Acts 5:17-18. "But the high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is, the party of the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and put them in the common prison." (Spoiler alert, it doesn't take long for the apostles to be sprung from prison by an angel and told to go to the temple and "speak to the people all the words of this Life." Acts 5:20.) The high priest and the Sadducees just don't know what to do with the apostles! They keep arresting them, giving them stern lectures, threatening them, and yet the apostles just keep on preaching and converting thousands.

Reading this, I try to think about what I would do if my whole understanding of the world, my life's work, and my faith was being threatened as the Jewish priests' were in Acts. I think it was much easier for the common people to convert to Christianity, they were leading ordinary, often difficult, lives, and the words of salvation would have been like balm to their souls. But the Pharisees and the Sadducees had devoted their lives to the study of the Jewish faith. They were the ones that people looked to for answers. They had authority, power, and respect. So the apostles coming out of nowhere after their leader had been killed and preaching the Resurrection was an extreme threat to everything these priests stood for and had built their lives around. The Sadducees would have been especially threatened since they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. The apostles were preaching that Jesus Christ, God Himself, had just proved them definitively wrong!

As we continue to go through the trials of our times, I am coming more and more to see that I, at least, do not understand the world as explained by by my faith as well as I thought I did. I know the teachings of my faith, I know they are true and right, but when I see them being applied by myself and my fellow fallen brothers and sisters, I see we are making many mistakes. I think God is showing us, through the trials we're going through, where we are going wrong. We have to be humble and trusting enough to let go of the worldview we have built if and when God shows us we were wrong. As in Acts, this will be difficult, especially for the Church hierarchy. We must continue to pray for all of our priests, so they have the humility to see and accept God's Truth and teach it accurately to his flock.