We, the Church: Acts 5:12-42

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Introduction: The First Great Awakening

Premise: Be careful not to hold so firmly to the past that [what has been, the traditional norm] you fail to see what God is unfolding in the present.

The healings and miracles of the apostles were a sign that God had begun something new and fresh, and that what had existed before was ready to be removed and replaced. The church is becoming the new temple of the Lord and the old system is fading away. This is what Paul meant in Hebrews 8:13

Hebrews 8:13 NLT

When God speaks of a “new” covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear.

Here, we must recognize just how difficult it must be to be a part of something that is no longer useful, no longer attractive, or productive. It must be a terrible thing to watch the thing that you once saw so firmly planted, withered away in the scorching sun. This is how the world of Jesus beheld the temple and its traditional norm.

The Great Awakening—During the 1720s God began doing something in the American colonies that would change the way individuals would experience God. And by the 1760s people would have identified this revival experience as the [First] Great Awakening.

It was a time where preachers began to challenge the stale and traditional religious living that demonstrated no serious pursuit for God or any fruit of a transformed life. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, John Wesley, and many others called the Anglicized church to a new move of God’s presence in their life. They were not targeting the experience, itself, but the heart of men that seemingly treated their relationship with God too casually. However, the result was an emotional and expressive response at the preaching of those voices that spoke on the fear of God and the fate of eternal judgment. However, if individuals of this time would have settled for the norm, America would look entirely different from its current form.

The First Great Awakening:

1. Spiritual Results

Revived Christianity from formality into Spirit-led community.

Revival of Heart Religion: People who were used to formal, dry, “head-only” religion began experiencing intense conversion. Jonathan Edwards described waves of weeping, trembling, and joy as signs of God’s Spirit.

New Style of Preaching: George Whitefield and others modeled extemporaneous, passionate preaching that reached not only the intellect but the emotions. This birthed a new homiletic style that still shapes evangelical preaching.

Explosion of Conversions: Tens of thousands were added to churches. The colonies (with populations often scattered and unchurched) saw unprecedented levels of engagement with the gospel.

2. Social & Cultural Results

Democratized faith, giving voice to the ordinary believer.

Democratization of Religion: The Awakening broke the monopoly of state and established churches. Ordinary people, including women and lay leaders, were empowered to preach, testify, and form communities.

Challenge to Hierarchy: No longer did spiritual authority rest solely in educated clergy or traditional denominations — revivalists emphasized personal experience with Christ over ecclesiastical credentials.

Rise of Evangelicalism: A transatlantic movement emerged, defined by conversion, Bible authority, and missionary zeal. This became the root of modern evangelical Christianity.

3. Educational Results

Birthed missions, schools, and reform movements that continue today.

New Schools & Colleges: Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, and Rutgers were founded to train revivalist clergy and missionaries. These schools emphasized preaching, theology, and evangelism, expanding higher education beyond the elite.

Lay Literacy: The need to read the Bible for oneself drove literacy upward, even among poor farmers and women. The Awakening spread reading culture in colonial America.

4. Political & Revolutionary Results

Shaped American democracy by teaching liberty of conscience and equality.

Seeds of American Independence: By challenging church authorities and teaching that all believers were equal before God, the Awakening planted democratic ideals. If you didn’t need a bishop to mediate between you and God, why did you need a king to mediate between you and liberty?

Shared Colonial Identity: Preachers like Whitefield drew massive, cross-colony crowds (sometimes 10–20,000 people). For the first time, colonists experienced themselves as part of a united movement across New England, the Middle, and Southern colonies. This prepared the soil for unity in the American Revolution.

Language of Liberty: Sermons of the Awakening emphasized freedom of conscience and resistance to oppressive authority. These phrases flowed naturally into revolutionary rhetoric in the 1770s.

5. Global Missional Results

Launched evangelicalism as a global force.

Birth of the Modern Missions Movement: The Awakening sparked renewed focus on sending missionaries abroad. Figures like William Carey and later the Moravians built on this revival energy to launch global missions.

Cross-Atlantic Revival Networks: Revivalists traveled between Britain, Germany, and the colonies, creating a global sense of evangelical family.

6. Long-Term Legacy

Birthed missions, schools, and reform movements that continue today.

Rise of New Denominations: Baptists and Methodists exploded in growth, especially on the American frontier, because their decentralized, revival-friendly structure fit the new spiritual landscape.

Shift in Authority: Tradition, ritual, and hierarchy were replaced by experience, Scripture, and conscience as supreme.

Cultural DNA of Evangelicalism: Prayer meetings, hymn singing, itinerant preaching, and personal testimony became normal features of Protestant Christianity.

A New Vision of Society: The Awakening fueled abolitionism, prison reform, education for the poor, and women’s participation in spiritual leadership.

All of this demonstrates how those during the awakening were set on fire for God and how the message about Jesus had begun stirring up something new among the land. God had visited them! They were experiencing a revival of conscience and a birth of expectation that God could do something amazing with those who were yielded to the Holy Spirit.

