Acts 5:38,39

Acts 5:38-39. And now I say into you. Gamaliel's words could be paraphrased thus: ‘Is this work a Divine one? does it emanate from God? If not, it will come to nothing, like those examples of imposture of Theudas and Judas of Galilee I have just been quoting to you. There is no reason for our council to interfere as yet with a strong hand, but every reason for us to refrain for the present.' Gamaliel well knew, if the preaching of the Crucified and its strange attendant circumstances were merely a fanatical movement, any very violent measures to suppress it would only assist its progress. His closing words, Lest haply ye be found even to fight against God, betray a lurking suspicion in his mind that in the Nazarene story there was something more than met the eye of the ordinary observer; perhaps after all in this later cause there was something Divine.