All About the Name

Acts 4:23-24 & 29-31

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said . . . “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

[W]hen you come to speak or write about Jesus, about his cross, about his resurrection, about the new life which can break chains and set people free, there seem to be powers around the place which do their best to oppose what you are doing (71).

[T]he main triple thrust of the prayer is quite straightforward. Not “Lord, please cause them to die horribly” or “Please stop them being so unpleasant.” Not “Lord, let this persecution stop,” or even “Please convert the authorities so that your work can go forward.” Rather, quite simply, “Now, Lord, look on their threats; let us go on speaking boldly; and will you please continue to work powerfully.”

The church needs, again and again, that sense of God’s powerful presence, shaking us up, blowing away the cobwebs, filling us with the spirit, and giving us that same boldness (72-3).

Aaron Orendorff

The story in Acts 3-4, which begins with Peter healing a lame beggar just outside the Temple gates and ends with the church asking God to “look upon” (that is, to regard or to consider) the threats of their adversaries, is a story all about the “name” of Jesus. In 3:6, Peter tells the beggar, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” In 3:16, he tells the astounded crowd, “And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.” In 4:10, again Peter (in very similar words) tells the “rules and elders and scribes,” “Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.” In response to this claim, the council then commands Peter and John “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” (4:17-18). Lastly, in the verses now before us, the church concludes its prayer, “. . . while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

Why all this concern for the “name”?

Because the gospel isn’t really about healing for healing’s sake, it isn’t about wonders for wonders’ sake, signs for signs’ sake, boldness for boldness’ sake, nor even salvation for salvation’s sake. The gospel is ultimately about the name—that is, the person, work and reputation—of Jesus rebounding to the glory of God. It is staggering that the very people who were taught by Jesus to pray to God, “Hollowed be thy name,” have now devoted themselves to hollowing the name of Jesus.

Re-Reading Hedonism

I just finished re-reading the first chapter from John Piper’s Desiring God, “The Happiness of God.” By way of some background: I first read Piper when I was 18 or 19 years old deployed with the National Guard on the Sinai Peninsula. That was about 9 years ago now. Piper was the first real theologian I was ever exposed to. Up to that point, I’d spent most of my time reading with guys like Max Lucado and Charles Swindoll (not that I have anything against those authors; Lucado in particular provided me with much needed, good reading for the first two years of my Christian life). After that I was hooked and read just about anything else I could pick up by Piper, working my way from Future Grace to The Pleasures of God and then eventually to Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections.

What I’m struck by when I read Piper is how deadly serious he is about just about everything: sin, depravity, suffering, God’s sovereignty as well as His unwavering commitment to display His own glory and evoke praise from His people. Perhaps most striking to me (then as well as now) was how serious Piper is about joy.

It’s fun to go back and re-read, to see how much I missed the first time through and to laugh at how skillfully Piper “tricked” me into caring about both theology and joy by simply moving from Scripture to Scripture to Scripture.

Who Should We Obey?

Acts 4:17-20

“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.” So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Peter’s answer . . . is theological, and forms the basis of all Christian resistance to the powers of this world form that day to this. We could paraphrase it like this: “You’re the judges around here? Very well, give me your legal judgment on this one! If we’re standing here in God’s presence, should we obey God, or should we obey you?”

Peter answers his own question. They can actually answer it how they like, but he and his friends are not going to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, and about all the things which God has done through him (68).

Aaron Orendorff

Peter is clear in his response to the High Council: “we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” It is important to note that the church’s opposition to power—their refusal to obey an unjust law—is not rooted in that law’s opposition to an implication of the gospel; but rather it the law’s opposition to the gospel itself. This, of course, doesn’t mean that the implications of the gospel—defense for the defenseless, justice for the oppressed, care for the poor and so on—are unimportant or that they never deserve as strong a statement as “It’s either the law of man or the law of God.” What is does mean is that we must be very careful to distinguish between our causes and God’s causes. Are we speaking what we have seen and heard or what we think and enjoy? Are we defending the name of Jesus or are we defending our own?

A God of Resurrection

Acts 4:1-3

And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Resurrection, you see, is the belief which declares that the living God is going to put everything right once and for all, is going (as we saw in he previous chapter) to “restore all things,” to turn the world the right way up at last.

And those who are in power, within the world the way it is [i.e., both political and religious power] are quite right to suspect that, if God suddenly does such a drastic thing, the (to put it mildly) cannot guarantee that they will end up in power in the new world that God is going to make.

[W]hat made them angry wasn’t just Peter’s announcement that God had raised Jesus from the dead. It was, as Luke puts it, a much larger thing: that Peter was preaching the resurrection of the dead, and announcing this revolutionary doctrine “in Jesus.” In other words, Peter was saying not only that Jesus himself had been raised, but that this was the start and the sign of God’s eventual restoration of everything (3.21) (63).

