When Obedience to God Requires Resistance to Human Authorities, Part 1

WHEN OBEDIENCE TO GOD REQUIRES RESISTANCE TO HUMAN AUTHORITIES, PART 1 

Pondering the Depths and Implications of Acts 5:29

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: May 18, 2025

Series: The Book of Acts

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

I invite you to turn to Acts 5. This message that I want to share with you this morning has been slowly brewing in my heart for the last several months. And finally on this Lord’s Day it’s the right time to share it. I want to read Acts 5:29. This is part of our series of sermons on the Book of Acts. I preached the larger passage (Acts 5:12-42) several weeks ago, but this morning I want to focus on one verse. Holy Scripture says:

“But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men….”” (Acts 5:29)

INTRODUCTION

I have titled this sermon, “When Obedience to God Requires Resistance to Human Authorities Part 1.” Originally this was going to be a one-shot sermon, but it was too long to fit into the sermon space today, and it is too important to put on the shelf. So, Part 1 this week and Part 2 next week.

There are times when obedience to God requires that we humbly submit to human authorities. But there are also times when obedience to God requires that we courageously resist human authorities. You must cultivate the wisdom that enables you to tell the difference.

Leadership and authority, submission and obedience, are part of the world that we live in. And in this world, other human beings may sometimes have a limited leadership claim upon us. Those who have a limited leadership claim upon us have the right to give us direction. When someone with a legitimate leadership claim upon us gives us reasonable direction, the general rule of thumb is that we ought to comply with the direction that we have received. Scripture commands those who are under legitimate authority to render submission and obedience to those who have been authorized to provide leadership and direction. This principle is true in the home, in the church, in the workplace, and in the nation or state. To give just one example:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Romans 13:1)

However, this gets really messy and at times very ugly in this fallen, sinful world. Sin affects everything that sinful human beings touch, and when sinful human beings touch the mantle of leadership, leadership gets corrupted. There will be leadership in this world. Leadership is inevitable. Good leadership is a blessing to those who are under it. Bad leadership produces train wrecks, and people suffer.

How people abuse authority

And so, since we live in a sin-sick world in which leadership often goes off the rails, you need safeguards for your soul that will protect you from those who abuse authority and power. People abuse authority and power in two ways: (1) by claiming to have authority over you that they don’t actually have; or (2) by misusing the authority that they do have. When you get a text message that purports to be from a toll agency about the unpaid tolls that you still owe them, you are probably being bamboozled by criminals who are claiming to have authority that they don’t have. Delete the message, report it as junk, and never give it another thought. Their authority is fake, and your obligation toward fake authority is to ignore it. Of course, if thugs are holding a gun to your head, you may choose to comply in the short-term for pragmatic reasons until you are safe. But the thugs have no legitimate authority over you.

When a group of church elders tell a woman to speak to no one else about the abuse that she is suffering, they are over-stepping their bounds and misusing the authority that has been entrusted to them. Elders are authorized to shepherd the flock in accordance with God’s Word, in the power of the Holy Spirit, with love for the people. But it is not gossip to unburden your own aching soul to someone who might be able to help. I wish this theoretical example was just theoretical, but what I’ve come to learn as I’ve been on this journey of reflecting and listening and learning for the past several months is that this is an all too common experience in religious settings. I was just listening to a testimony from a woman last night that went something like this: ‘The pastor told me not to talk to anyone about the abuse from our dad, because if your dad ever repents and is reconciled, we don’t want it to be too difficult for him to rebuild his reputation.’ This is very common in the testimonies that I’ve heard. Let’s think about this: you’re going to isolate and silence those who are suffering, and protect the reputation of the abuser. That is wrong. Attempting to isolate and silence sufferers who need friendship, counsel, and support is cruel and is not a proper use of elder authority. When leaders with legitimate authority exercise it in stupid and hurtful ways, you are obligated to break from the stupid and hurtful ways of your leaders.

When men and women set themselves up, whether permanently or temporarily, as despots or tyrants who have the supposed right to control you and dictate your actions in an authoritarian and heartless manner, they are dehumanizing you. Every single human being has the dignity of being made in God’s image, and it is a gross violation of that dignity and that image when some people attempt to dominate and subjugate other people in accordance with their fleshly, worldly, and ungodly agenda. This tyranny can be found wherever human beings are found and wherever human beings are contending for power and influence: in families, in religious groups (including religious groups that call themselves churches), in workplaces, and in political structures.

We must learn when and how to disobey human authorities

But it can be difficult to resist tyrants, because they often have powerful resources at their disposal, and they are often willing to use their powerful resources against you – to threaten you, to coerce you, and to punish you if you don’t comply. If you are going to resist illegitimate authorities or illegitimate expressions of authority, then you are going to need the confidence and courage that come from the Lord.

There was a motto that circulated during America’s founding era: ‘Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.’ We understand the sentiment, and there is some wisdom in the statement. Of course, the mere fact of rebelling against tyranny doesn’t automatically mean that you are walking in obedience to God. However, we can certainly say that obeying God will require you to rebel against tyranny and to disregard the unjust schemes of misguided human authorities.

