With Boldness

Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus. 

Acts 4:29-31 

Why did the apostles pray for boldness? The religious leaders had opposed them, their preaching of Christ, and had sought to intimidate them into silence. They were ‘uneducated and untrained men.’ It should have been easy for the religionists to overpower them. As it was, they returned to their group and began to pray for even more boldness to preach Christ. This demonstrates how thoroughly committed they were to the preaching of Christ. Rather than ask for an easier time of it, or less opposition, they prayed for boldness knowing that the more ardently they proclaimed Christ the greater the opposition would become. Their boldness came from the Holy Spirit as our text indicates. They proclaimed Christ with such boldness that later, people would refer to them as those who had turned the world upside down. This is what happens when Christ is at the heart of preaching. The Holy Spirit enables the proclaimers of truth to make much of Christ. When they do, He takes that message and drives it home to the hearts of those who must receive it. He converts them as He Alone is able. They become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. We want such boldness. At the close of the age it is more important than ever that we proclaim Christ with boldness.  

Our Glorious, Living God, 
we rejoice that You have given us a worthy message to proclaim. 
We praise You that we are only following the pattern of  
what those who have gone before us have preached. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning