Courage and Confidence

Grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence.
–Acts 4:29

When Peter and John were hauled before the religious leaders, they did not back down. The religious leaders were disturbed because the apostles had healed a man and were preaching the gospel. But Peter and John refused to compromise on proclaiming the name of Jesus.

I want to point out something the religious leaders noticed while they were questioning the apostles. Acts 4:13 says, “As they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.”

From the religious leaders’ perspective, these apostles were ignoramuses. After all, they hadn’t graduated from a rabbinical school. How could they be so knowledgeable? It also dawned on the religious leaders that Peter and John were two of the men who had been following Jesus for the last three years. They probably thought, Didn’t these guys desert Him after He was arrested? The religious leaders were amazed that these men who had been cowards were now courageous, confident witnesses.

How did the religious leaders react to the apostles’ boldness? They threatened Peter and John a little more before releasing them “on account of the people, because they were all glorifying God for what had happened” (v. 21). And notice how the other Christians reacted: “When [Peter and John] had been released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord” (vv. 23–24). Together the church gave thanks to God, then they prayed, “Grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence” (v. 29).

When the other Christians saw the boldness of the apostles, they asked God to give them that same boldness. And that’s exactly what happened. Verse 31 says, “When they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.” The early church was strengthened because of the name of Jesus.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “No Other Name,” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2021.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.