe didn’t know enough Scripture or go to Bible College. They shared the miracle that Jesus did in their lives. Every one of us who have received Jesus have a testimony to share. Some are dramatic, some quiet witnesses of the miracle God has made of their lives. Even those who have believed on Jesus as little children have a testimony. They have been spared the horrors of living in the world and the kingdom of sin and darkness. Their lives have been filled with the love, peace and joy of the Lord since childhood. How I would have loved that. I received Jesus at twenty-six years old. And already had lived as though it had been thousands of years in torment by the prince of this world.

Every day, we are epistles, living letters from Jesus to others. “You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men, it having been made plain that you are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, not having been written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tablets of stone, but in fleshly tablets of the heart.” (2Corinthians 3:2-3) How we live, how we speak and how we act should say that we have been with Jesus.

In short, just as the Sanhedrin could tell that Peter and John had been with Jesus, others also should see that we too have been with Jesus. Our testimony is the greatest evidence of the greatness of the Gospel. When we begin to proclaim what God has done in our lives because of Jesus our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit will give us dunamis power to preach Jesus.