Nathan O. Hatch served us well when he published The Democratization of American Christianity in 1991.[1] He observed throughout the book that the same tendency towards a radical egalitarianism that undergirded the American Revolution quickly manifested itself also in the American churches.

Christianity was effectively reshaped by common people who molded it in their own image and who threw themselves into expanding its influence. Increasingly assertive common people wanted their leaders unpretentious, their doctrines self-evident and down-to-earth, their music lively and singable, and their churches in local hands.[2]

I noted the same tendency when I attempted to correct the common egalitarian mistranslation of Ephesians 4:12, arguing that such a mistranslation required not one, but three, erroneous decisions about Greek grammar or lexicography.[3] What I had not noted at the time was the almost-desperate effort to find justification for such egalitarianism in other passages in the New Testament, such as the now-almost-universal egalitarian misreading of Galatians 3:28. Among such would-be-egalitarian texts, Luke’s statement about how Jewish rulers evaluated Peter and John in Acts 4:13 is a favorite, to which we now turn.

The apostles had healed a crippled man (Acts 3), which occasioned quite a public stir and a demand for some accounting, which Peter attempted in the portico of Solomon (Acts 3:11–26). This account, however, made a bad situation worse, as Peter’s account “greatly annoyed” the priests, the temple captain, and the Sadducees, who “arrested them and put them in custody until the next day” (Acts 4:3). About five thousand people believed Peter’s speech, so on the next day “their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family,” to investigate the disturbance (Acts 4:5–6).

Peter’s address at that point merely threw gasoline on an already-burning fire, especially by his arguably tactless reference to Jesus as “whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead,” and as “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone,” citing Psalm 118:22 (Acts 4:10–11, emphases mine). Luke, no stranger to litotes,[4] probably underestimated the rulers’ reaction:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. (Acts 4:13–14)

Litotic[5] or not, Luke’s observation has fueled many egalitarian fires, and I would like to attempt to extinguish them, on three grounds.

First Ground: Luke did not affirm that Peter and John were ignorant or uneducated.

Acts 4:13 may be the only passage in the New Testament in which Christian readers endorse the (mis?) perceptions of the enemies of Christ and his apostles. Luke faithfully recorded what these rulers “saw” and “perceived,” without indicating at all that he agreed with their perception. The text of Acts 4:13 does not say that Peter and John were ignorant or uneducated, but that the rulers were amazed at what they saw. They were surprised that men who had no credentials to speak publicly were doing so. Indeed, the word translated “boldness” often refers to public speaking, as the reasoning in BAGD indicates: “‘Openness’ sometimes develops into openness to the public, before whom speaking and actions take place.”[6] Indeed, BAGD refers also to the use of the term in the last verse of Acts (Acts 28:31), which records that Paul “welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (μετὰ πάσης παρρησίας ἀκωλύτως, meta pasēs parrēsias akōlutōs, emphases mine). Paul had most of the freedoms of any Roman citizen, including that he could welcome visitors and speak with them because he had, as BAGD put it, “openness to the public.”

Had Peter and John been regular attendees at the synagogue, or been credentialed to speak publicly there, they would have been well-known to the rulers, who would not have been surprised to hear them speaking publicly. But the rulers present knew nothing about them, or whether they had the rights of Roman citizens (they probably did not) or permission to speak publicly in the synagogue, and this is why the rulers were surprised by their public speaking.

They “perceived” that Peter and John were “uneducated, common men” (ἄνθρωποι ἀγράμματοί εἰσιν καὶ ἰδιῶται, anthrōpoi agrammatoi eisin kai idiōtai), which probably meant that they were not known to be the disciples of any of the schools of philosophy or religion in their day. Indeed, “uneducated” does not convey the Greek sense of agrammatos (ἀγράμματος), which might be translated “unlettered,” because access to manuscripts was highly restricted 1,500 years before the printing press, and very few people would have been permitted access to valuable hand-copied manuscripts. Indeed, the Ethiopian reading from Isaiah in Acts 8 proves the point; the only way of accounting for his access to a scroll of Isaiah is there in the text itself: “And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure” (Acts 8:27). It was therefore surprising that a person without known access to a scriptorium could have knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures (hai graphai [αἱ γράφαι], from the same root as gramma [γράμμα], or its negated a-grammatos [ἀ-γράμματος]), yet Peter made six references to these Scriptures/hai graphai in his speech, several of which were direct, word-for-word citations. To not have access to written manuscripts/graphai does not mean that an individual was less educated than the general population, none of whom would have had access to such manuscripts. To be ἀγράμματος (agrammatos) is not necessarily to be ἀμαθής (amathēs), “without knowledge,”[7] or “unknowing” (ἀγνοέω, agnoeō), or “uninstructed” (ἀπαίδευτος, apaideutos), all of which also appear in the New Testament.