God’s will for your life is that you would be so passionately devoted to obeying Him, that you are ready and resolved to disobey human authorities whenever their exercise of authority contradicts, undermines, or diminishes God’s authority in your life. In the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shouldn’t just be teaching people to obey human authorities, as if obedience is always the proper response to human authorities. When we teach people to automatically and unquestioningly obey human authorities, we are setting them up to be swallowed up by oppressors and abusers. In the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must also teach people when and how to disobey human authorities. Obedience to God requires it.

WALKING THROUGH THE VERSE

With these things in mind, let’s ponder the depths and implications of Acts 5:29.

The Context

The context of the apostles’ declaration that they must obey God rather than men is that the Jewish religious authorities had previously charged Peter and John “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.” (Acts 4:18) After issuing this demand, they also threatened Peter and John (Acts 4:21). The Jewish religious authorities had a measure of authority over the Jewish religious system, over the administration of the temple, and over the people. But Peter and John and the other apostles had been placed under a higher authority, and they had been authorized by King Jesus to declare the gospel message everywhere, and they had every intention to keep doing so. They prayed, “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness” (Acts 4:29). After they prayed, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31)

In Acts 5:12-16, the apostles were ministering to many people in the temple area. The outraged religious leaders “arrested the apostles and put them in public prison” (Acts 5:18), but “an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out” and told them to keep preaching the gospel (Acts 5:19, 20). And so in Acts 5:25 the apostles were “standing in the temple and teaching the people.” (Acts 5:25)

Think about it: the Lord had commissioned His followers to declare His gospel message, but the Jewish religious authorities had pressured the apostles to stop preaching. What did they do? They obeyed the commission of the Lord and they did not cower at the demand and intimidation of the religious leaders. They obeyed God rather than men.

The religious authorities were beside themselves. They finally brought the apostles before their leadership council (Acts 5:27). Acts 5:27-29 says,

“And the high priest questioned them, saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:27-29)

Now let’s ponder the depth of this holy determination to obey God, regardless of what hindrances men may throw upon our path.

1) We must follow God

First, “We must obey God” (italics added), with emphasis on the word must. The underlying Greek word conveys the sense of necessity: it is necessary that we obey God. We have a spiritual and moral obligation to obey God. We must obey God all the time. Whenever human beings charge us to do something that contradicts, undermines, or diminishes God’s authority in our life, then we must not obey men. We have a spiritual and moral obligation to disobey tyrants and thugs. We must remain under God’s authority and we must not subject ourselves to the illegitimate, unlawful, or crooked exercise of human authority.

2) We must know God

Second, in order to be resolved to “obey God rather than men”, we must know God. How can we obey someone that we don’t know? We must know God and we must know that He is so much greater than men. To whom shall you compare God? (Isaiah 40:18, 25) Scripture says:

“Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.” (Isaiah 40:21-23)

We must know that God’s authority is absolute and absolutely sovereign. God’s authority far outweighs – infinitely outweighs – the limited, relative, and delegated authority that human beings have. God is the Creator of the ends of the earth. He is the only God, the sovereign King, the great I Am, the Sustainer of all things, the supreme Lawgiver and Judge, the all-seeing Searcher of hearts, the One to whom we must all give account, the one and only Savior of mankind. He is not some theoretical idea up there beyond the clouds somewhere. Theoretical ideas hold very little weight when the secret police show up at your house and threaten to send you to a labor camp.

God is a personal God: the God who is revealed and known in Jesus Christ. We can actually know Him – the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if we know Him, and the Son whom He sent to us for our salvation, then we know the greatest treasure in all the world, our gracious Redeemer, our never-failing Friend.

Polycarp

History has recorded that the human governor said to the faithful Christian named Polycarp in the 2^nd century, “Swear by the divine power of Caesar” and “Curse Christ”, and then “I’ll let you go”; otherwise “I’ll throw you to [the wild animals]” or “have you burned alive”. Polycarp answered: “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” And Polycarp added: “You threaten with fire that burns for a short time and is soon quenched. You don’t know about the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment that awaits the wicked.”[1]

If we are going to obey God rather than men, then we must know God and His steadfast love and faithfulness. We must know that the measure of authority entrusted to governors and kings and parliaments and courts is very limited; the measure of authority entrusted to CEOs and managers is very limited; the measure of authority entrusted to pastors and elders is very limited; the measure of authority entrusted to husbands and parents is very limited. And frankly, we will never relate properly to human authorities unless we come to understand the absolute, infinite, and unconditional authority of the Most High God. And when we know that the absolute Monarch in heaven is our heavenly Father who loves us and leads us in the way that we should go, then we are set free from the tyranny of men. And when we know that the Lord above is a generous Rewarder of those who seek Him, then we need not be captive to the petty rewards and petty punishments that men dole out. God is our very great Reward; the High King of heaven is our inheritance; the Holy Spirit is our portion and joy. He will always keep His promises!

3) We must know God’s will

Third, in order to obey God rather than men, we must know God’s will – which means we must know God’s Word. It is not enough to have some general awareness that the God of heaven is worthy of our allegiance. We must increasingly understand the nuts and bolts of God’s will for our life. This means paying close attention to Holy Scripture, so we actually know how God has called us to live.

