The flow of narrative carried Luke up to 46 AD. However, the thread concerning Peter cannot be dropped until Luke explains why. Peter had exercised his office holding the Keys of the Realm, having opened the way to all mankind. He is not God's choice, however, to spread the gospel much beyond his own homeland.
We take a moment to review the political situation. Herod the Great died while Jesus was a child. His sons divided the kingdom, but Judea and Galilee were reunited under the authority of Herod's grandson, Herod Agrippa I. He was granted this by his good friend, Emperor Caligula, shortly before the latter died. Thus, Herod Agrippa I comes on the scene in 41 AD, and survives just three years. During his reign, he sought to curry favor with the Jewish leaders. Late in his term, he had James the son of Zebedee arrested and executed. This had the desired effect, and he proceeded to have Peter arrested. While Jesus was executed on Passover, that was extremely rare. Typically, no one would be executed during Passover and the following seven days of Unleavened Bread. Thus, Peter languished in the Fortress of Antonio for at least a week.
Peter was under the guard of four squads, a total of sixteen soldiers. Their rotation came during the twelve-hour night shift, so each squad would take three hours. Two were supposed to sit awake with the sleeping prisoner chained between them. There were two inner doors, each with another guard. During the whole feast, the church had been praying for him. The last night of the feast, Peter surely expected to be executed the next day, yet slept soundly. An angel appeared, lighting up the chamber. He roused Peter rather roughly, and his chains simply fell off. The guards neither saw nor heard a thing. The angel had Peter arrange his clothing for departure. Peter was sure he was dreaming. They passed the two inner portals, and again the guards noticed nothing. At the outer gate which led onto the street, the thing opened automatically. After walking one block, the angel simply disappeared, and Peter realized it was not a dream.
It was a short walk to the old headquarters in the Bethesda district of the city, the house with the Upper Room, owned by Mary, the mother of John Mark. Peter knocked at the gate of the outer courtyard. It was still dark, and a young lady named Rhoda came to answer. Upon asking who was there, and hearing Peter's voice, she forgot to let him in, but ran back and announced to the assembled prayer meeting Peter was outside. For all their faithfulness in praying, it seemed too incredible, and they finally decided it must be Peter's guardian angel, since it could not be Peter himself. Upon opening the gate to see Peter himself in the flesh, they burst into a million questions, but he had to silence them. With the angel gone, Peter reckoned the miraculous part was past and he needed to be careful. After telling them of that miracle escape, he asked them to relay the news to James, the brother of Jesus. Essentially, this officially places James in the lead, as Peter must go underground. With that, his place in the narrative is essentially finished.
Roman law decreed if a soldier allowed a prisoner to escape, he suffered the same sentence expected for his prisoner. When the final shift came on duty, everyone suddenly realized the chains were attached to nothing. Luke describes a scene of military panic. Herod ordered a full search to insure none of the other soldiers in the fortress were playing games. It came down to the four guard squads having no explanation, and they were duly executed. Deprived of his prey, Herod went down to the palace at Caesarea on the coast, where Cornelius was stationed.
This places Peter's change of duties at 44 AD, which is when Herod Agrippa died. A short time after this incident, the Sidonians saw their opportunity to get out of a jam. They had managed to anger Herod, and were at risk of being starved, since Herod controlled the delivery of food to the ancient Phoenician home, since it produced precious little of its own. They bribed the king's chamberlain (manager of the royal household, a very influential man), Blastus. Working through him, they arranged an audience to make peace with Herod. The king suffered a serious case of vanity, and received them in a robe of woven silver. The Sidonian delegation played on this vanity. When Herod made some fancy speech to receive them, they kept exclaiming it was surely the voice of a god. In their pagan culture, this was entirely appropriate, but it was a sin for any king claiming to rule the Jews. During this royal celebration, Herod became sick. A few days later he died, according to Luke, from some sort of worm infestation.
This latest threat neutralized, the church began to grow again in the land of the Jews, and the gospel spread afresh. Thus, we find Saul and Barnabas delivered their donation to the church in Jerusalem to stave off another kind of threat. While there, they enlisted John Mark into their ministry, and returned to Antioch.
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By Ed Hurst
18 July 2008
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