Moses, in the classic movie The Ten Commandments (1956), goes down to oversee the work of the Hebrew slaves. He does not yet know that he too is Hebrew by birth; Egypt’s golden chalice rests comfortably in hand. He arrives after the taskmasters have seized Joshua (his future assistant and successor), who just rescued an old Hebrew woman nearly crushed under a large stone.

Deaf to pleas to spare the old woman, the taskmasters had refused to halt the workforce to free her. The woman couldn’t escape. So Joshua went down and struck an Egyptian overseer, halting the work immediately, sparing her life and forfeiting his own.

Moses, prince of Egypt, arrives at the behest of a Hebrew woman. Hearing what happened, he asks Joshua, “Do you know it is death to strike an Egyptian?”

“I know it,” he responds.

“Yet you struck him. Why?”

“To save the old woman.”

“What is she to you?”

“An old woman.”

Moses took less time to recover from the slap than I did. Because she is an old woman. I realized how much more Moses I was, than Joshua, in this exchange. Joshua had a clear moral category I lacked: that of saving an old woman simply because she is an endangered old woman. His heroism needed no further explanation or incentive. She did not need to be his mother, his aunt, or his queen. For Joshua to forfeit his own life for hers, all she needed to be was an old woman, desperate for help.

Inner Calculus

This exchange left a mark because I imagined my own inner calculus in the crisis:

Do what you can — chide the taskmasters for their insensitivity and murder; receive a lashing for it even — but don’t be so foolish as to lay down your own life for hers.

To do otherwise seemed bad math.

She already stood with one foot in the grave. Her best days of productivity, of house and community building, faded in the rearview. The way of women had ceased with her (Genesis 18:11). Weak and frail, she had mere days and months ahead of her; I gripped years and decades by the throat. Her sun was setting; I was rising. How could her remaining life outweigh mine?

And yet, in a flash of glory Joshua strikes the oppressors, venturing to substitute his life for hers.

Death of Honor

Do you know such calculations on a smaller scale? Are we today a people known for honoring our elderly with our time, resources, and attention? Or is it not the case that if a friend should proverbially walk an old lady across the street, we would instinctively ask, “Who is she to you?” The youthful, the innovative, the beautiful, the YouTube sensations, the celebrities and professional athletes receive our admiration. The enfeebled, the mostly spent, the hard of hearing and seeing and walking do not.

Is it not true that the elderly mostly live in the background of our attention, cast as the extra pecking away at an iPhone, trying to send a text? Youth are rarely taught to honor grandma and grandpa, let alone the aged in general.

The scene of this endangered old woman comes closer to God’s timeless expectations than our assumptions today. The real Moses would soon write a law that read, “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:32). A special respect and care were due to the elderly of Israel.

Why don’t we stand before the elderly man in our midst? Why so little honor paid to the weathered face of the old woman? Why so little fear of God? Of the many options, I contribute two that have discipled me to give less regard to the elderly than is fitting.

1. Information Age

Throughout time, the elderly have served as sages of the community. They have experienced and lived, lost and learned lessons lacking among the untested thoughts and ideals of youth.

So Job spoke, “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days” (Job 12:12). So Elihu explained his deference in saying, “Let days speak, and many years teach wisdom” (Job 32:7). And so Paul exhorts that the older women are to “teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands” (Titus 2:3–5). Generally, the elderly ought not only to be the wisest among us, but also regarded as so.

But what is abuelo and abuela compared with all-wise Google? What can they tell me that a quick search can’t? Expertise on anything under the sun lies at my fingertips. What good is one old chief, viewing life from his narrow, dated lens, compared with a million sages with advanced degrees, anticipating the next trends and offering unsleeping counsel on anything I care to know?

Jesus taught that Christians who lose family for his sake receive back a hundredfold in the church. We seem to believe that those who lose wisdom from the elderly receive back a millionfold on the Internet.

2. Cosmetic Age

Our society does not like to look at death. Our funerals are short; our grieving brief. When the signs of the end begin, we cover it. We dye our hair. We get fake teeth. We iron wrinkles and use liposuction. We diet and make-up and teeth-whiten to preserve the appearance that we will live forever. While living, we embalm.

