Praying for Real

This chapter is said to take place around the same time as Paul and Barnabas bring economic relief from the Christians in Antioch to the Christians living in Judea. You’ll notice that chapter 11 ends with Barnabas and Saul heading out from Antioch while chapter 12 ends with them returning from Jerusalem having “completed their service.”

But we know from history a little more precision about the timing. Herod Agrippa I died in AD 44. The visit of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem must have taken place no earlier than AD 46.[1]So, the events here in chapter 12 happen before the events at the end of chapter 11. Luke has “inserted” the stories in this chapter for some reason. One interesting possibility is that, since Acts 12 rounds off the first half of the book, we find both halves ending with the imprisonment of an apostle (Peter, Paul) followed by the success of God’s word in spite of their imprisonment.[2] Luke is doing history, but doing so as a good ancient historian. Acts is a masterpiece of ancient history.

Luke would also want us to recognize the importance of this chapter to our church history. This is the kind of story we are supposed to think about. We are to let it shape our expectations about life in the kingdom of God. And one thing it helps us consider is the importance of prayer for our lives in the kingdom of God. We learn from this chapter that it is by persisting in prayer that we Christians will be able to see the power of the gospel as it overcomes everything that stands against it.

So, this morning, let’s get real about prayer. Prayer is important to our lives in the kingdom of God because we should expect opposition, but also because we expect rescue, and we expect success.

Expecting Opposition

First, we pray because we expect to encounter opposition. The first six verses tell us about King Herod’s violent acts against the church in Jerusalem. He has James killed. He imprisons Peter, no doubt intending to have him killed as well.

The Hatred of the World

This is not the first time we’ve read in Acts about opposition, about persecution against the believers in Jesus. We have come to expect this sort of thing. Peter and John were arrested by the Sanhedrin in chapters 4 and 5. Stephen is martyred for his Christian faith in chapter 7, which led to a great persecution against the church in chapter 8. In chapter 9, Saul of Tarsus goes to Damascus planning to arrest any Christians he can find there and bring them back to Jerusalem. After his dramatic conversion, Saul himself escapes from plots against his life on two occasions.

And of course, we know that to this very day Christians in various parts of the world are killed for their faith. The Bible warns Christians that this might well happen to them. The Apostle John writes, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 Jn 3:13).

The Raging of the Nations

But why? Why such hostility? Why such opposition? Why do people kill Christians?

Surely there are various answers to that question. The Bible even exhorts Christians to make sure that if we are going to be opposed and persecuted, it must not be because we have been acting in godless ways (1 Pet 3:13-17). The Bible does not encourage us for being opposed because we’ve been jerks to others around us.

At the same time, there must be something provocative about Christianity. What is it?

In this passage, at least, we know why there was persecution. “Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church” because it was politically expedient for him to do so. His persecution of the church “pleased the Jews” (v. 3), and improving his favorability in the polls was a motivating factor for Herod. The way he had James the brother of John killed (“with the sword”) indicates that Herod saw the Christian movement as a threat to his political power.

Remember what we learned about what motivated Saul of Tarsus to go to Damascus looking for Christians? It wasn’t because he was a terrorist. It was because he was zealous. A patriot. That’s what Pharisees were. He was deeply committed to his nation and to his nation’s hope, the arrival of the kingdom of God. Such a kingdom hope was not about what one might find to be true when they died; it was about what one hoped to see come true before they died. There is no way around it: the kingdom of God for which Saul of Tarsus was zealous was inherently political because it was about God’s rule and reign. It was about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

The Subversive Message

So, the enemies of these Christians certainly perceived that there was some political threat. At the same time, there is no indication that the Christians had set out to topple the powers that be. They were not thirsty for political power.

Why? Again, it’s not because they did not think that the message they were proclaiming had nothing to do with the everyday things happening all around them. But the reason they were not aspiring for political power and gains was for one obvious reason: they believed that Jesus is Lord already. He was already the world’s true king. They didn’t need to establish, certainly did not need to re-establish, some Christian nation. They believed in resurrection; no need to be anxious about the next election. Their king was already in control.

