Scriptures: Acts 5:27–32; Psalm 118:14–29; Revelation 1:4–8; John 20:19–31; Mosiah 2:27; Doctrine and Covenants 162:2a–b

Prelude

Welcome

Focus Moment

Call to Worship: Mosiah 2:27

*Hymn: “Teach Me, God, to Wonder” HS 176
OR “Lord, Help Me to Know Your Presence” NS 31
OR “Community of Christ” R-14

*Invocation

Scripture for Peace: John 20:19–23

Prayer for Peace

Disciples’ Generous Response

Message

Hymn: “Christ Has Called Us to New Visions” SP 38
OR Ministry of Music
OR “Take the Path of the Disciple” R-19

Scripture for Confessional Reflection: Doctrine and Covenants 162:2a–b

*Hymn: “We Are People of God’s Peace” SP 6
OR “Rise Up, O Saints of God” HS 378

*Closing Prayer

*Sending Forth

*Postlude

Scriptures: Acts 5:27–32; Psalm 118:14–29; Revelation 1:4–8; John 20:19–31

This passage is an episode in the story described in Acts 3:1—5:42. Peter and John heal a beggar, a man lame from birth, in the name of Jesus in a public entrance to the temple. Peter and John are eventually arrested by the captain of the temple because the priests and the Sadducees are annoyed with them for teaching “that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:1–3). Tried the next day, they are ordered by the Jewish rulers and religious leaders “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus” (Acts 4:5–22). The apostles refuse. They are arrested again. Our passage for today describes what happens then. The apostles are brought before the council and the high priest to explain their disobedience. Peter and the apostles, united in one of the most important passages of the Bible, say, “We must obey God rather than any human authority” (v. 29).

Obeying God in good conscience, rather than obeying an unjust human authority, is a biblical tradition. When the king of Egypt commanded the midwives, Shiprah and Puah, to kill the baby Israelite boys as they were born, they refused (Exodus 1:15–21). The book of Daniel contains stories of Daniel and his friends in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar (605–562 BC) at the time of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. They chose God over the authority of the king. In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). When government, a boss, a superior officer, or any other authority asks me to do something that is not the will of God, then I must choose the will of God, even if it means being disobedient to a human authority.

There are examples of famous people refusing to obey unjust orders: Henry Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax to fund the unjust US war against Mexico in 1846 and spent a night in jail. He later wrote his most well-known essay called Civil Disobedience (1849). Gandhi many times broke British law or orders in campaigns for Indian independence. As a young man in England, F. Henry Edwards—who later became an apostle and member of the First Presidency of the church—refused to fight in World War I because he feared he might kill one of his German brothers in Christ. He spent the rest of the war years incarcerated for his pacifist stance. Rosa Parks in 1955 broke the law of segregation on buses when she refused, as a black woman, to give up her seat to a white man. Her action and subsequent arrest sparked the civil rights movement. Indeed, the imperative of obeying a higher ethic and refusing to obey an unjust order was established as a principle in international law after the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II. Simply obeying orders was not a defense against being charged with war crimes if the order was immoral.

Christian groups like Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers established a pattern of Christian dissent or nonconformity in England at a time when the Church of England was the official church and the only place authorized for Christian worship. Although fined, imprisoned, and sometimes executed for obeying God rather than the law, their ethical dissent over several generations established the Act of Toleration of Religion in 1689—an important landmark in the journey to civil liberties in England.

In some parts of the world today, it is illegal for friends of the Community of Christ to be baptized, or for members and friends to meet for worship. Examples of this are found in China, many Indian states, and Nepal. In Russia, our ministers and members face intimidation.

5. In this passage, what is the promise of the Holy Spirit to those who courageously choose to obey God and teach the gospel message?

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