After being arrested, imprisoned, tried and beaten for speaking in the name of Jesus, the apostles were commanded to not speak in the name of Jesus any more (Acts 5:40). Can you imagine a judge, a court or a high council passing down a sentence that condemned you for speaking about Jesus Christ and commanded that you never do it again? Can you imagine, as an incentive to adhere to the decree, that you received thirty-nine stripes? How would you have responded? What would you have done? Look! How did the apostles respond?
Do you know what they did the next day? And the day after that? And the day after that? Do you know what they did on Monday? On Tuesday? On Wednesday? There was something that they did every day! Whatever it was, it must have been extremely important. Are there some things you do every day?
It is interesting how the Bible words the action of the apostles on this occasion. Scripture does not state this positively — i.e., it does not say that the apostles did something. Rather, God chose to state it negatively — i.e., He tells us what they didn’t do. And, by telling us what they didn’t do, God shared with us what they deliberately chose to do.
If you had been flogged and commanded by ruling officials to cease speaking about Jesus, what would YOU have done? The apostles purposefully ignored the orders given to them—they refused to obey. “And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42). Read verse 29.
They were told to cease, and they did not cease. The message they were teaching and preaching (that Jesus is the Christ) was not a popular message. However, they would not and did not cease teaching and preaching it. The location of their public proclamations (the temple grounds) was not a popular place to extend the message of the deity of Jesus. However, they would not and did not cease teaching and preaching there. Perhaps, if they had only gone to the temple one day a week to share the gospel, the high council may have just left them alone and not been too concerned about their lackluster attempts. However, they not only would not and did not cease teaching and preaching, they went back there EVERY day, and when they were not publicly preaching in the temple, they were privately teaching in the homes.
Legally, the gospel of Christ has not yet been muted in this country. Have you ceased teaching and preaching already?