NBC’s “AD” Episode 5 Review

Turn him in Peter! Turn! Him! In!!

I was shouting that at my computer Monday afternoon as I was catching episode 5 of A.D. – the Bible Continues. Peter had approached Boaz, whom he now knew to be a murderer. Last week Boaz was suspect, this week his guilt has been established.

Boaz was why Pilate had called for ten crucifixions each day, the latest was supposed to be ten women snatched away from a wedding celebration. Boaz had escaped Jerusalem and was now hiding among the tent city of believers.

Peter confronted Boaz but would not turn him in. Boaz pointed out that the Romans would come and kill everyone. Peter took a stand on some strange principle; even if it cost the lives of thousands, Peter would not let a murderer face his sin.

I propose, this was the largest error in a comedy of errors (Greeks called them tragedies). I won’t have time to address everyone’s fear of Peter because they think he has the ability to make liars keel over in his presence. I’ll only raise an eyebrow at Mary’s opening lines in which she claims to know what the will of God is and patiently instructs Peter concerning it. And what more can I do but roll my eyes at young brooding Stephen who get’s himself killed. Poor Stephen! Since Peter won’t give him a pulpit he skulks around until barging into a meeting of the Sanhedrin and giving them his best (and last) sermon.

I’ll let you comment on all that and maybe more. I’m stuck on Peter harboring murderers.

You see the picture being portrayed for us, don’t you? Tent-City-Jerusalem is the early New Testament Church, and here is the message being provided to those who should know better—and those who don’t: The Church is a place where you can hide from your sinful actions.

Steal something? Hide in the Church and you won’t have to pay it back.

Cheat on your spouse? Make it through those doors and you get to keep your licentious affair while your spouse is forbidden to divorce you.

Kill a man in cold blood? Romans crucifying ten people per day on account of you? Run to Peter—the supposed leader of the Church on earth—he will give you food and shelter and he’d rather have the Romans kill everyone else than have you face the consequences of your own actions.

Consequences. A.D. has confused absolution with consequences. It has confused the Church’s keys of absolution with the Government’s keys to the jail cell.

If Boaz had come before Peter to confess, to cry out for God’s mercy; then we’d expect Peter—or any other apostle OR any other Christian—to tell Boaz that his sin is not too great for God to forgive and that he should not despair of God’s grace come Judgment Day. But we’d also expect any of these Christian people to help Boaz in facing the consequences for his actions. The Church is not God’s secret exemption from the consequences of our own sinful actions.

Boaz didn’t come and confess. He just came to eat, drink, sleep, and hide. A.D.’s Peter helps Boaz do this, A.D.’s Peter would see countless innocents killed all in a misunderstanding of what the Church is and isn’t.
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Remember playing hide-and-seek? Remember how, if you could make it back to base, back to the tree or the light-pole before you got tagged, you were safe? That’s not the Church!

And remember that friend you told all your dirty secrets to at a sleep-over; binding them by whatever oath a junior-high kid could bind another to, making them swear they wouldn’t tell your parents? Remember how that person was just someone to share your sin with, proud and snickering at how daring you thought were? That’s not the Church either!

But this is what episode 5 of A.D. would make of the Church! Confession is not just telling someone (the priest, pastor, minister, or Christian friend) the naughty things you do. Confession is not seeking permission and safety for our sin. Confession is seeking the forgiveness of God.

Yes, confession is confidential in that the sin(s) confessed to are to be buried in Jesus’ tomb and left there just as He has left them there. But the confidentiality of confession does not provide a blanket with which to cover our sin. If we can just make it to “base” we can’t be held accountable for the laws we’ve broken….

Boaz committed murder, not only breaking the laws of the existing government but also breaking God’s. Peter’s response should not have been to use the Church to offer shelter. The Government had a right—even a God-given duty to seek Boaz and punish him. Peter should have offered to go with him, should have told Boaz he couldn’t stay there, should have said he would not endanger the lives of all those people to provide escape for Boaz.

This was the biggest mistake of the night; making the Church into something She isn’t, having Her interfere in the Government’s realm. Confess your sins to your minister. Expect—even demand that they keep your ugliness as confidential as Jesus does. But don’t expect them to provide sanctuary until things cool off and you can return to your sinful ways. That’s not the Church and that’s not a minister of the Gospel!

Sadly, right in the middle all of this, A.D. missed a chance to get something right…

They had Boaz turn himself in. “Why?” Unfortunately we aren’t told why. It might have seemed that the prospect of all those other people dying moved him to do this but that’s inconsistent with Boaz hiding there in the first place. Boaz already knows that Rome is crucifying ten people per day because of him. Those scores of innocents don’t seem to phase him.

Nevertheless it appears that the prospect of these people dying does phase him and so Boaz turns himself in. Why not have him say something about his conscience? Why not have the impact of innocent lives offered for his be the cause of Boaz turning himself in?

Sadly none of that happened. A.D. missed a chance to get something right.

And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. Acts 5:42 (ESV)

Read your Bibles. The New Testament Church was not harboring terrorists, barging uninvited into Jewish meetings, or double checking with the virgin Mary to see what God’s will is. What they were doing was teaching and preaching that the long-promised Messiah is Jesus. “Yes” they were feeding the hungry and caring for widows and even offering forgiveness to murderers (Saul, for instance) but those things were simply the Christian faith in action and the Christian faith is simply this: The Promised Savior/Messiah/Christ is Jesus.

Speaking of real murderers, that was Saul in the final scene, the man who checked to make sure that Stephen was dead. As this episode ended with Acts 8:1, I expect next Sunday’s to be pick it up there: And there arose on that day a great persecution in the Church in Jerusalem and the were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.