Acts 12:1-24
Dear RTB’ers,
Chapter 12, our last reading in Acts for a while. James is killed; the Jews are happy; Peter is imprisoned, and the disciples are praying; Peter is miraculously released; Herod has the prison guards killed because his soldiers could not find Peter in the prison; and then Herod suffers big time! Today we see an identification for one of the three “James” names (v. 2) – one of the apostles, the brother of John and son of Zebedee. We had already seen in Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 another “James” name, when Paul visited Jerusalem and met with Peter and “James, the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:19). The third James is listed in the Gospels as “James, the son of Alphaeus” (Matthew 10:2, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15). If you will, there is also possibly a fourth, “James, the Lesser”, mentioned in all three Synoptic Gospels in conjunction with his mother Mary at the cross and resurrection (i.e., …“Mary, the mother of James, the Lesser and Joses”; Mark 15:40). So Luke unravels this mystery a bit – but only a bit!
He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (vv. 2-3) What bothers me here is “…he saw that it pleased the Jews…” The Jewish leaders’ antagonism toward the Christians must have still been very strong. Then we have Herod …intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. (v. 4b) Sounds like a replay of Pilate bringing Jesus out before the people – who then denounced Him. Sad. Herod suffers an excruciatingly painful five days (according to the Jewish writer, Josephus), then death. I know that Jesus loved him to the end, but I wonder at Jesus’ meeting with him at Herod’s personal judgment day. How does Jesus show love when one of his created human beings has chosen to reject Him? Again, sad…
…he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark (v. 12) A footnote in my Study Bible indicated that Mary was Barnabas’ aunt – with a reference to Colossians 4:10, so Barnabas and (John) Mark are cousins. That lends some understanding to Paul and Barnabas splitting in chapter 15 (Acts 15:36-39) when Paul heads off on his second missionary journey. Barnabas wanted to take his cousin, Mark, along, but Paul refused; he and Barnabas then went off in different directions. There is substantial evidence later in Paul’s letters that their split was not permanent, but healed over time.
Luke is fond of his “summary verses” (v. 24 today). We’ve already seen them in Acts 2:43-47, 4:32-35, 5:42, and we’ll see more in Acts 16:5, 19:20, 28:31.
Blessings!