If we read the New Testament carefully, we see the changes that
13. CHANGED FOR GOOD
If we read the New Testament carefully, we see the changes that took place in the lives of the disciples were nothing less than amazing. Individuals who before had been argumentative, selfish, and largely blind to spiritual realities, were now radically different.
Comparing the descriptions of the disciples' actions recorded in the Gospels with those of the same individuals in the book of Acts is especially instructive. As a physician, Luke was a careful observer of people and some of his detailed accounts in Acts show just how much the disciples changed after they received the Holy Spirit.
For example, the Gospels record how Jesus predicted he would be persecuted and that "the time is coming – indeed it is here now – when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone" (John 16:31–32 NLT). "Scattered" is a charitable word to use of the situation in which the disciples deserted Jesus completely. But after the disciples were changed, even when they themselves received persecution, they were not scattered.
Compare the startling difference between what we are told in the Gospels: "Then they all deserted him and ran away" (Mark 14:50 CSB), with what we are told in Acts: "On that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered" (Acts 8:1 CSB). While they had been the only ones who had fled before, now they were the only ones who did not flee! In fact, Acts specifically mentions the disciples' newfound boldness seven times (Acts 4:31; 9:28; etc.).
The changes that took place in the disciples affected the whole group, but they are most easily seen in what Acts tells us about the three leading apostles: Peter, James, and John.
Peter The apostle Peter certainly showed an undeniable lack of faith on more than one occasion. We need only to remember the time that Jesus and the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee and a great
storm came up, and how Peter and the rest of the disciples frantically woke Jesus – who was sleeping peacefully in the ship – to tell him they were all going to drown (Matthew 8:23-25). But if we fast forward into the book of Acts, after the apostles received the Spirit of God (Acts 2), we see an interesting change.
Acts 12 tells us that after killing the apostle James, King Herod had Peter arrested during the Passover season – the anniversary of the death of Jesus – and the awful fate of his Master, and now James, must have been very present in Peter's mind. But notice the details of how Acts describes Peter's rescue from prison:
The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. "Quick, get up!" he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists. (Acts 12:6–7) Given Peter's earlier lack of faith and propensity to "crumble," along with the awful circumstances of his imprisonment and the fate that likely awaited him, we would presume that Peter was probably lying sleepless in his cell – worrying over his situation and his possible martyrdom. But Peter was sleeping. Even after the rescuing angel "turned the light on" in his cell, Peter continued to sleep. Acts tells us that the angel had to poke him in the side (the Greek word pataxas means "striking" – not a gentle nudge) to wake him, and Peter had apparently been sleeping so soundly and deeply that even when he was awakened, he was still unsure of what was happening (Acts 12:9).
We can hardly compare the Peter who woke the sleeping Jesus in terror in the storm at sea with this Peter who faced almost certain death and yet now slept as peacefully as his Master had done. James We may often remember Peter's promise never to desert Jesus (Matthew 26:33), only to desert him a few hours later (Mark 14:50),
but Peter was not the only disciple who "talked big." When Jesus said to James and his brother John "Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?" their reply was quick: "Oh yes," they replied, "we are able!" (Matthew 20:22 NLT). But when Jesus was arrested, James ran away like all the others. So James – one of the two "sons of thunder"– was all noise until he was changed by the Holy Spirit. James then became a fearless servant of his Master and now had the resolve and courage to honor his earlier promise – even to death by Herod's executioners. John In the same way, John – the other son of thunder – who had wanted to bring lightning down from heaven on those who displeased him (Luke 9:54), was changed dramatically. The same John who gave vent to the strongest feelings of anger and retaliation became the disciple of love. As he himself would later write (using the word love six times in a single verse): "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:7–8 ESV).
These examples show the startling change for good that was worked by the Spirit of God in the lives of the leading disciples. But although we have more information about them than the others, it is clear that all the disciples and many others were also changed in important ways. Among them were several women, including Jesus' mother, Mary, and his brothers, who were changed dramatically too – from being sure that Jesus was mad (Mark 3:21) to being convinced that he was the Messiah (Acts 1:14). The apostle Paul is a perfect later example of this same kind of change – being transformed from one of the worst persecutors of Christianity to one of its most important proponents. And, as he himself wrote, we too should "Let the Spirit change your way of thinking and make you into a new person" (Ephesians 4:23–24 CEV). To be changed for good is the goal of every follower of Jesus – from the earliest disciples, to those of us today.