NOTES for Act 5:38-39

This is how Gamaliel, the highly authoritative rabbi, advised the Sanhedrin to treat the newborn Church of Christ. These words of his are called the "principle of Gamaliel"; the evangelist Luke gives them in Acts as a kind of testimony that Old Testament spirituality as such proved open enough to judge the actions of the Spirit of God by their fruits. This means that the hostility of the Jewish religious authorities toward the Lord Jesus and His Church was dictated by other, purely human reasons: envy, political calculation... According to tradition, Gamaliel himself became a Christian at the end of his life. Thus the principle of Gamaliel is a generally biblical principle, flowing from both Testaments, for how to relate to spiritual phenomena unfamiliar to us. This is very important, because only by being guided by it do we keep from putting our judgment ahead of God's. The actions and views of other people often strike us as strange, and even outrageous, and it is natural for us to show our position at once and take appropriate measures. Our judgment is quick and unequivocal. But here is what wisdom, nourished by the deepest knowledge of Scripture, says: "Do not hurry; give God the opportunity to reveal His judgment." The fact that we disagree with something can become condemnation for us if it is from God. After all, God Himself says that He makes all things new. New means unfamiliar to us, something with which it is not easy to agree at once. Here patience and a peaceful spirit are needed, without which it is impossible to be a Christian.