NIKKI STEVENSON | Co-Host, Former Adventist Podcast |
As we return together to the book of Acts, I encourage you to have your Bible open and to read these chapters in full so you can keep the broader context in view. We will be covering a large section of the narrative (chapters 3-7), not to expound every passage, but to notice the major themes Luke is developing as the story moves forward.
In this article, we will continue watching Luke’s careful method of reporting historical events. As the apostles bear witness in Jerusalem, Luke shows that their testimony is public, examinable, and increasingly resisted by those most invested in maintaining power. We also begin to see a growing contrast between leadership that stands in the light of truth and leadership that fears the loss of control.
Before we begin, I want to encourage one particular habit of observation as you read these chapters. In Living by the Book, Dr. Howard Hendricks teaches readers to observe more than words, structure, and literary form. He also encourages us to read for atmosphere. He defines this as “picking up the setting and feelings from the Biblical text” (emphasis mine). This step does not invite us to add details that are not there. It invites us to pay closer attention to the details Luke actually gives. These events took place in real settings, among real people, under real pressures. Paying attention to that atmosphere breathes life into the narrative in a way that can be missed when read too quickly. With that in mind, let’s step into Acts 3 and 4.
Open Witness in the Temple, Guarded Resistance from the Leaders (Acts 3-4:22)
In the last article we looked at Luke’s record of the ascension of Christ and Pentecost in chapters 1 and 2. After Pentecost, Luke places the church back into the public life of Jerusalem. Chapter 3 opens with Peter and John walking together to the temple at the ninth hour of prayer—about 3:00 in the afternoon.
As a new former Adventist, I remember reading details like that and feeling unsure of what to do with them. Why were Christians still going to the temple? In Adventism I had been trained to read historical details as moral examples and immediate instructions for myself. So when I saw the apostles still moving within Jewish culture and patterns of life, it made me nervous. As a Christian I knew that I was no longer under the law, so why were my apostles engaging with Jewish customs?
So when I saw the apostles still moving within Jewish culture and patterns of life, it made me nervous. As a Christian I knew that I was no longer under the law, so why were my apostles engaging with Jewish customs?
The answer is not that the apostles were drifting back under the law. They were Israelites, and Israel’s identity did not begin with the giving of the Mosaic Law; it came from God Himself when He intervened in human history through the life of Abraham. Becoming followers of their Jewish Messiah did not erase their Jewish identity. Rather, it placed them among the Israel of God—the believing remnant within Israel. So when we see our Jewish brothers and sisters in Acts engaging in Jewish customs, we do not need to panic or assume Luke is presenting those customs as binding patterns for the whole church.
With that in mind, let’s notice the setting. Peter and John go up to the temple at one of the busiest hours of prayer when worshippers gathered in the courts to pray, give thanks, and recite Scripture. It was in this public setting that they encountered a man well known by those who frequented the temple. He was lame from birth and was daily placed at the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple.
When Peter and John approached, the man asked them for alms. Peter told him to look at them and the man fixed his attention on them. Peter then said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Luke records that, “leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God” (Acts 3:8).
Luke goes on to tell us that all the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the same man who had sat for years at the Beautiful Gate asking for alms. They were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. As the healed man clung to Peter and John, the people came running together to them in Solomon’s Portico. Luke’s details let us feel the beauty and excitement of the scene. This was not a private religious experience. It was a public miracle involving a publicly known man in one of the most visible places in Jerusalem. Peter did not let the moment go unexplained. When the crowd gathered, he immediately interpreted what had happened in relation to Jesus and did so from within Israel’s own Scriptures.
There is something especially striking about Peter in this scene. The disciple who once denied Jesus now stands in one of the most public places in Jerusalem, at one of its busiest hours, and speaks the name of Jesus of Nazareth without hesitation. The fear that once marked him is gone. Peter is now a Spirit-filled man who desires to honor God more than preserve himself, and that is a mark of leadership that stands in the light of truth. From that new life, he calls the people of Israel to repentance and bears witness to Jesus as their promised Messiah. Many believed.
The response of Jerusalem’s leaders is just as telling as Peter’s boldness. What Peter was willing to do in the light, they immediately sought to drag into the darkness of prison. The Sadducees were greatly annoyed that Peter and John were proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. So they arrested them and placed them in custody overnight until the rulers, elders, and scribes could gather together to discuss what to do with them.