Question: Is your soul on fire for God? How is God stirring things up [something new] for His glory in our world today? Can you sense God doing something in our community? Are you excited to be used by God? What is God stirring up in your heart? Are you on fire? Or are you sitting on cool?

Revelation 3:15–16 NLT

15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! 16 But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament 3:14–22—Oracle to the Church in Laodicea

Cold water (and sometimes spiced hot water) was preferred for drinking, and hot water for bathing, but Laodicea lacked a natural water supply.

The Opposition

1. Condemned the Emotionalism

Established clergy criticized the revival meetings for producing weeping, shouting, fainting, and even convulsions.

Charles Chauncy of Boston (a Congregationalist minister) published Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (1743), arguing that “enthusiasm” and “passion” were not the marks of true religion.

They equated emotional responses with disorder, branding revivalists as fanatics.

Charles Chauncy (Old Light minister, Boston) wrote against revivalist “enthusiasm”: “True religion is a serious and a reasonable thing, and God is a God of order. The effects of these commotions are more to be lamented than applauded.” (Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England, 1743)

He mocked fainting, trembling, and crying out in meetings, seeing them as delusions rather than the Spirit’s work.

2. Closed Pulpits to Revivalists

Ministers like George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent were often refused permission to preach in traditional churches.

In response, revivalists took to fields, barns, and open-air gatherings — a move that itself became revolutionary, since it freed the gospel from pulpit control.

George Whitefield’s journal notes how many pulpits were shut to him. In 1739, he wrote: “Many churches were denied me; and in many of those where I preached, the pulpits were soon locked against me. I then preached in the fields, in the highways, and in the hedges. Blessed be God, this compelled me to be more industrious, and multitudes that never would have thought of going to church were brought to hear the Word.”

Crowds of 10,000–20,000 gathered outdoors — a revolutionary act birthed by rejection.

3. Attacked the Authority of Itinerant Preachers

The traditional church despised “untrained” or “self-appointed” preachers.

The “New Lights” (revivalists) were accused of undermining church order by allowing laymen and even young, barely educated ministers to preach.

Presbyterian Synods tried to silence Gilbert Tennent and the Tennents’ “Log College” ministers, who were producing fiery evangelists outside the traditional seminary system.

Tennent, a fiery revivalist, blasted the “unconverted ministry” in his 1740 sermon The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry: “These blind men will be the leaders of the blind. If their call to the ministry is not from God, what can we expect but that they will be as great strangers to the divine life as the dead bones in Ezekiel’s vision?”

The Presbyterian Synod censured him, fearing this would undermine the authority of all clergy.

4. Division into “Old Lights” vs. “New Lights”

“Old Light” ministers resisted the Awakening, doubling down on reason, decorum, and tradition.

“New Light” ministers embraced revival fervor.

This division split denominations, broke congregations, and sometimes resulted in lawsuits over property, as Old Light factions tried to push out New Light revivalists.

At Harvard, President Edward Holyoke denounced the revival as destructive: “The effects of these disorders have been to fill the land with confusion, division, and disorder in our churches.” (1743)

At Yale, President Thomas Clap issued formal warnings to students against itinerant preachers like Whitefield, forbidding them to attend his meetings.

5. Intellectual and Theological Attacks

Traditional clergy leaned on Enlightenment rationalism, arguing that true faith should be calm, rational, and orderly — not marked by trembling, tears, or visions.

They insisted revival preaching was manipulative, dangerous, and even demonic.

Harvard and Yale leaders published warnings against “enthusiastic disorder” in the revivals.

Newspapers often mocked revivalists. One Boston paper satirized a meeting: “A hideous noise of groanings and shoutings filled the air, as if Bedlam had been emptied into the sanctuary.”

Whitefield himself became a lightning rod. Critics called him “the boy preacher” and “the apostle of disorder.”

6. Political and Social Suppression

In colonies with established churches (especially Anglican strongholds), revivalist meetings were sometimes restricted or discouraged by local magistrates.

Whitefield was banned from preaching in certain towns because his gatherings threatened social order (thousands leaving work to hear sermons, blurring class lines).

Authorities feared the Awakening’s leveling spirit — servants, slaves, women, and the poor claimed equal access to God’s grace.

In Virginia, Anglican authorities tried to restrict Methodist and Baptist revivalists later in the 18th century (fruit of Awakening spirit). One Baptist preacher recalled: “We were dragged before magistrates, fined, and jailed. Yet the Word of God grew mightily, and the prisons were our pulpits.”

This spirit was present in the Awakening’s earlier decades, when colonial magistrates feared massive open-air crowds could spark riots.

7. Mocking and Ridicule

Revival preachers were lampooned in pamphlets, newspapers, and from pulpits as ignorant, wild-eyed enthusiasts.

Whitefield was mocked as “the boy preacher.”

Critics called the converts “enthusiasts,” “fanatics,” or “ranters” — all code words for irrational extremists.

