"Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly."

Acts 4:29-31

The language of verses 24–26 contains echoes of the psalms of lament, especially in the question, ‘Why do the nations rage…?’ The disciples recognize that history is repeating itself: the nations had always resisted God’s will, but now not only Herod and Pontius Pilate, but ‘the people of Israel’ (v. 27) were rejecting the Messiah Jesus!

However, the prayer of lament does not lead to paralysis in the light of the threats made by the authorities. In fact, it triggers further intercession in which the church requests great boldness to defy the authorities and ‘speak your word’ (v. 29) in public! The assembly refuses to confine their faith in the risen Lord to the private sphere, locked away in sectarian gatherings where it will pose no threat to the political and religious authorities.

The lesson is that the message of the resurrection cannot be confined and restricted in this way, because it contains the announcement of life for a world overshadowed by death! There are serious questions here for Christians in the modern Western world, where faith has been largely restricted to the personal and private spheres, leaving politics, economics, and even moral values unchallenged by the good news of the risen Christ. At a time when injustice, poverty,and violence stalk the earth, must we not plead for holy boldness to testify to the resurrected One in the public realm? Yes, we need for holy boldness to testify the gospel of Christ.

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, I look to you to provide for holy boldness to continue in what you have called me to, all for your glory.

(edited from Encounter with God)