Acts 5:26

They are arrested again, and accused before the Sanhedrim,Peter's Defence. The Impression it made on the Pharisee Members of the Council, The Sentence, 26-40.

Acts 5:26. And brought them without violence: for they feared the people. At this period the popular favour which the apostles enjoyed had probably reached its culminating point. The many sick who had been lately healed had predisposed a vast number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the neighbourhood to listen with interest and kindness to the earnest preaching; and the words and arguments, we know, had won thousands to the faith, while many others were still wavering before they joined the community. Then the spirit of love which reigned among them, the self-denying eagerness of the richer members, their devotion to the poor and sick, the number of widows and other unemployed women, who before had been leading purposeless lives, for whom the growing Church had found congenial occupation, all these things weighed with the fickle populace, who so short a time before had clamoured for the crucifixion of the same Master whom now they were ready to worship. The tide, however, soon turned, and a few months later we shall see a bitter persecution raging against the Church, the populace apparently careless of what might happen to those men whose words they had listened to so gladly, and to that society whose works and life had won their admiration and respect