Resurrection is the reason why the Christian faith is a threat to the world’s powers while at the same time making Christians themselves no serious threat at all. It is because we believe in resurrection, and are called to proclaim it, that we carry with us a quite subversive message. Think of it:

Death is the ultimate weapon of the tyrant; resurrection does not make a covenant with death, it overthrows it. The resurrection, in the full Jewish and early Christian sense, is the ultimate affirmation that creation matters, that embodied human beings matter. That is why resurrection has always had an inescapable political meaning; that is why the Sadducees in the first century, and the Enlightenment in our own day, have opposed it so strongly. No tyrant is threatened by Jesus going to heaven, leaving his body in a tomb.[3]

But if Jesus has overcome death, and if we by our union with Christ have overcome death as well, promised that even if we die, yet we will live—that’s the promise of the resurrection of the body, not the promise of disembodied bliss—then we have, quite literally, nothing to lose.

Expecting Deliverance

Second, we pray because we expect God to deliver us from opposition.

Earnest Prayer

We read in this chapter about an amazing deliverance of the Apostle Peter on the night before he was to be put on trial and condemned to death. But let’s not pass too quickly over what we are told first. Herod “killed James the brother of John with the sword.” James is the first apostle—the first of Jesus’s original disciples—to be martyred. And this would have been a devastating blow to the Christian community. It surely would have made them ask the kinds of questions we ask. Why?

Why didn’t God miraculously deliver James? That’s a question we cannot answer, but it does not lessen the point we are making. We pray because we trust in God and his deliverance. Even when God doesn’t deliver in the ways we might have wished he would have. Especially when God doesn’t deliver in the ways we wish he would.

What did this fledgling church do when Herod had them against the rope? They fell to their knees, not in surrender to Herod, but in surrender to their Lord and his will. See it there in verse 5? They prayed earnestly.

Now, on the one hand there probably wasn’t much else they could do. They were at the mercy of Herod; the early Christians did not have any political power they could wield against Herod’s aggression.

At the same time, it is surely instructive that the church did not do nothing. We see them in this chapter in earnest prayer, gathered together in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. (Here we see Luke once again introducing to us in passing a person who will be more important to the story later.)

What is meant by “earnest prayer”? The word can suggest they were persistent with their prayers or that their prayers were intense.[4] Christians are encouraged to “pray without ceasing,” to be persistent with our prayers. But when was the last time you and I prayed intensely, like our Lord himself in the Garden of Gethsemane. “He prayed more earnestly” we are told, his perspiration becoming like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Hebrews 5:7 paints the picture with more detail. Jesus’s earnest prayer was accompanied “with loud cries and tears.” When was the last time we prayed like that?

At any rate, it seems that the church believed praying for Peter was time well spent, and Luke would have us understand that indeed their prayers were more powerful than the power Herod had exercised against them.

The story of Peter’s miraculous release from prison is meant to be seen as an answer to the church’s prayers. Would God have rescued Peter from prison without the church praying? Of course we cannot know the answer to a question like that. Instead, we are to see that the earnest prayers of the church mattered. It was in response to their prayers that Peter was rescued.

Real Answers

And what a rescue it was!

Luke is not only a careful historian; he is also a great storyteller. And how can we not appreciate the way he has told this story? We see the imprisoned Peter, controlled by all Herod’s authority and power. He is bound between two soldiers, with more guarding the prison door, when all of a sudden we are told about a dramatic prison break. But don’t look for some detailed operation carefully executed by Peter’s sly friends. All it took was the arrival of “an angel of the Lord.” Peter’s “chains fell off his hands,” and he and the angel walked straight out of the prison, passing “the first and the second guard,” the big iron gate opening up as if by the push of a button.

“Come on, now,” the skeptic will say, “You don’t believe this really happened, do you?” Well, neither did Peter. Verse 9 says, “He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.” All the authority and might of King Herod Agrippa I was nothing compared to the earnest prayers of the church on Peter’s behalf. That’s what this story is telling us.

And it’s not a category mistake either. The prayers of God’s people have real world consequences. Sometimes we find that non-Christians believe this more than we do. Mary, Queen of Scots, reportedly said of the Reformer John Knox that she feared his prayers “more than all the assembled armies of Europe.”

The Mystery of Prayer

Verses 18-19 tell us that the next morning “there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter,” and after a thorough investigation Herod ordered the execution of his prison guards. Why? Because the only way Herod could account for Peter’s escape from prison was under the assumption that the guards had not done their job well enough.

What other explanation could there be? Prayer. Really? Come on! Surely, we don’t really believe that now, do we? I don’t know. Do our prayer lives show that we believe it? Mine still leaves much to be desired.