Edwards acknowledged excesses, but defended the Awakening against critics like Chauncy: “That religion which is pure and undefiled will not always be attended with an appearance of outward order. The wind blows where it wills… it is no argument against the Spirit’s work that His motions are extraordinary.” (Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, 1742)

8. Institutional Entrenchment

Some traditional churches doubled down on membership requirements (like intellectual assent to doctrine, moral respectability, and class standing), making it harder for the poor and uneducated to join.

This was a direct counter to the Awakening’s radical inclusiveness, where coal miners, servants, and farmers were welcomed into fellowship.

Point: Don’t be discouraged when you find yourself ridiculed by the traditional institution, because this is often a sign you are within the movings of God.

Understanding the Context of Acts 5:12-42

Movement 1: Signs, wonders, and temple meetings.

The disciples were meeting in the Colonnade, which would have been highly offensive to the temple administrators. It demonstrated that there was something fresh and useful; something that could threaten the dry and boring things that normally occur in the temple—healings, signs, wonders, and miracles. People were attracted to this and flocked to the new Jesus followers.

Acts 5:12–16 “The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade. But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them. Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord—crowds of both men and women. As a result of the apostles’ work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter’s shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil* spirits, and they were all healed.”

Movement 2: Opposition

Jealousy- righteous indignation: a greedy or prideful longing for something that belongs to another; even something intangible, such as a skill.

They possessed this protective zeal that caused them to act as if the system of religion was theirs and not to be bothered or tampered with.

Reminder: The Church belongs to Jesus! Any rules or preferences outside of the Word of God are negotiable and questionable.

Acts 5:17–18 “The high priest and his officials, who were Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.”

Movement 3: Deliverance

God always sends a way for His people!

Deliverance comes to those who are willing to risk it all for Jesus.

Acts 5:19 “But an angel of the Lord came at night, opened the gates of the jail, and brought them out. Then he told them,”

Movement 4: Obedience

When you’re delivered, you must be willing to do what drove you to be persecuted again.

Acts 5:20–42 NLT

20 “Go to the Temple and give the people this message of life!” 21 So at daybreak the apostles entered the Temple, as they were told, and immediately began teaching. When the high priest and his officials arrived, they convened the high council—the full assembly of the elders of Israel. Then they sent for the apostles to be brought from the jail for trial. 22 But when the Temple guards went to the jail, the men were gone. So they returned to the council and reported, 23 “The jail was securely locked, with the guards standing outside, but when we opened the gates, no one was there!” 24 When the captain of the Temple guard and the leading priests heard this, they were perplexed, wondering where it would all end. 25 Then someone arrived with startling news: “The men you put in jail are standing in the Temple, teaching the people!” 26 The captain went with his Temple guards and arrested the apostles, but without violence, for they were afraid the people would stone them. 27 Then they brought the apostles before the high council, where the high priest confronted them. 28 “We gave you strict orders never again to teach in this man’s name!” he said. “Instead, you have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching about him, and you want to make us responsible for his death!” 29 But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. 30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by hanging him on a cross. 31 Then God put him in the place of honor at his right hand as Prince and Savior. He did this so the people of Israel would repent of their sins and be forgiven. 32 We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, who is given by God to those who obey him.” 33 When they heard this, the high council was furious and decided to kill them. 34 But one member, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, who was an expert in religious law and respected by all the people, stood up and ordered that the men be sent outside the council chamber for a while. 35 Then he said to his colleagues, “Men of Israel, take care what you are planning to do to these men! 36 Some time ago there was that fellow Theudas, who pretended to be someone great. About 400 others joined him, but he was killed, and all his followers went their various ways. The whole movement came to nothing. 37 After him, at the time of the census, there was Judas of Galilee. He got people to follow him, but he was killed, too, and all his followers were scattered. 38 “So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go. If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!” 40 The others accepted his advice. They called in the apostles and had them flogged. Then they ordered them never again to speak in the name of Jesus, and they let them go. 41 The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. 42 And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”

Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–12 Human Inventions and Divine Instructions (Acts 5:27–42)

Gamaliel is well known from Jewish sources of this period and later. He was remembered as one of the greatest rabbis of all time, a man of exemplary devotion and piety, who knew the law forwards, backwards, inside out and upside down, and taught it to all who would sit at his feet—including, as we shall see, Saul of Tarsus (see 22:3). At this stage there were two great schools of interpretation of the law, which had been pioneered by the famous teachers of the generation before the time of Jesus, Shammai and Hillel. Shammai always tended to take the hard line, politically as well as in strict legal application: one had to be zealous for the law in all possible ways, and if that meant using violence against those who broke the law or questioned it, so be it. That’s what Phinehas and Elijah had done in the ancient scriptures (

Conclusion and Application

Takeaway 1: God always creates an opportunity for obedience (Acts 5:29-39).

Takeaway 2: We should look for reasons to rejoice when we are selected to suffer for Christ’s sake (Acts 5:41).

Takeaway 3: We should never ignore an opportunity to proclaim the name of Jesus (Acts 5:42, c.f. Acts 5:28, 40).