When Obedience to God Demands Disobedience to Men

Peter's answer before the Sanhedrin marks a stunning reversal. The warm-hearted, impulsive fisherman who once denied knowing Jesus now speaks with 'calm, fixed determination, which wastes no words, but in its very brevity impresses the hearers as being immovable.' Maclaren observes that this man—once prone to wrong-headedness—has laid down the foundational principle governing Christian conscience: the absolute limit of civil obedience.…