We all dread the infirmities old age brings. Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 12:1–8, captures the “evil days” of aging in poetic terms. These are days when one says, “I have no pleasure in them” (verse 1). Days when the sun and moon and stars darken, and you live under perpetual cloud (verse 2). Days when hands and arms shake violently, strong men hunch, and your grinders — your teeth — cease because they are few (verse 3). Days lived indoors with light sleeping and little hearing (verse 4). Days afraid of heights, days of graying hair and shriveled appetite (verse 5). Days when the golden bowl begins cracking, the silver chord begins fraying, and the body prepares to return to dust and the spirit to God (verse 6–7). Vanity of vanities, the Preacher concludes (verse 8).

And so what are we to do with these weathered boats with tattered masts sailing among us, these reminders of what the crash of time and sin is doing to us all? Honor them or ignore them? See glory in their worn faces or our own inevitable defeat? In the halls of honor, we do not keep dying flowers.

Testimonies and Silver Crowns

Our God would have us stand up before the gray head and honor the old face.

What can the aged teach us (a question already lacking humility)? Well, while any elderly person can speak of the scars and successes of human experience, the old saints in the church can tell you about a lifetime of God’s faithfulness, his kindness, his steadfast love.

Siri will not answer how good God has been to her. Google cannot testify that even to old age, God has carried him through countless trials (Isaiah 46:4). The wrinkled face of the saint with a wrinkled Bible is a treasure to all who love God and want to know him more. And the elderly saint, “full of sap and green,” has a testimony and wisdom that the young and beautiful and strong need to hear (Psalm 92:12–15). David wanted to age for this very purpose: “Even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come” (Psalms 71:18).

“Gray hair crowns an old and well-lived life, a life that should be celebrated, not ignored.”

And what of the challenges of growing frail? How do we commend that? The Bible also speaks of fullness of days as a splendor. “The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair” (Proverbs 20:29). We see the glory, but not the splendor. And, “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life” (Proverbs 16:31). Gray hair crowns an old and well-lived life, one that should be celebrated, not overlooked.

We miss much of the wisdom and glory of old age when the elderly dwell apart. Ancient times did not have government-run nursing homes, social-security programs, or retirement centers. All three converged in one place: the household. With multigenerational living now mostly a thing of the past in the West, we pick and choose to see our elderly family or not, affording them little influence in our lives. And without multigenerational representation, we can miss it in the church as well.

Lost Message

Of course, some elderly people have not lived wisely or well. Yet, John Piper observes, “There are tokens of respect and demonstrations of honor that belong to older people, simply because they are older. God has granted them to live long, and you shall fear your God by honoring the men and women who have borne his image to old age.”

The fear of God presides over this honor. Piper again says of Psalm 71,

This text commands the younger ones among us not to stride presumptuously and carelessly into the presence of an older person as though we were crossing no gap — as though we and they were simply peers with no special respect and honor to be shown to them. “You shall rise up before the gray head; you shall show honor to face of an old person.” . . .

And the loss of these manners of respect from baby boomers and teenagers is directly related to their small view of God and the contemporary foreignness of the idea of the fear of God. If God has become a buddy, you can hardly expect people to stand when an old man enters the room.

“The old saints in the church can tell you about a lifetime of God’s faithfulness, his kindness, his steadfast love.”

Some elderly among us forfeit degrees of honor because of how they lived. Yet old age is still to be acknowledged. We take the customs of our culture and communicate to our elders, “You are venerable.”

Honor the Old Face

Technological advances, state-run nursing homes, the worship of innovation and progress, and Western individualism may make it seem unnatural to show special honor to the elderly. Society little incentivizes my generation to look to old heads for wisdom or show deference or respect. The old is passing away; the new has come.

But while we smirk at the old man struggling with his iPhone, or shake our head as the old woman drives 30 miles per hour under the speed limit, God calls for honor. While we size up the gray hair and wrinkled faces for what we think they contribute to the progress of society, God might have us stand when they enter the room.

Do you honor the gray head in your family, neighborhood, church? When the world observes how we behave among the elderly — especially the elderly in the church — and they wonder aloud, “What is she to you?”

In the fear of the Lord, reply, “An old woman.”

Audio Transcript

And we’re back again for another week and for another Fourth of July on the podcast. I think it’s the fourth time an episode has landed square on the holiday — at least our fourth. So happy Independence Day for those of you here in the States. If the inbox is any indicator, questions over politics, patriotism, and the pulpit are perennial concerns. When better to broach the topic than on a day like today?

