Being Turned Round
When this had dawned on him (that he had been released from prison by an angel), Peter went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”
“You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the brothers about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.
In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there a while. He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. Having secured the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply.
On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
But the word of God continued to increase and spread. When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark. Acts 12:12-25
My father has on occasion emotionally proclaimed, “If you witness one life turned round by the Gospel, you’ve lived a blessed life.” This response often surfaces during conversations about friends and family and life and death, and, on every occasion, while my father and I are having one of those “what to do with my life” kind of talks. This is his “perspective talk”, and it is quite helpful, and very, very true.
When reading Acts 12, I can’t help but think how aptly my father’s perspective talk speaks to Peter and his spiritual situation. The same Peter that denied Christ earlier, by swearing “I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:74), is found in Acts preaching the message of Christ before the council (4:8) and here, in Acts 12, proclaiming to his friends at Mary’s house the wonder of his angelic release from prison. The group gathered to pray for Peter’s release must have rejoiced when he knocked at the door and announced his dramatic release from Herod’s capture. Surely they recognized Peter’s life being turned round by the Gospel.
We are told that quickly after speaking to those gathered at Mary’s, Peter “left and went to another place” (12:17). My hunch is that Peter’s next visit was to another house group, where he again proclaimed the joy of his release. Many people, according to my father, lived a blessed life through Peter’s transformation.