Under the cover of privilege, away from the crowds, men of high standing gathered to question the apostles—leaders whose authority was deeply entangled with power, political positioning, and the preservation of their own influence. They asked them by what power they healed the lame man. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter confronted them with the terrifying truth that it was by the name of the man whom they crucified—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead—that this man stood healed before them. He went on to say, “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved,” (4:11,12).
The leaders, unable to refute their testimony, sent them out so they could confer among themselves: “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name,” (4:16-17)
They did not deny the miracle because they could not. The healed man was standing before them and the people of Jerusalem knew it. Rather than submit to the truth and turn to Jesus, they turned to suppression. This is one of Luke’s clearest contrasts between truthful leadership and manipulative leadership.
The Church Under Pressure: Open Prayer, Holy Integrity, Open Leadership
Open Prayer (Acts 4:23-31)
What follows reveals just as much about the apostles’ kind of leadership as the council’s response revealed about theirs. After Peter and John were released, they returned to their companions and reported all that had happened. Notice how the church responded. They did not spiral into panic, or gather for secret image-management meetings. Instead, they lifted their voices to God.
Their prayer is striking. They did not ask God to change their circumstances; they asked Him to give them boldness to continue speaking His word in the midst of them. They understood that He is Sovereign even over this situation. The One who created heaven and earth had them all in His hands. They understood that even the death of their Lord happened according to God’s predestined plan. So they spoke back to God what they knew was true about Him, and as they did, they were filled with boldness to keep speaking His word. Threat did not drive them into hiding. It drove them into dependent, Scripture-shaped prayer.
Holy Integrity (Acts 4:32-5:11)
Luke then tells us that the church was of one heart and soul. They cared for one another, shared what they had, and made provision for those in need. Their unity was a mark of distinction among them. Believers sold lands or houses and laid the proceeds at the feet of the apostles to distribute to each as they had need. In this context, Luke quietly introduces Barnabas, who sold a field and brought the money to the apostles, a man who will become more significant as Acts unfolds.
Immediately after describing the unity and integrity of the church and introducing Barnabas, Luke places beside him Ananias and Sapphira. I used to bristle at this account. What does this tell us about God? But the longer I have sat with Acts, the more this story has come to feel like it is exactly where it belongs. Their story is uncomfortable, but it is not out of place. In chapters already exposing hypocrisy, concealment, and the fear-driven preservation of image among Jerusalem’s leaders, Luke now shows that God does not ignore the same fruit when it appears within the church.
Peter makes clear that their sin was not withholding money, but lying to God. The property was theirs, and the proceeds were theirs to keep or give. Their offense was deception. They wanted the appearance of surrender without the reality of it. In that sense, their sin fits the larger atmosphere of these chapters. Again we see the contrast between truth in the light and falsehood carefully managed for human approval.
This account reveals that in this foundational moment, as God was establishing His church through the apostles and marking their ministries with public signs and wonders, He would not allow its foundation to be laid with the same hypocrisy He was exposing in corrupt religious leadership. This moment stands in history as a warning. God is not indifferent to falsehood among His people, and hypocrisy does not escape His notice, even today when judgment is not immediate. We will all give an account to our Holy God.
Open Leadership (Acts 5:12- 6:7)
Having shown that God would not permit hypocrisy to take root within the church, Luke turns us back to the public ministry of the apostles. He tells us that many signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the apostles. These were not random displays of power. They picked up a familiar thread in Israel’s history. When God sent His authorized messengers, He often marked their message with signs that testified He was truly behind them.
Luke tells us, “more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,” (5:14). People from all over Jerusalem and even from surrounding towns were bringing the sick and oppressed into the city to be healed by the apostles. The crowds they drew were not insignificant and did not escape the notice of the Jewish leaders.
The very signs that led multitudes to repent and believe, and that revealed God’s hand behind the apostles’ message, filled the high priest and Sadducees with jealousy.
The very signs that led multitudes to repent and believe, and that revealed God’s hand behind the apostles’ message, filled the high priest and Sadducees with jealousy. Once again they arrested the apostles and placed them in a public prison.
Yet, even arrest and prison could not silence men sent by God. During the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and led them out. The angel instructed them, “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life,” (5:20). God was sending them back into the very public setting from which they had been arrested. He commanded them to continue speaking truth.