Jamison, a pastor in Virginia, writes in to ask this: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast! I admire your approach to politics and patriotism. You seem to be very careful here. Even when the heat is turned up in election times, and pastors feel social pressure to endorse specific candidates, you notoriously refrain from participating. As you have watched this impulse in American Christian life for many decades, this impulse among Christian leaders to periodically endorse candidates and to get involved in politics, what observations have you drawn from your decades of refraining?”

Maybe the most important or helpful thing that I can do in response to this question is to point to passages of Scripture that capture the emphasis I think is needed, not just in the American church, but in the global church, the church around the world. Because the tendency to confuse and combine Christian identity and its earthly expression, the church, with political identity, ethnic identity, national identity, or any other earthly identity — that conflating tendency is so strong, and I think so destructive to the radical call of the gospel, that it needs steadfast resistance generation after generation.

Christian Identity in a Politicized World

So my burden is to join forces with the Bible (as I understand it), and millions of faithful Christians, to encourage and nurture a faithful Christian identity that will survive and thrive with faith and hope and joy and love and purity, whether America survives, or Brazil survives, or Britain survives, or China survives, or Russia survives, or India survives — or not.

So let me point to six kinds of passages that shaped my passions in that direction.

1. Not of This World

Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). From which I infer that we’d better be very, very careful before we undertake any processes that involve force or coercion to put the kingdom of Christ in place. Any identity that we can put in place by force or weapon or law is not the kingdom of Christ. In this age, King Jesus is creating a people a very different way. That’s number one.

2. Hidden with Christ

Paul said in Colossians 1:13, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And again,

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1–4)

“Our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth.”

So our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth. It is the right hand of God, not the right hand of any earthly power. Our most essential life is Christ, and only when he comes will we be openly known for who we really are.

3. Citizens of Heaven

Philippians 3:20–21:

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

So no earthly citizenship, whether American or Russian or Chinese, has any ultimate allegiance over those who are in Christ Jesus. Our political allegiances are to Jesus. No party, no nation, no ethnicity, no ideology has any ultimate claim on us. Our decisive constitution is the word of God, and no human document.

4. Chosen Race, Holy Nation

Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” These are ethnically and politically shattering words. Born-again Christians, real Christians, are a chosen race (genos eklekton), a holy nation (ethnos hagion). The kind of human we are and the kind of nation we belong to is not any longer our essential identity. We are a new kind, a new nation. None of the existing human realities, ethnic or national, is God’s chosen and holy people. Christians are a new thing, a new reality, a new people, a new nation, a new ethnicity and race. And we should bear witness to it.

5. Resident Aliens on Earth

Therefore, Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Christians are not first Americans, or Canadians, or British, or Russians, or Nigerians. In every nation, we are exiles. Let that sink in. I want to scream that from the top of the buildings to every nationalistic tendency. In every nation, we are exiles.

Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). If you are going to run for office, be sure to inform your constituency that you are a resident alien. Your primary citizenship and allegiance are the kingdom of Christ.

6. Servants of God

Peter said in 1 Peter 2:13–16,

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

“We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding.”

In other words, realize as Christians that you are free — free from emperors, free from governors, free from presidents, free from worldly powers and parties. We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding. And when the human state tells us to pay our taxes and keep the speed limit and shovel the snow off of our sidewalks, we do it, not because the state is our authority, but because God is. We submit for his sake and in his limits.

7. People from All Nations

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19–20,

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Now that does not mean, “Go and turn pagan cultures into whitewashed tombs with the paint of so-called ‘Christian’ externals.” We know that. We know it doesn’t mean that, because Jesus defines “discipling nations” — which is the neuter plural Greek word ethne, “nations” — by “baptizing and teaching them,” and the “them” is masculine plural. That’s crucial. You don’t disciple political entities. You don’t disciple ethnic corporate realities. You disciple “them” — autous, plural in Greek — people that you can baptize.

In other words, our job is to so magnify Jesus and his saving work, among all the peoples of the world, that individual human beings are brought from death to life and formed into the image of Christ. In every race, ethnicity, nation, this new people, this chosen race, this holy nation among all the nations are to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).