In 1998, $2.4 million was given to the “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer.” Known as the “Great Prayer Experiment,” the results were published in 2006. The conclusion? “Investigators found no evidence for divine intervention.”[5] So, should we give up praying?

The good Christian answer, of course, is “No way!” but we all know how hard it is to believe that our prayers are having any real effect. You can be honest about that. Be encouraged by this story. Go ahead and even laugh a little.

Because when Peter showed up at the prayer meeting, knocking at the door rather anxiously—won’t the prison police be looking for him soon enough?—“a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer.” She heard his voice and was so overcome with joy she ran in to tell the others, forgetting to open up the door and let Peter in! No one believed what she was saying. “You’re crazy, Rhoda.” But she insisted that this was real, so finally someone suggested what others were likely thinking. Peter must have died, and Rhoda had seen his ghost. “They found it easier to believe that Peter had died and gone to heaven than that their prayers had been answered.”[6]

And that’s how it usually goes. Regardless of the experiments that might be run on the effects of praying, or our own experience with prayer which might just as easily make us doubt, prayer remains a mystery, and we are encouraged to persist in it. Perseverance is only necessary when something is difficult, and you and I can’t know what just might be waiting for us in answer to our prayers. One thing is certain: stop praying and you’ll certainly miss out on the mystery attested to by generations of believers who persist in prayer and are amazed at what they find comes from it.[7] We have four weeks left in Lent. What a great time to make earnest prayer a daily commitment and enter into the mystery.

Expecting Success

Finally, we pray because we expect success in spite of opposition. Success that comes about because of prayer.

The Demise of Herod

The church prayed earnestly for Peter. No doubt some were praying for Peter to be spared from death, and their prayers were answered. Perhaps others were praying for Peter to remain faithful to his death, and their prayers were answered, too, as indicated by how sound asleep he was the night he was rescued. The angel had to strike him with a blow to get him to stir (v. 7), and even then Peter thought he was having a dream until he “came to himself” in verse 11.

But I’m guessing that some were praying prayers that sounded like some of the prayers we find in the Psalms. “Come on, Lord! Bring justice for Peter. He’s done nothing wrong. Vindicate him, and bring his accusers and enemies to justice.”

Their prayers were answered, too, though I wonder if they noticed. Luke certainly did, which is why he tells us the story of the demise of Herod Agrippa I in verses 20-23. This story is validated by the same account told by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus.[8]Herod Agrippa I died in A.D. 44.

The Advance of the Word

There are some differences in the way Josephus reports the story and the way Luke reports it, but the similarities are striking enough for us to know that Herod Agrippa I died in a rather painful and violent way. Luke makes it plain that his death was an act of justice carried out by God against him. God will hold all earthly powers to account.

Verse 24, however, is the more important point Luke wants to make. “But the word of God increased and multiplied.” The message of the kingdom, and its success, will not be stopped. And it will be carried forward, in large part, by the prayers of God’s people.

It’s not that prayer itself is powerful. Rather, God is powerful, to whom we pray. But let us not lose hope that what it is we ultimately seek will not fail to succeed. And so, we pray for it. We pray with the expectation that God’s word cannot be stopped.

Help Us with Prayer

But this success will not come easily, without opposition, without seeing God come through for us in that opposition over and over again, in countless surprising ways.

The Apostle Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, tells them “of the affliction we experienced in Asia,” so heavy, so overwhelming, “that we despaired of life itself.” But: “On him we have set our hope,” Paul says, “that he will deliver us again.” And then he says this,

You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many (2 Cor 1:11).

This is our calling, brothers and sisters. We must help each other by prayer. We must not give up. We cannot give up. We have so much to gain, so much to overcome. And we will—one way or the other—only by prayer.

The gospel of Jesus is the good news that Jesus is the world’s true Lord. He has already taken up his kingdom and is advancing it through the proclamation of his good news. And he is advancing it by prayer. Let us pray. Let us pray for real.

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[1] John B. Polhill, Acts, The New American Commentary, vol. 26, ed. David S. Dockery (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 275.

[2] Ben Witherington, III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 375.

[3] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003), 730.

[4] Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, ed. and trans. James D. Ernest (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 1:457.

[5] Christine Soares, “No Prayer Prescription,” Scientific American, June 19, 2006. Available online at www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-prayer-prescription.

[6]Polhill, Acts, 282.

[7] N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2024), 63.

[8] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 19.343-352.