Unaware of the fact that the apostles had been freed during the night, the high priest and those who were with him called together the council and all the senate of the people of Israel to witness the rebuking of the apostles. The irony is hard to miss. The leaders who were gathering an even larger and more public audience to exert their authority, where in fact setting the stage for their own public rebuke from God.
All were gathered and the guards were sent to bring the apostles before them. But when the guards returned, they were empty-handed and reported, “We found the prison securely locked and guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside.” As they stood together perplexed, someone entered and announced, “Look! The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.”
Once again, the apostles were brought before the council. The high priest reminded them that they had been instructed not to teach “in this name.” I am struck by his refusal even to say the name of Jesus. He went on, “You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us,” (5:28). His protest reveals more than he means to. The apostles’ witness had become too public to contain, and the leaders knew what was being said about them. They were morally cornered. If Jesus truly was the one sent by God, then His blood really was on their heads.
Here Luke’s contrast between two kinds of leadership comes into view again. The leaders were still trying to protect their positions, but the apostles answered as men under orders from God. They did not try to soften the truth or reduce the tension in the room to elicit favor. They answered directly: they must obey God rather than men. In doing so, they tied Jesus to “the God of our fathers,” repeated the leaders’ guilt in His death, and declared that the very One they rejected and killed, God had exalted as Leader and Savior. Luke’s record of their answer reveals that they were not engaging in careful damage control; they were acting as faithful public witnesses.
When the leaders of Israel heard the apostles’ response they were so enraged that they wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, who was held in honor, sent the apostles out and urged caution to the rest of the council. He reminded them that if this movement was merely human it would fail on its own, but if it was from God, they would not be able to overthrow it and might even be found opposing Him. I’m struck by the fact that some of the Pharisees seemed to recognize that they could be standing on the wrong side of the situation.
Even after beating the apostles and ordering them again not to speak in the name of Jesus, the leaders could not stop them. In fact, the apostles left rejoicing that they were counted worthy of suffering for the name of Jesus. They did not give way to threats or fear, but continued teaching daily that Jesus is the Christ.
After giving us multiple examples of how corrupt leadership deals with conflict, Luke moves us into a situation where we can see how the apostles dealt with conflict among those whom they lead. Again, Luke’s placement of this account seems intentional.
A complaint arose over the neglect of the Hellenist widows when food was distributed among the church. Instead of retreating into secret or privileged spaces to manage the problem, the apostles gathered the full number of Christ’s followers, named the issue openly, and led the church through the conflict in the light of day.
After seven Hellenist men were chosen to serve the Hellenist widows, the apostles publicly laid their hands upon them and prayed for them. Not only do we see integrity and openness in the apostles’ leadership, we also see a different kind of qualification for leadership than the power-protective structures Luke has been exposing among Jerusalem’s leaders. These men were chosen because they were full of the Spirit and wisdom, and were of good character before all people.
Luke ends this section of contrasted leadership with these words: “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” God did not waste the faithfulness of the apostles before the leaders of Israel. Though the hostility of the Sanhedrin was increasing, Luke makes clear that even there, among those closest to that opposition, many of the priests were being brought to faith.
Stephen and the Exposure of the Leader’s Resistance (Acts 6:8-7)
First mentioned in the list of the men chosen to serve the Hellenist widows is Stephen, whom Luke describes as “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,” (6:5). Luke goes on to tell us that Stephen was also full of grace and power and was doing great wonders and signs among the people. He was not a side character in the life of the early church. He emerges from within this openly recognized leadership structure as yet another public witness to the risen Christ whose message is marked by signs and wonders done in Jesus’ name. Like the apostles before him, this drew great opposition from unbelieving Jews.
Once again naming real groups and locations rooted in history, Luke tells us that men from the Synagogue of the Freedmen rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. Rather than engaging with the truth of Stephen’s message, these opponents resorted to false accusations and the stirring up of a mob against the man they could not answer. This is a pattern we will see repeated throughout the book of Acts.
Their accusations against Stephen set the stage for his long speech, which is not a random history lesson or an attempt to de-escalate the moment, but a faithful and bold indictment. Before Stephen even begins to answer them, Luke tells us that “all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel,” (6:15). It is hard not to think of Moses here. Stephen is about to walk them through Israel’s history, to speak of Moses at length, and to confront leaders who claim to stand in that same tradition but who have rejected their Messiah.
