”The teaching and preaching of Peter and John angered the priests, the captain of the temple police, and representatives of the Jewish sect of the Sadducees. They were furious that the people were being taught that in Jesus there is a resurrection from the dead. So while Peter and John were still speaking, the Jewish authorities came to the temple courts to oppose them.“
Now why would the preaching of followers of Jesus -- fishermen -- upset the Sadducees? History teaches that the Sadducees of that day were a small, very wealthy, largely corrupt political elite group. Does that sound familiar? Their sect of Judaism that did not believe in resurrection or life after death of any kind.
In the eyes of the Sadducees, Peter and John were not experts and had no business teaching the people -- especially if it was contrary to the central narrative of the Sadducees. That may also sound familiar. Peter and John were speaking truth, and the truth was setting people free from overburdensome religious obligations and cutting the middle man out of the process. In effect, it was knee-capping the religious and political power of the Sadducees in the eyes of the people, because their preaching was offering the way for people to be in direct relationship with God. And the passage here says that the Sadducees were furious that Peter and John were teaching a resurrection from the dead. Imagine the difference in the way people were approaching life after hearing this new message. All their lives, they had lived under teaching that said that everything you do ends when you die, so their perspective was probably to do everything they could to live as long as possible and make like on Earth as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. But once they were introduced to Jesus, His resurrection power, and His actual witnessed resurrection from the dead -- death no longer became something to fear and avoid. Life on Earth gaining wealth and pleasure was not the end all, be all.
So to sum it up, Peter and John’s preaching brought freedom and fearlessness to the people who were believing in Jesus. It angered the elites, because they lost control of what the people thought and how they behaved. And that’s the same kind of lifestyle we need to be promoting and living -- one that brings freedom and fearlessness.
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