Similarly, the designation “common” (ἰδιῶται, idiōtai) is used most often in the New Testament to refer to people who do not know any language but their own, since the root, ἴδιος (idios), means “one’s own,” which in this case would mean people who speak only their “own” native language. In three of the other four uses of the term in the New Testament, it plainly refers to speaking only one’s own language:

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider (τὸν τόπον τοῦ ἰδιώτου, tov topon tou idiōtou) say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? . . . If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders (ἰδιῶται, idiōtai) or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider (ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs) enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all . . . (1 Cor. 14:14, 15, 16, 23, 24)

Note that ESV’s “outsider” is evidently someone who does not speak the language being spoken in the assembly, but only his “own,” native language. And, in the only other place where the term occurs, Paul used it sarcastically, to refute those who belittled his ministry in comparison to others, and even here it was not his intelligence, but his linguistic ability, that was challenged:

Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking (ἰδιώτης τῷ λόγῳ, idiōtēs tō logō), I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. (2 Cor. 11:5–6)

When Peter and John were perceived to be “common” men, this term therefore had none of the negative connotations our English word “common” has today, suggesting a person of less-than-usual refinement or intelligence; to the contrary, as its dictionary use suggests, it would mean a person who had at least the knowledge “common” to an adult in his community or culture, though possibly only his culture’s own language.

Therefore, even if the perception the rulers had of Peter and John were an accurate perception, the combination of terms employed would not necessarily designate them as being of less-than-typical attainments, compared to the population of their day, the vast majority of whom would not have had access to manuscripts, and the majority would not have been multilingual.[8]

Second Ground: Peter demonstrated remarkable knowledge and understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures.

Certainly, Peter was not “ignorant” of the Old Testament writings. Even in a day before the printing press, when manuscripts were rare and expensive, he made six references to those sacred writings, several of which contained verbatim quotes. In Acts 3:13, he mentioned “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers,” something my college-level Bible Survey students could not often do. In Acts 3:18, he mentioned “what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled,” indicating he had grasped what Christ had taught the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:44–47). In verses 22 and 23, he cited a direct quotation from Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, 19:

Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.”

He continued his discourse in verse 24 by indicating not only a comprehensive understanding of the Old Testament prophets, but also of their chronological order, accurately affirming that Samuel was the first: “And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.” In the next verse Peter cited by direct quotation of Genesis 22:18 the third great promise God had made to Abraham: “And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Peter appears to have cited Ezekiel 3:19 in Acts 3:26, “God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” This appears to be a reference to Ezekiel’s having said, “But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way . . .” (and ESV references Ezek. 3:19 in its marginal note to Acts 3:26). Finally, in Acts 4:11, speaking directly to these rulers, he cited a passage ordinarily cited at Jewish festivals, and did so in judgment of those very rulers: “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone” (cf. Ps. 118:22).

Such a rich weaving together of a broad range of biblical texts, in a society where manuscripts were rare and expensive, suggests that Peter was a person of much more than ordinary intelligence, who had learned profoundly from the discourses of Jesus, especially by grasping a hermeneutic by which the entirety of Old Testament Scripture anticipated the coming of Christ. Today, a person with such understanding would be regarded as “uncommon,” who had/has a rich and thorough understanding of the pre-apostolic sacred writings. 

Third Ground: The evidence from Peter’s letters suggest that Peter was, by the standards of his day, erudite.

1 Peter is arguably the finest Greek in the New Testament. I taught Greek for forty-one years, at several institutions, and we rarely studied many New Testament texts in first-year Greek. In second-year Greek, however, we ordinarily translated from both gospels and epistles, to get a sense of both bodies of literature, narrative and epistolary. Only those who persevered to a third year of Greek were ready for really demanding, really erudite Greek, Greek beyond most second-year students. I treated such fortunate students to things like Plato’s Apology of Socrates, if they were interested in Attic Greek; or, if they were interested in further New Testament writings, I would take them initially to 1 Peter, knowing that if they could handle it, they could handle anything else the New Testament could throw at them. It is a masterful example of Koiné Greek (as are Luke’s two volumes). While, of course, Peter may have enjoyed the services of an amanuensis,[9] the thinking itself in the letter, in addition to its remarkable syntax, gives evidence of a person of well-beyond-ordinary intelligence and learning.

