Verse of the week

'We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard' Acts 4:20

Acts is a wonderful book, a great encouragement in showing us how God grew his church in the days after Jesus went back to heaven; but also it's a great challenge as we see just how committed and excited the first Christians were about sharing their faith.
In Acts 4, Peter and John are hauled up before the most important court in the land because they keep telling people about Jesus. And the court tell them quite firmly that they are to shut up - to which this pair reply that they can't stop themselves speaking about what they've seen and heard from Jesus.
This is a great encouragement to us, for it reminds us that guys like Peter and John, who between them wrote seven books of the New Testament, weren't just making things up - they had seen Jesus' miracles, his death and resurrection, and they'd heard him teaching and discussing. And it was because these things had really happened, and they'd seen them, that they weren't going to shut up, even when that got them into really difficult situations.
But there's the big challenge for us, for can we truly say that we 'cannot help speaking' about Jesus, about his death and resurrection? When people tell us to shut up about Jesus, what do we do? How many times do we not say anything at all just in case someone tells us to shut up?
Next time you're in a position to tell someone about Jesus, but you're worried about your reaction, why not remind yourself of the wonderful truth that Jesus' death and resurrection really happened, and how important it is the person you're speaking to knows about it - and try to adopt the attitude of John and Peter, who when told by a really powerful group of people to shut up, replied, 'Sorry, we can't keep quiet. This is too amazing and too important' - 'We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard'.