Aaron Orendorff

Resurrection is an impossible thing to manage. If God is in the business of giving “life to the dead and [calling] into existence things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17), then God—the God revealed in and through Jesus Christ—is not a God who works within the structure (the “natural order of things”); such a God is not a God who acts in accordance with what is. Instead, a God of resurrection is a God who (to put it succinctly) does what he wants, how he wants, when he wants, with what he wants. Resurrection does not consult the dead and ask their opinion. Resurrections acts unilaterally to do not only what the dead cannot do for themselves but what is absolutely impossible for anyone to do or even to occur. Such a God is thoroughly unpredictable, thoroughly uncontrollable, thoroughly dangerous and thoroughly wonderful and worthy of worship.

Summing Up

Acts 3:18-21

But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Peter, you see, is claiming much more than simply a few random proof-texts . . . . He is understanding the Old Testament as a single great story which was constantly pointing forward to something that God was going to do through Abraham and his family, something that Moses, Samuel, Isaiah and the rest were pointing on towards as well. This great Something was the restoration of all things, the time when everything would be put right at last. And now, he says, it’s happened! It’s happened in Jesus! And you can be part of it (59).

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, anyone who turns away from the life they’ve been leading and turns to God instead . . . anyone can know in advance the joy of being forgiven, of being refreshed by the love and mercy of God, of discovering new life and purpose in following Jesus (59-60).

Aaron Orendorff

Peter’s sermon (his appeal)—prompted by the miraculous healing of a well-known, crippled beggar just outside Temple gates—unfolds in three parts. First, the gospel proclaimed: Jesus died—that is, he was crucified, “denied . . . delivered over . . . killed” (vv. 13-15)—and was raised—“glorified,” Peter says, by “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Second, the gospel response: faith in Jesus as the “Holy and Righteous One . . . the Author [or Ruler] of life” and repentance—“turning every one of you from your wickedness.” Third, the gospel results: (1) the forgiveness of sins, (2) times of refreshing in the present and (3) the restoration of all things in the future.

“. . .you killed the Author of life . . .”

Acts 3:13-16

“The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.”

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

[T]hrid, Jesus is also “the prince of life.” The word “prince” here can also mean “the one who initiates something”: he is not so much the ruler over “life,” as the sovereign one who brings life, who initiates new life, who pioneers the way through death, decay and corruption and out the other side into a kind of “life” that nobody had imagined before. . . . Wherever [Jesus] went, he brought new life, the life which indicated that God was now in charge. This makes it all the more ridiculous, paradoxical even, that his own people rejected him and sent him to his death: they killed that prince of life! But, of course, God raised him up—the resurrection continues to be at the heart of the proclamation of the church and the explaining of why new life is now happening—so that his work of brining new life continues unchecked (55).

Power That Is Personal

Acts 3:4-8

And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter 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!” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Luke emphasizes [in v. 4] that Peter and John looked hard at the man. They stared intently at him. . . . Somehow there is something important about that deep, face-to-face contact: not only did Peter and John stare at him, but they told him to look hard at them, too. . . . What is about to happen is something that involves a deep human contact as well as a deep work of God (50).

Aaron Orendorff

In the regular operations of day-to-day life, power creates distance. Whether political, social, economic or even religious, power separates. The cult of celebrity (ubiquitous in our culture) creates two strata of society, two casts: the have’s power and fame and the have’s not power and fame.

Yet here, in Peter and John’s interaction with a nameless beggar, power unites. As Wright points out, Peter and John do not stand aloof from the beggar, dispensing healing power from arm’s length. They look intently at the man and call him to look back. They involve themselves, deeply and personally.

Here then is a model for ministry, or perhaps better, a model for service. The power to help reaches out person-to-person, “face-to-face.” Jesus-power (power “in the name of the Messiah”) is power meditated through risky, unsafe and unavoidably personal human contact.

The Church and the Gospel

Acts 2:42-47

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Acts 2.42 is often regarded as laying down “the four marks of the church.” The apostle’s teaching; the common life of those who believed; the breaking of bread; and the prayers. These four go together. You can’t separate them, or leave one out, without damage to the whole thing (44).

This shared life quickly developed in one particular direction, which is both fascinating and controversial. The earliest Christians lived as a single family (45-6).

And they had a word for this way of ordering their life, a word which we have often taken to refer to feelings inside you but which, for them, was primarily about what you do with your possessions when you’re a part of this big, extended family. The word is “love,” agapē in Greek (46).

When Jesus’ followers behave like this, they sometimes find, to their surprise, that they have a new spring in their step. There is an attractiveness, an energy about a life in which we stop clinging on to everything we can get and start sharing it, giving it away, celebrating God’s generosity by being generous ourselves. And that attractiveness is one of the things that draws other people in (47).

Aaron Orendorff

What was it that produced this remarkable and profoundly communal way of life? Strategy? Planning? Programs? Leadership? No. The simple (frighteningly simple) answer is this: the gospel. Acts 2 is about God launching a renewed, missional community through the outpouring of the Spirit by means of the gospel preached. The Spirit comes in power to make the gospel known, to shape people (not simply individuals, but entire groups) into conformity with the gospel and it is only as the gospel is clearly proclaimed and authentically received that real, deep change takes place.

If what we long for is an Acts 2:42-47 church, then what we must do is declare and embrace an Acts 2:14-46 message.