The apostles were interrupted in their preaching by the sudden, dramatic appearance of hostile officials (ephistemi is stronger than the NIV came up to; compare Lk 20:1; Acts 6:12; 17:5). The priests (Sadducean in conviction), the captain of the temple guard (a highly placed member of the high priest's family charged with temple security) and Sadducees (probably aristocratic laymen) were greatly disturbed (compare 16:18). In Jesus the people were being offered a particular instance of and foundational argument for the resurrection "from the dead" (NIV somewhat follows the Western text, anastasei ton nekron—the resurrection of the dead).

The Sadducees, the priestly and lay aristocracy who had ruled the Jews in religious and political matters at the behest of foreign overlords since Hasmonean times, did not believe that anyone but the priests should be instructing the people in spiritual matters. They believed that the messianic age dawned with the Hasmoneans in the second century B.C. Anyone making messianic claims was at best mistaken and at worst a political revolutionary posing a threat to their comfortable position. In matters of doctrine they considered themselves traditional, holding only to the written Torah and rejecting the oral Torah, the sayings of the fathers, which the Pharisees accepted. One doctrine they did not find in the written Torah was resurrection from the dead (Josephus Jewish Antiquities 18.16-17).

Seizing Peter and John, . . . they put them in jail until the next day (compare Jesus' prediction, Lk 21:12). It was already evening, and the Sanhedrin normally commenced its judicial business only during daylight hours (m. Sanhedrin 4:1). Luke lets us know through the Sadducees' negative example that those with vested interests in power and comfort and with unbiblical preconceived notions will view the gospel as a threat.

Luke will not allow us to think for a moment, though, that human beings had thwarted the advance of God's saving work. He immediately gives a summary statement on church growth: many who heard the message (literally, the word) believed (compare Lk 8:11-15; Acts 2:44; 3:22; 4:29, 31-32). The total church membership grew to about five thousand males, not to mention women and children. In our own day Muslim rulers' imprisonment of Christians also works to advance the gospel. Persecuted believers get to know one another in their confinement, forming a network for communication and support once they are released.

The next day the Sanhedrin convened. This highest legislative and judicial body in Israel consisted of seventy-one members from three groups: rulers, or temple officials, many from the high-priestly families; elders from the chief families, the landed gentry; and teachers of the law, professional Torah scholars who taught, expounded and applied the law, as well as arguing it in court. Identifying by name key members from the high-priestly component, Luke emphasizes the Sadducean viewpoint, which predominated in the council because of these members' prominence.

They placed Peter and John in their midst (the Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle—m. Sanhedrin 4:3). Just as they had challenged Jesus after he rid the temple court of the high-priest families' concession booths (Lk 20:2), so now they want to know by what kind of power (Acts 4:7; compare 1:8; 3:12; 4:33) or in what kind of name (3:6, 16; 4:10, 12, 17-18, 30) Peter and John had healed the beggar. Thus the council charged with distinguishing between truth and error in Jewish religion exercised its prerogative to test the basis for this healing. Their interrogation, however, was not unprejudiced. The emphatic placement of you in the question lets us know the contempt with which they hold these unschooled, ordinary men (4:13).

Whenever members of an establishment confuse their desire to maintain their own power with their duty to guard the public trust, sound judgment will invariably become impossible for them. Their blind ambition will keep them from seeing and comprehending the very truth they are to guard (see Jn 9:40-41).