Can Piety Oppose the Gospel? (Acts 5:12-42)

Introduction: Beware the Pious Ones

Introduction: Beware the Pious Ones

My dad used to warn me, "Be careful of the pious ones." That puzzled me for years. Piety should be about loving God, pursuing God. So why would anyone warn you to be careful of pious people?

Then, I noticed that the most pious in Christ’s day received His sharpest words. Christ warns the pious that they are shutting people out of the kingdom. In fact, in all their evangelistic zeal, they are only creating disciples of hell. That should make us pause and contemplate true piety.

Acts 5 gives some insight into this problem. We discover that there are self-proclaimed pious people actively working against the work of Christ. So the real question is: how do we know what piety we're actually pursuing?

The Community's Power (Acts 5:12–16)

Word spreads about Ananias and Sapphira, and the healing of the disciples. The crowds do not discern the truth, but hold the apostles on some superstitious pedestal. They bring their sick to the disciples, hoping that at least a shadow will fall on the sick and bring healing. However, they don’t want to get too close because people die in this community.

The problem is that people look to the apostles for healing rather than to Christ. We have seen this with the crippled man. He clung to the apostles, and not his savior. The apostles made it very clear that the Lord brings healing. So, the Apostles continue to preach the gospel.

Tragically, the crowd misses the point of the signs. The signs are not self-promoting signs that the false prophets use to promote their own significance. Christ warned his disciples about these false prophets before going to the cross (Mt. 24:24; Mk 13:22; Luke 21:8). No, these are signs that gave the prophets credibility and authenticity to confirm their message. It was not to compete with the message. Unfortunately, they would rather watch for a miracle than find their wholeness in Christ. It takes time to be progressively transformed by His word.

This helps us see true piety versus false piety. True piety looks to our God. False piety looks to the tangible in this world.

God's Power Play (Acts 5:17–26)

The high priest and the Sadducees move against the apostles out of jealousy. The Sadducees deny the supernatural. They claim that there is no resurrection, no miracle, nothing supernatural. They believe that Scripture is an ethical handbook rather than the living and abiding Word of God that confers life.

They are jealous that the Apostles are gaining traction. They cannot tolerate a movement built on a risen Christ. A movement with credible healings and miracles. The apostles’ ministry is a radical existential threat to their power. So, they react by assuming that if you silence the messengers, then you silence the movement. So, they try to silence the apostles by locking them up in jail.

An angel quietly opens the prison at night. There is no disturbance outside the prison, so the guards assume everything is fine. The Lord sends the apostles right back to the temple with a simple charge: go speak all the words of this Life. The next morning, the council sends for the prisoners and finds an empty locked cell. The word returns to the senate that the "prisoners" are already preaching at the temple. God dismantles the power play without raising his voice. The glorified and resurrected Jesus of Nazareth will be proclaimed.

Who Really Holds the Power (Acts 5:27–42)

The Apostles are escorted from the temple to the senate. The apostles are accused of trying to put "this man's blood" on them. Please keep in mind that this senate is the same group of people who once told Pilate, "his blood be on us." Peter's answer is direct: "We must obey God rather than men," and he pointedly calls God "the God of our fathers.” The Apostles are in the li