I served at a church in Southern Louisiana not long after the era of segregation had officially ended, though its shadows still lingered. Through our outreach, we opened the doors of the First Baptist Church gym, and several African American teens and men began gathering to play basketball a few nights a week.
This did not sit well with everyone. Two powerful local business owners objected to Black people using the facility and demanded a meeting. As a young preacher fresh out of seminary, I was terrified. I walked into that room practically shaking in my shoes, anticipating a fierce confrontation. Fortunately, another highly successful businessman from our congregation had also decided to attend.
The moment the meeting began, the two men started voicing their complaints. They barely got a few sentences out before the third businessman interrupted them. He looked right at them and asked a single, piercing question: “I want to make something clear. Do we have a church that represents Jesus, or do we have a country club?”
That was the end of the discussion. To this day, it remains one of the shortest meetings I have ever attended.
Because those doors stayed open, the ministry blossomed. Our basketball teams were good enough that the local high school coach attended some of our games and recruited players for his own roster.
The true depth of that program’s impact became apparent a few years later. One of our volunteer coaches was at a basketball tournament when a young man who played in our gym came and sat beside him. Looking at his former coach, he said, “If you hadn’t been my coach, and if I hadn’t played basketball here, I don’t think I would have stayed in school.”
God was profoundly at work in that meeting. It is a pure joy to remember how He used the bold conviction of one wise man to protect a ministry that ultimately changed the trajectory of so many lives.
A Wise Teacher of the Law
I may have been trembling in my shoes during the brief business meeting, but my life was never actually in danger. For the early church leaders preaching in the streets of Jerusalem, however, the stakes were entirely different—speaking the truth put their very lives at risk.
Yet, just as a wise and courageous man stood up in our church meeting to protect a fragile ministry, God provided an unexpected advocate in Jerusalem to keep the doors open for the gospel to spread. This is that story.
When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time. (Acts 5:33-34)
Gamaliel came from a family of wise leaders. As he spoke to the council, he reminded them of two rebel groups that had failed. Then, he gave an important standard for both that time and today.
Then he said to them, “Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men… I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!” (Acts 5:35, 38-39)
History proved Gamaliel right: what God had set into motion could not be stopped by anyone.
When the early church first gathered in the book of Acts, it was just a small band of 120 believers huddled together in an upper room. Today, that movement has surged to an estimated 2.67 billion people—roughly 32% of the entire global population.
Truly, a work of God cannot be overthrown.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed Acts 5:33-42 on YouTube today.