You Don’t Need to Know It All

Now I have no illusions, Tony, that until Jesus comes, Christians will ever agree on precisely what it looks like in professional life, and political life, and cultural life for the church to be the kingdom of Christ — a kingdom, Jesus says, that’s not of this world.

But my encouragement to pastors is that you don’t need to figure that out. You don’t need to figure that out for all of your amazingly diverse people invested in a thousand ways, in all kinds of cultural and professional and political endeavors. You don’t need to be the expert to figure all that out. We’re not smart enough. Speak these biblical truths and others that you see as relevant from Scripture. Call your people to radical allegiance to King Jesus. Set them on a quest of lifelong learning, and trust the Spirit of God in their lives.

What is Christian boldness? For some, the phrase conjures images of bravado, machismo, and swagger. For others, the phrase signifies a vague sense of courage and conviction in the face of opposition.

The fourth chapter of Acts provides an unusually clear picture of Christian boldness. The noun for boldness (parrēsia) appears three times in this one chapter (and only twice more in the rest of Acts) and here sets the context for Luke’s use of the verb speak boldly (parrēsiazomai) seven times in the coming chapters. He apparently intends for us to see the events of this chapter as a particularly poignant example of Christian boldness. By examining them, we can see not only what Christian boldness is, but where it comes from, and how we can cultivate it for ourselves.

Astonished at Common Men

The word first appears in Acts 4:13: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished.” What had the Jewish leaders seen that so shocked them?

Recall that Peter and John had been arrested following a miraculous healing at the temple (Acts 3:1–4:4). Peter had healed a man lame from birth, amazing the crowds. He followed the healing with an evangelistic sermon to the gathered crowd. The sermon is interrupted by the Jewish leaders, who, annoyed by the apostolic teaching, arrest the apostles and throw them in prison overnight.

The next day, Peter and John are brought before the entire council, including the high priest and his family. The rulers demand to know how Peter and John were able to do this miracle. And then Peter responds with the words that surprise the Sanhedrin and show us the meaning of boldness.

Three Elements of Christian Boldness

First, their boldness shines in a hostile context. The gathering of the entire council seems to be an attempt to intimidate these uneducated, common fishermen. Here are the elite, the educated, the men who have power. It is they who ask, “What do you have to say for yourselves?”

No doubt other uneducated men had stood before them and shivered, looked pale, and found their tongues tied in the presence of these religious leaders. But not Peter and John. Their answer to the accusatory question is as clear as a bell. “Let it be known to all of you . . . ,” Peter says (Acts 4:10). One imagines him lifting up his head and his voice so that he can be clearly heard by those in the back. This fisherman is unmoved in the presence of these leaders.

Second, their boldness manifests in their clear testimony about Jesus. It is by his name that the man was healed. It is by his name (and his name alone) that any man can be saved. This Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, is the cornerstone, and there is salvation in no one else (Acts 4:10–12). Thus, clarity about Jesus, and his power to heal and save, is at the heart of Christian boldness.

Finally, their boldness is displayed in their clarity about sin. This man, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified . . . this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you” (Acts 4:10–11). You rulers, you who purport to be the builders of Israel, rejected him, the cornerstone who has become for you a stone of stumbling and rock of offense. Here is a turning of the tables. Peter and John are the ones on trial; they have been arrested. And yet here they accuse and condemn the powerful men who not a few months earlier had killed Jesus himself.

“Christian boldness is courage and clarity about Jesus and sin in the face of powerful opposition.”

So then, what is Christian boldness? It is courage and clarity about Jesus and sin in the face of powerful opposition. It is plain and open speech with no obfuscation or muttering. It is unhindered testimony to the truth, whether about Christ and his salvation, or about what he came to save us from.

Obey God Rather than Men

This understanding of boldness is confirmed if we consider the next chapter, when Peter and John are again arrested and hauled before these same leaders for their refusal to stop speaking in the name of Jesus.

The high priest questioned them, saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us” (Acts 5:28). But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:29–32).

‘God Raised Him’

“You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.” What teaching? The teaching about the resurrection of Jesus. The apostles are preaching the lordship of the risen Jesus. “God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). That’s what every sermon in Acts is about. God raised Jesus. God exalted Jesus. Jesus is Savior. Jesus is Lord. Jesus forgives sins. There is no other name by which we can be saved. This is the message the apostles preach in defiance of the Sanhedrin’s threats. They are determined to fill Jerusalem with the good news about who Jesus is and what God has done through him.

