Fourth Sunday After Easter, Year B 2023 – 24: Substituted Acts Passage – “Building up” our faith

“The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:5 – 7)

One of the things that surprised me, and irritated me slightly, about seminary & biblical study more specifically was that any exegesis or interpretation/commentary had to be backed up by someone else who with enough time and wherewithal had established a “confirmed” insight. I was reminded of this when reading the first few verses of this passage. My bible seminary teaches did not conducted an inquiry as here in this passage. But the implications are parallel; “Who are to say and preach what you have said? And who conferred on you the right to say it!” Fortunately when I was able to verify that competent, knowledge, and astute enough, my exegesis was deemed acceptable.

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’ “ (Verses 8 – 11)

As I am pondering on this passage, and reading familiar words, it occurs to me there is another level in this passage. The Jews of this time and several generations before built on interpretation that others established. The words, nay, even the letters were debated as what they meant and how they could be interpreted; and what the correct interpretation was. Laws for worship, tenets for obeying the laws of Moses, and for one believer to relate and be in relationship with another were discerned and evolved. There were legendary and established Jewish teachers who formed around themselves schools and schools of thought. If one was to be considered a rabbi and have authority conferred on one’s self, one had to subscribe to a school of thought and an acceptable school of thought for the temple/synagogue one (being male) worshiped at. [Now here comes my point.] They were actively building the Jewish faith from one generation to the next. And only acceptable and confirmed belief would be allowed. So when Peter says they “the builders” rejected Jesus, it meant aside from all the other things they had against him, he was just not “one of them.” But Peter says, what they rejected instead of accepting, discarded instead of building upon, was the whole foundation for “correct” faith! (I hope my New Testament biblical seminary professor would be proud of me and accept this insight!)

“There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (Verse 12)

Beloved reader, Jesus the Christ & Messiah will always be, and should be, the starting point for building one’s faith and spirituality. Whatever direction you come from in your faith life, the end point and the road signs along the way will point & be the Divine! Shalom & Selah!