The council was 'astonished' to see that Peter and John were 'unschooled, ordinary men, yet were speaking so boldly.' I've thought about this verse a thousand times as someone who didn't go to seminary until later in life. I grew up thinking you needed credentials to matter spiritually. You needed to have read all the books, have the right degrees, speak in theologically precise language.
But these early apostles had no formal religious training. They were fishermen. Yet they 'recognized that these men had been with Jesus.' That's the credential that mattered. Not their resume. Not their education. The evidence of their encounter with the risen Christ.
I work as a high school counselor, not a pastor. But when I talk to students about faith, I don't need to have studied theology formally. I need to speak from what I've actually experienced—how faith has sustained me through my parents' divorce, how Jesus met me in my loneliness, how prayer has changed my perspective on rage and despair. The students listen not because I'm credentialed but because I'm real. They know the difference between rehearsed religious talk and authentic testimony. This verse keeps reminding me that sometimes the most powerful witness is just an ordinary person who has genuinely encountered Jesus.
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