📊 Acts 4:12 | Ordinary People

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Happy Tuesday, everyone!

If you missed yesterday’s email, you can read it here.

In today’s email…

• 📖 Peter and John before the Jewish council

• 🦈 Protecting your personal information

• 🤔 What’s holding you back?

• 📊 This week’s trivia question..

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MEMORIZE 🧠 

And there is _________ __ __ ___ else, for there is __ _____ name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Acts 4:12

CONTEXT 📕 

Yesterday, we mentioned that Peter and John were in front of powerful religious leaders when Peter spoke our memory verse this week.

But how did Peter and John end up in such a high-stakes moment in the first place?

It all starts in Acts 3, just after Pentecost.

Peter and John are walking to the temple when they meet a man who had been unable to walk since birth.

They don’t have silver or gold but what they do have, they give: healing in the name of Jesus (Acts 3:6).

The man is instantly healed, and the crowd goes wild.

Peter uses the opportunity to preach, making it clear that it wasn’t by their own power — but by Jesus, the one crucified and raised by God, that the man was healed (Acts 3:16).

That’s when things get tense. The temple authorities, especially the Sadducees (sect of Jews who rejected any form of afterlife or resurrection), were not happy.

They arrest Peter and John, disturbed because they are preaching the resurrection of Jesus.

Now gathered in front of the council, Peter and John, former fisherman are asked by what power or name they do this preaching and healing.

Yet even under incredible pressure, Peter speaks with clarity and courage. Acts 4:13 tells us…

Did you catch that?

Their boldness didn’t come from education or status. It came from proximity to the Savior.

Being with Jesus had transformed them.

Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter doesn’t back down. He says it plainly: Jesus is the cornerstone the builders rejected, but He’s the only one who saves!

They can’t help but speak and teach of all they have experienced in their moments with Jesus before he ascended into Heaven.

Peter and John were “uneducated, common men” but this entire scene highlights a major theme of Acts:

The gospel goes forward through ordinary people who have been with Jesus and are filled with His Spirit.

Jesus used them.

And Jesus can use all of us, too.

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APPLY AND RESPOND 🏃‍♂️ 

You don’t have to be a scholar, a pastor, or someone with a perfect past to be used by God.

Peter and John were ordinary men — fishermen by trade — but they had been with Jesus, and that changed everything.

They didn’t heal. Jesus did. They didn’t save. Jesus does.

Their job was to speak boldly: “there is no other name under heaven …by which we must be saved.”

That’s our job too.

So what’s holding you back?

• Is it insecurity?

• Is it your past?

• Is it the lie that God can’t use you?

None of those disqualify you.

Proximity to Jesus is what qualifies you. God will equip you with exactly what you need to spread the gospel to all people.

Pray 🙏 

Lord, help me to remember that You use ordinary people for extraordinary purposes — and I am one of those. Give me courage to proclaim Your name when I am given the opportunity, because it is the only one that saves. Amen. 🙏

TRIVIA 📊 

ANSWER KEY ✅ 

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Acts 4:12