By New Testament times, Rome’s Caesar claimed worship as “Lord” (Greek kurios). There could only be one “Lord,” so to say Jesus was king and lord was risky. But even to Romans, Peter and Paul said Jesus was the true kurios, the Lord of all. With Rome’s military might pitted against Jesus’ seemingly naïve witnesses, the contest looked ridiculously uneven. It was—but 2,000 years of history shows that it was Caesar, not Jesus, who was overmatched.

• One important way Rome demanded that citizens in its empire show their allegiance was to say, formally, “Caesar is Lord.” Picture the scene as Peter declared to this group of Roman soldiers, “This is the message of peace he sent to the Israelites by proclaiming the good news through Jesus Christ: He is Lord of all!” (verse 36) What “lords” has Jesus challenged and dethroned in your life?
• Jesus’ lordship needs to shape the family of faith. Some Romans disagreed in critical, caustic ways. Paul told them we do not answer to one another, but to our Lord, Jesus. Scholar William Barclay wrote, “’I beseech you by the bowels of Christ,’ said Cromwell to the rigid Scots of his day, ‘think it possible that you may be mistaken.’ We must banish both censoriousness and contempt from the Church’s fellowship. We must leave the judgment of others to God, and seek only to sympathize and to understand.” When do you need to remember that Jesus, not you, is Lord over some person you disagree with or dislike?