‘You Killed Him’

But not only teaching about Jesus. They also preach clearly and courageously about sin, and in particular the sin of betraying, rejecting, denying, and murdering Jesus. “You intend to bring this man’s blood upon us,” the high priest says (Acts 5:28). You’re trying to blame us for killing him. “That’s exactly right,” responds Peter. “You killed him by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 5:30).

It’s remarkable how often the apostles strike this note, in Jerusalem no less, only a few months removed from the crucifixion itself. The unjust death of Jesus is fresh, and yet the apostles make it a repeated and central note in their preaching, both to the crowds and to the Jewish leaders.

This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:23)

God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. (Acts 2:36)

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. (Acts 3:13–15)

By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. . . . This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders. (Acts 4:10–11)

And this clarity and courage about the particular sin of killing Jesus is one part of the larger apostolic clarity about all sin and the need to repent.

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. . . . Save yourselves from this crooked generation. (Acts 2:38, 40)

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. (Acts 3:19)

God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. (Acts 3:26)

“Every one of you [turn] from your wickedness.” Not your neighbor’s wickedness. Not the wickedness of those people over there. Your wickedness. This is Christian boldness — clearly and courageously testifying to the resurrection of Jesus and the need to repent, both in general and in the specific ways that we have rebelled against God.

Dare to Be Specific

This leads us to a key lesson for us about Christian boldness. If we are to be bold, we must bring the reality of Jesus to bear on the reality of human sinfulness. And not just generic sinfulness. While calls for repentance from generic sins have their place, true Christian boldness gets specific about sin and particular about context.

“If we are to be bold, we must bring the reality of Jesus to bear on the reality of human sinfulness.”

There is a perennial temptation for Christian preachers to gather a crowd and preach about all the sins “out there.” But faithfulness and boldness demand that we address the sins actually present in whatever room we find ourselves. And if we ever wonder which sins we ought to boldly address, we can simply ask which sins we’re tempted to ignore and minimize. Which sins do we tread lightly around? Where are we tempted to whisper? That context requires Christian boldness.

And Peter and John maintain this boldness in the face of threats and opposition, as they go from being a mere nuisance (Acts 4:2), to the objects of jealousy (Acts 5:17), to the objects of rage and violence (Acts 5:33; 7:54). The opposition escalates, and the boldness abides.

How Can We Grow in Courage?

Where then does this boldness come from? Fundamentally, it comes from the Holy Spirit. Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit” answers the Sanhedrin’s question (Acts 4:8). In the face of threats, the early Christians “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). Steven, “full of the Holy Spirit,” indicts the Jewish leaders who have arrested and falsely accused him (Acts 7:55).

But not only the Holy Spirit. The Jewish leaders, in recognizing the apostolic boldness, recognized that Peter and John “had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). And while this no doubt refers to their engagement in Christ’s earthly ministry, it contains a word for us today.

We too, if we wish to be bold, must be filled with the Spirit and abide with Jesus. And the book of Acts shows us not merely the ultimate source of Christian boldness, but also the means for growing in it. After Peter and John are released and warned to no longer speak in the name of Jesus, what do they do?

1. Gather

“They went to their friends and reported what the chief priest and elders had said to them. And . . . they lifted their voices together” (Acts 4:23–24). Christian boldness is not an individualistic affair. It comes from gathering with God’s people to seek his face together.

2. Pray

“Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them . . . look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak the word with all boldness” (Acts 4:24, 29). Boldness comes to those who ask the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth for it. The Spirit fills them with Christian boldness because they petition the throne of grace to bestow it generously.

3. Ask God to make good on his promises

In their prayers, they repeat back to God what God has said. They quote Psalm 2 and celebrate God’s royal victory in Jesus. Christian boldness is a boldness built on the word of God.

4. Look for God’s Hand and Plan

Not only do they read the Bible and pray the Bible; they read their own story in light of the Scriptures, looking for God’s hand and plan in their lives. They see God’s hand and plan behind the Jewish and Roman opposition to Christ, and they see God’s hand and plan behind the continued opposition to Christ and his people. Jesus’s story is our story, and it is in the midst of that story that we gather and pray God’s word so that we, like the apostles, can speak God’s word with boldness.