We don’t have space to walk through Stephen’s speech in detail, but I hope you will take some time to read it. As Stephen rehearses Israel’s history, a pattern begins to emerge. Again and again, God acts, speaks, sends, and provides, and again and again His people resist the ones He sends.
Appealing to their first common father Abraham, Stephen begins at a place I imagine the leaders would have welcomed. He moves from Abraham to Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. He recounts the life of Moses and the exodus of Israel, then speaks of Israel’s discontentment with God and His work among them. From there he turns to the tabernacle God gave Israel and then to the temple built in the days of Solomon. But Stephen does not let the temple become a point of false security. Quoting the prophet Isaiah, he reminds the leaders that God does not dwell in houses made by human hands.
After tracing God’s faithfulness among a repeatedly faithless people, Stephen turns to indict the leaders before him. They were no different from their fathers who had been faithless. They too were resisting the Holy Spirit and refusing the One to whom Israel’s history had been pointing all along: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
Again the leaders of Israel were enraged. Yet, in the middle of their murderous reaction, Luke tells us that God gave Stephen a vision of Jesus in heaven where He stood at the right hand of God in His glory. This enraged the leaders further and they took him out of the city to stone him. In the middle of this account of the first Christian martyr, Luke makes mention of a young man named Saul, who stood by the garments of those who were stoning Stephen.
Stephen’s death was one of the clearest expressions of the Christian witness in the book of Acts. Even as men raged against truth, Stephen died looking to Jesus, speaking to Jesus, and entrusting Himself to Jesus.
In a moment that looked like the pinnacle of human rejection, powerlessness, and fear, Stephen called out to his Lord Jesus, asking Him to receive his spirit, and pleaded for mercy on those who were murdering him. Luke tells us that after this prayer, Stephen fell asleep. Stephen’s death was one of the clearest expressions of the Christian witness in the book of Acts. Even as men raged against truth, Stephen died looking to Jesus, speaking to Jesus, and entrusting Himself to Jesus. What Luke records in Stephen’s death is not defeat, but worship. Brought before this council on trumped-up charges, Stephen did not spend his final moments defending himself; he used the opportunity to faithfully proclaim Christ—even unto death.
Truth in the Light
As we close this section of Acts, I want to return where we began—with Luke’s details. We slowed down to notice atmosphere, setting, pressure, and response among two different kinds of leadership.
Luke’s account of the apostles’ leadership revealed a faith that did not hide. The apostles and Stephen not only publicly healed, preached, answered opposition, suffered, and led—they did so boldly and unapologetically. And in Stephen we saw that faithful witness can become worship even in the face of death.
At the same time, Luke has shown us another kind of leadership: leadership deeply invested in preserving power. When pressured, these leaders resorted to secrecy, suppression, manipulation, and rage. They were not victims of a lack of evidence for Jesus. The miracles were public, the preaching was clear, and the witnesses were many. These leaders were actively resisting what God had made plain.
Luke has left us a remarkable historical account. But he also left us evidence of leadership that stands in the light of truth, and leadership that fears exposure. For those of us coming out of manipulative religion, that evidence matters deeply.
Many of us leave Adventism and wonder whether we can even trust our ability to discern when we’re being lied to and when we are looking at truth. We don’t know if truth can even be known. But Luke shows us that truth can be known, because truth stands in the light. God has not made Himself unknowable, and Scripture does not ask us to shut off discernment and simply submit to unverifiable claims.
Jesus taught that true and false people can be recognized by their fruit (Matt 7:16-20). He also said that the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God, while the one who does evil hates the light and avoids it lest his works be exposed (John 3:20-21). Scripture is equally clear that there are some who appear to belong to the people of God but do not truly belong to Christ at all (1 John 2:19; Matt. 7:21-23). The Bible does not call us to naïveté. It calls us to love the truth, walk in the light, and test what is placed before us. And Luke writes in a way that makes such testing possible. He does not present Christianity as a secretive system protected from examination, but as God’s work in real history, out in the open, where claims can be weighed.
In the next section of Acts, the gospel will press beyond Jerusalem and we will notice together how Luke records the inclusion of the gentiles and the conversion of the young man who guarded the coats of Stephen’s murders. I hope you’ll join me. If you want to spend time in the chapters we’ll cover, be sure to read Acts 8–12. †
- Acts Chapters 3–7 - April 16, 2026
- Acts Chapters 1 and 2 - February 26, 2026
- Why I love Acts: History, Honesty, and the Search for Truth - January 8, 2026