On Sunday, November 23, I heard a sermon on Acts 4. The theme of the sermon was "In the name of Jesus" although personally I don't think that the contents of the sermon and the theme matched.
In verses 1 to 3 we read that
the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening.
In refering to this event the pastor said that the
actual driving reason for the action of arresting the apostles was not the theology of the Sadducees but their political position. So, he claimed that what the apostles taught could have had revolutionary political implications, that it could have disturbed the political stability and therefore the political position of the Sadducees.
He thus also said that the politics of the Sadducees determined their theology. I found this statement rather strange because, so I reasoned, Luke thoroughly investigated all these things. Luke was around at that time and I guess that if it was really a matter of political stability that Luke would have stated it. What bothered me is that the pastor claimed that Scripture does not give us the actual reason. So, I talked to the pastor about this and he explained that he used an authoritative commentary and that's where he got this information. I don't question the fact that the Sadducees might have been politically involved. However, I don't see any evidence in Scripture to support the claim that the
actual reason for the arrest was politically motivated. In fact, it seems to me that it was theologically.
Now I think one of the points the pastor wanted to make was to say that one should be careful that one's political views do not influence one's theology. Which certainly is true.
But for the Sadducees, it seems to me that it is more likely that their theology influenced their politics and not the other way round. Is it not their denial of the resurrection, which is a theological matter, that influenced their view of life? For them everything would have ended at death and they had to get out of life what they could, also their political power and everything that goes with it.
And is it not so even today that at the fundamental level it is a theological view that underlies a political view and not the other way round? Are "so-called" political liberation struggles and their connection to liberation theology not real present day examples of this?
Don't know if this is just an academic matter but would nevertheless want to hear what others say.
Johan
