John H. Paterson
"When the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the
Lord ... until the times of restitution of all things" Acts 3:19-21
THE words "times of refreshing" strike a curiously modern note in the text of a Bible translated in that way in the seventeenth century. A little research into the original text, however, shows that the translation is valid and that it could, in fact, be rendered in an even more up-to-date way, as "time to get your breath back." The thought is of what we nowadays call "a breather" after a period of stress or busyness.
The only other place in the King James Version where the word "refreshing" occurs is in Isaiah 28:12, and there the original suggests, even more vividly, the calm of the sea after a period of storm. Evidently, then, God's message on these two occasions was a promise to His people of periodic relief in hard times and a chance to gather new strength for the next stage.
That this pattern has been borne out in the history of Israel and of the Church in various parts of the world can readily be shown. Much of the prayer of God's people for a revival in their spiritual lives is a plea for just such a "time of refreshing". For the moment, however, I should like to concentrate your attention on the way in which this pattern of stress and calm can be seen in the lifetime and ministry of the very man who used this expression in Acts 3 -- Peter, the leader and spokesman of the Church in its earliest days.
If you read the early chapters of Acts you cannot help being struck by the way in which progress or development went by fits and starts -- rapid growth followed by setbacks: mass conversions followed by mass persecutions. And if you examine the text in a little more detail, you will find, I think, that the stages in this early history are indeed marked off for us by "times of refreshing" -- periods of growth, joy and even approval by outsiders: all the marks, in fact, of what we might describe as success.
Let me suggest to you that there are at least eight references in Acts to such intervals of calm. There may well be more -- that is for every Bible student to discover! But the ones I have found are in 2:46-47; 4:32-34; 5:12-13; 5:42; 6:7; 8:8; 9:31, and 11:24-26.
To cite only one or two of these references in detail: the first of them, Acts 2:46-47, describes the state of the Church after its first great burst of excitement and activity at Pentecost. We see here a Church in unity, "gladness and singleness of heart", and "having favour with all the people." Then again, in 9:31, after many ups and downs and much persecution, we find the Church, several phrases later, at peace, being built up, and enjoying both "the comfort of the Holy Ghost" and numerical growth.
Now there are two ways of looking at this record, with its sequence of stress -- calm -- stress. One is to say, 'How good of God to grant these [55/56] "times of refreshing"' (and that is quite true). The other is to ask, 'But if this was the work of God, why was it not continuously successful? Why did they need "times of refreshing"?' After all, this beginning of the Church was made in uniquely favourable circumstances. There can never again be such a situation, with the memory of the Lord Jesus only a few weeks old, and a population which had heard and seen Him; which, moreover, had heard and seen the apostles both before and after Pentecost, and could judge how they had been transformed. We might have expected that, once they began their ministry, they would have carried all before them!
So, instead of concentrating on the times of rest and refreshment, we may do well to ask ourselves an opposite question: what disturbed the calm? What happened in the intervals between those references which I cited earlier, to put the believers under stress?
If we do so, we can at once distinguish between two types of pressure or stress -- that from outside and that from inside. On several of these occasions the growth and the joy of the Church were impaired by hostility from those outside its ranks, while on four occasions the trouble, the brake on growth, came from within.
Opposition to the spread of the Gospel of Christ had, of course, begun in His own lifetime and had culminated in His death. So far as His enemies were concerned, no doubt, there was every expectation that, once the Lord Jesus was removed from the scene, the whole movement which He had started would quickly collapse. After all, that had happened any number of times before to the followers of other rebel leaders. The disciples during Jesus' lifetime had been an unimpressive lot, and it must have seemed inconceivable to the Jewish leaders that, without Him, they could cause any trouble.
The realisation that trouble was indeed what the disciples were going to cause seems to have dawned only slowly upon the high priest and his colleagues. To begin with, they seem to have contented themselves with a warning, "not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus" (Acts 4:18), and even this they issued only after a careful discussion (4:13-17). No doubt they were hoping that the whole business would die down and allow them to forget about Jesus. The disciples, for their part, made light of the whole matter, and returned to their fellow-believers full of joy and confidence for another time of refreshing (4:32-34), and we read that "great grace was upon them all."
The next act of opposition, however, was more serious -- and the next, and the next. In Acts 5:17, the apostles were put in prison and, although they were almost immediately released by "an angel of the Lord", it is evident that the attitude of the Jewish council was hardening. This time, the apostles were brought back and beaten (5:40) as well as warned. But once again calm followed the storm, and another period of rest and refreshment evidently intervened (5:41-42).
Now we move ahead to Acts 6:8 and the story of Stephen. At this point, obviously, the scale of hostility changed and the Church had its first martyr. It was evident from Stephen's speech in his own defence (Acts 7) that the trouble caused by the followers of Jesus just was not going to die down, as had that caused by other agitators in the past (Acts 5:35-39). It was now clear, on the contrary, that the apostles and their message were irreconcilable with the Jewish position. Opposition to the preaching of the Gospel was going to develop into a full-scale campaign, headed by Saul of Tarsus, to stamp out the whole movement -- "a great persecution", as it is called in Acts 8:1.
All this must seem to us, looking back, as quite predictable. If there is any surprise about it, that must surely be that it took as long as it did for the full opposition to the Gospel to develop. The Jewish leaders would not have known of the experiences of the disciples after the resurrection, or of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and it took them time to adjust to the idea that the message or movement of Jesus was going to cause them just as much trouble in His absence as it had when He was there, living and preaching among them!
So the calm and joy of the Church were disturbed by opposition and persecution, just as they have been at intervals ever since. What we can notice, from Acts and from the history of God's people, is how brief the disturbances have been and with what resilience His true Church has shrugged off such opposition; how, in fact, it has grown in spite of the opposition. While I do not wish for one moment to minimise either the sufferings or the heroism of God's saints over the years, I have to suggest that, in the context of this [56/57] story, the pressures from outside the Church are the easy ones to identify and resist. If somebody tells us, as the apostles were told, not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus, the answer is clear, simple and straightforward: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). For getting that answer wrong, there is no excuse whatsoever: would that all the issues of life could be so clear, so unequivocal!
But they are not, and we know that they are not! Those pressures or stresses from outside, as I have already suggested, seem to have held up progress in the Church only briefly. The more troublesome issues, and the ones which had a more serious impact on the calm and joy and growth of the Church came from within.
What kind of thing holds up the growth and spread of the work of God? There were in the early Church four obstacles or setbacks interspersed between the times of refreshing:
(1) Following upon the joyful days described in Acts 4:32-34, there comes the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
(2) Following the calm of 5:42 there comes the trouble over "the daily ministration".
(3) Following on the joy of Acts 8:8 there comes the problem of a counterfeit spirituality.
(4) Following on the peace of Acts 9:31 comes the long-continuing argument over the admission of the Gentiles into the Church.
If we look for names for those hindrances to growth, we can call them hypocrisy, envy, counterfeit and exclusiveness. Under those names, we all know them all too well. And in the battles of the spiritual life, they are self-inflicted wounds.
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