Ye Of Much Faith

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

Acts 5:29

The seventeenth-century Scottish pastor and theologian Samuel Rutherford wrote an important book in Christian history: Lex, Rex, or The Law and the Prince: A Dispute for the Just Prerogative of King and People. In this book, he argued that the laws of man can never supersede the laws of God; any just human law will be consistent with God’s law.

It took faith for Rutherford to write that book, since he had already spent two years in a Scottish prison for his nonconformist views. He would have found a cellmate in the apostle Peter, who also spent time in a Jewish jail in Jerusalem for advocating Rutherford-like views. Peter, remember, had been “O ye of little faith” (Matthew 6:30 KJV) just before Jesus’ crucifixion, unwilling to even be named as a follower of Jesus. But the coming of the Holy Spirit changed him completely. He was full of faith, and the rest of the fruit of the Spirit as well. When told to stop preaching, Peter said, “Not so fast—we have a higher command than yours to obey.”

When was the last time your faith brought you into conflict with society’s values, norms, or laws? Were you “of little faith” or “of much faith”?

It takes faith to obey—and faith to trust God with the outcome.