Acts 4:24

Acts 4:24. They lifted up their voice to God with one accord. In what manner now are we to conclude that this primitive congregation of Christ's followers poured forth their earnest supplications to the Most High? Some would prefer to understand the prayer to have been an utterance of one of the apostles or disciples, the thoughts suggested by the urgent need of the moment; and that while one uttered the words, the rest followed, some with their voice, others only with the heart. Another view suggested is, that the whole assembly sung together the 2d Psalm, and that Peter made it the basis of his prayer in their present perplexity. Another and, as it seems, a more thoughtful consideration of the passage, regards Acts 4:24-30 as part of a solemn form of prayer used by the Apostolic Church of Jerusalem a formula of prayer previously composed while the impression made by the sufferings of Christ was still recent. There is an objection made to this last view, namely, that the state of things pictured in Acts 4:29-30 limits the prayer to the present emergency; but surely the storm of danger and persecution which then was threatening shortly to break over the little church must have seemed ever imminent to a company of men whose life-work it was to preach the religion of a crucified malefactor. It is a beautiful thought which sees in these solemn words, where an unshaken, a deathless faith shines through the gloom of present and coming sorrow, a fragment of the oldest Christian liturgy. This formula of prayer was, as some have well termed it, a flower which grew up in its strange sweet beauty under the cross, and shows us how perfect was the confidence, how child-like the trust in the Almighty arm, of these first brave confessors of Jesus.

Lord, thou art the God which hast made heaven and earth. How feeble, after all, was the power of high priest and Sanhedrim compared with that of their Master, the Creator of all!