NOTES for Act 4:13-21
Bearing witness is a responsibility. It is above all this responsibility that accounts for Christians’ refusal to compromise, including that of the apostles before the Sanhedrin. Christian service is, first and foremost, precisely witness. Although it may sometimes seem that Christians are occupied with a host of other things, witness comes first and matters most. Everything else is merely the form it takes. Of course, if Christianity were just another new religion, everything would be different. Religion has to be taught.
It has to be spread by attracting new adherents. With Christianity, everything is different, because it is not a religion but a life: life with Christ in His Kingdom. In that very Kingdom of which He Himself said that it ‘has drawn near.’ It is now close at hand; all one needs is to want to enter. And to trust Him, for He is the King of His Kingdom. Life cannot be taught. There are, of course, plenty of people in the world who like telling others how to live. But, as we know, their attempts usually fail. One can teach others how to live only by one’s own example. And if this applies to every kind of life in general, it applies especially to Christian life.
For this experience is completely out of the ordinary, unprecedented—an experience that is impossible in principle in our untransfigured world. But can an example be a good one if the very person offering it is afraid or embarrassed to speak of it openly? Even when talking about something perfectly ordinary, it is easy to lose the listeners’ trust if they realize that the speaker is keeping something back, is afraid, or is embarrassed. If they realize that there is something in his experience he does not want to tell them, they may think the experience itself was not particularly successful. This is all the more true of Christian witness, because here the witness himself matters too.
It matters whether he himself lives the life he describes. And it is easy to lose this life. It takes only a slight touch of dishonesty when speaking about what matters most. The point is not that God punishes lying. The point is that any dishonesty, especially when it concerns what matters most, destroys a person’s spiritual integrity. Then the life of the Kingdom departs. The apostles understood this perfectly: if they ceased to be faithful witnesses of God, they would lose both Christ and the Kingdom. They said this directly to the Sanhedrin, leaving what would follow to God’s will.