In our populist, elitist-despising (and elite-envying?)[10] culture, we have fastened onto Acts 4:13 with the fervor of a dachshund biting a mailman’s ankle. We would like to think that Christ founded his church via people of modest attainment and ability, and some of them, prior to knowing Christ, may have been people of such modest attainment. Some of them, however, such as Matthew, had been entrusted with significant responsibilities prior to knowing him; and Paul would have been in the upper two percentile in the Jewish-Roman culture of the first century. And the others Jesus trained well, and thoroughly, for several years. Eleven of the twelve (all but John) attained the highest of Christian attainments: martyrdom; and Peter alone was crucified upside down. Insofar as they have left us their writings, they are of an extremely high character, reflecting uncanny understanding of how Christ fulfilled all that came before in the Old Testament writings, and they articulated that understanding in clear, intelligent, and, at times, masterful language.

In our circumstances, as we face the apparently-inevitable anti-clericalism of the American/egalitarian world, it is important for us to acknowledge just how competent the original apostolic clergy were. First, nearly all, if not all, were conversant in Koiné Greek. Early on, they knew the portions of the Greek New Testament as they emerged, and their citations of the Old Testament were ordinarily citations of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint). They knew well, and firsthand, the realities of first century life in the Jewish-Roman world, including its varied customs and geo-political tensions. Many had known Jesus personally, had attended his instruction, and even witnessed him in his post-resurrection body. To know any of these things now, if possible at all, would require years of diligent study. Those who neglect such study are the ones who are truly sub-standard, and unqualified to serve the church.

Endnotes

[1] Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).

[2] Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity, 9.

[3] T. David Gordon, “‘Equipping’ Ministry in Ephesians 4?,” Journal for the Evangelical Theological Society 37, no. 1 (March 1994): 69–78.

[4] Acts 12:18; 19:23.

[5] Merriam-Webster Dictionary Version 24.0.3 (WebCatalog, arm64): “understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary (as in ‘not a bad singer’ or ‘not unhappy’).”

[6] Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, ad loc. παρρησία.

[7] Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 1843, ad loc. cit.

[8] Though I have demonstrated that neither “uneducated” nor “common” likely meant a person of lesser competence, I still would contend that the perception the Jewish rulers had of Peter and John was incorrect. Peter employed “Silvanus” in 1 Peter 5:12, which is the Latin form of either a Semitic/Aramaic word or its Greek abbreviation. He would have been more familiar with the Semitic form, “Silas” (12 times in the NT), yet he employed the Latin “Silvanus,” which only appears in 3 other places in the New Testament. Further, we know that Jesus spoke in Aramaic from the several places where a New Testament author would provide a Greek translation of the Aramaic original (e.g. Matt. 1:23; Mark 5:41; 15:22, 34; John 1:38, 42; 9:7, Acts 4:36; 9:36; 13:8). Peter understood those discourses of Jesus, which nearly all scholars concede were delivered in Aramaic, yet he also wrote elegant Greek. Jesus called him “Cephas,” an Aramaic derivative (John 1:42), assuming that Peter could understand either the Greek or the Aramaic. Therefore, Peter was not a “common” man in the sense that idiotes/ἰδιώτης meant an individual who knew only his “own” native language. The evidence of the New Testament suggests that Peter had some familiarity with three, and possibly four, languages: Aramaic (or Hebrew, or both), Greek, and Latin. Whether he knew only Hebrew (but not Aramaic), cf. R. Buth and C. Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean ‘Aramaic’?” in The Language Environment of First Century Judea: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels, vol. 2, eds. R. Buth and S. Notley (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 66–109).

[9] Silas/Silvanus may merely have been a courier, “through” whom Peter sent his letter, since he is not listed with Mark as one who “sends his love” (1 Pet. 5:12–13). Further, such amanuenses, such as Tertius (Rom. 16:22), may merely have functioned as stenographers taking dictation.

[10] “Elite” is actually a biblical term: έκλεκτός (eklektos), which passes into Latin as elligere, to French as élire, then élite, then English “elite.” In its neutral sense it merely means “chosen” or “selected” or “elected,” and, therefore, for presumably good reasons. We “elect” an apple that has no worms, or an automobile that runs well or efficiently. It is perhaps evidence of our populist culture that “elite” often has negative connotations. There is little virtue for anyone in being mediocre. For those who profess that humans are made in the image of God, there is no virtue in mediocrity, whether in attaining it or in applauding it. There is also no virtue in envy, a vice that is prohibited throughout Scripture, a vice that motivated Cain to murder his brother Abel, and a vice that is the second of the Seven Deadly Sins.

T. David Gordon is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is a retired professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Ordained Servant Online, January, 2024.