In Acts 5:29-32, Peter and the other apostles indicate that they had received specific instruction from God, and they intended to follow it. After saying, “We must obey God rather than men”, they immediately add:

“The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:30-32)

The apostles knew what God had done: God had raised Jesus from the dead and exalted Him to His right hand. And they knew what it meant: that Jesus is the long-promised and God-appointed Mediator of salvation. And they knew that they had a responsibility to declare these things to people who needed repentance and forgiveness. And furthermore, they knew that God’s strengthening presence was with them as they walked in obedience to God. Their answer in verse 29 begins: “We must obey God”. Their answer concludes in verse 32: “God has given [the Holy Spirit] to those who obey him.” Our calling is to remain on the God-appointed path, and on that God-appointed path God empowers us by the Holy Spirit. When we cower in fear before men and cave in to human pressure, we forfeit the help that could have been ours in that moment. But when we keep in step with the Holy Spirit and remain on the path of obedience, we receive sovereign assistance in that very moment from the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. We receive His sovereign assistance to keep on going, keep on obeying, keep on testifying, keep on living as God has called us to live.

As Tim pointed out last Sunday with respect to Paul, so here we can say that the apostles were not self-appointed preachers. They didn’t decide to become apostles. They were appointed by God. They were commissioned by Christ: “you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). This is an important point to grasp. I’ve heard it said, “Anything you talk yourself into, the devil can talk you out of.” Similarly: “Anything you talk yourself into, conniving men can talk you out of.” And: “Anything that some people talk you into, other people can talk you out of.” What I am driving at is that we need to have that deep assurance, that deep conviction of God talking His will into us – that God has put us in a place, that God has called us to do something in that place, and that God is guiding us by His Word and strengthening us by His Spirit as we follow our God-given assignment, and there ain’t no devil, human person, or human authority who is going to talk me out of it! Do you see? Of course, I don’t mean that we should be proud. We should be able to humbly receive input and pushback from our fellow believers as we follow the Lord together. But at the end of the day, we must draw a line in the sand and stand firm in God’s will.

The religious and political authorities of his day demanded that the 16^th century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther turn his back on his own convictions. We must learn to say what he said:

“Since your most serene majesty and your lordships require of me a simple, clear and direct answer, I will give one, and it is this: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures and by clear reason (for I do not trust in the pope or councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”[2]

“My conscience is captive to the Word of God”, says Luther. “We must obey God rather than men”, say the apostles. We must stand firm in His truth. We must be steadfast and immovable in our God-given assignment. Come hell or high water, we must honor the Lord God Almighty, and we must leave everything on the field in our service to Him.

4) We must know that we have personal and moral agency

Building off of these foundational points, let me proceed to a fourth point: we must know that each one of us has personal and moral agency to make our own decisions. Of course, we should exercise our personal and moral agency to obey the Lord and to disregard the unjust rules of misguided human authorities. But the point is: you have agency; you are a decision-making agent. Your agency isn’t absolute, but it is real!

In high-control settings, whether in a home or religious group or political dictatorship, the people in charge want to control you in such a way that they seek to take away your personal and moral agency. High-control leaders want you to think that you don’t have a choice; the only “choice” you have is to let them control you; the only “right answer” is to agree with them. When Nebuchadnezzar demanded that all of his officials bow down to the golden statue that he had set up, the demand wasn’t up for discussion. You bow down, or you get thrown into the fiery furnace. For the way that most people experience such a demand, it feels like they have no choice. Mindless conformity, and mindless uniformity, seems like the only way forward. Of course, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego illustrate the fact that even in such settings we do have a choice, but only the most courageous among us are willing to exercise personal and moral agency when the enemy’s sword is pressing against our neck.

When I say "personal agency”, what I mean is that you have the right as a human being to influence your surroundings, to give voice to your own ideas, to enter into the give and take of conversation, to participate in building the culture of your home or neighborhood or workplace, and to impact the people around you. When I say “moral agency”, what I mean is that you are responsible for your own moral choices. If you bow down to the golden statue, you bear responsibility for your idolatry. It is true that Nebuchadezzar’s sin is greater, in the sense that he is abusing his authority and coercing people to worship an idol under the threat of death, and so there is a real sense in which Nebuchadnezzar is making people to sin. But your own moral responsibility remains: regardless of what other people are doing or demanding, you must see to it that you worship the Lord alone.

Revisiting Ananias and Sapphira

So, if your husband comes up with the idea to sell a piece of property and create the impression that you are giving all the proceeds to the church’s benevolence fund (thereby proving to be such generous people!), when in fact you are keeping back half of the proceeds for your own leisure, what should you do? Well, you shouldn’t do what Sapphira did. You have personal and moral agency to refuse participating in your husband’s misdeed. I am referring, of course, to what happened at the beginning of Acts 5:

“But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” (Acts 5:1-2)

Ananias got called to the carpet first, and he was struck dead (Acts 5:3-6). Sapphira didn’t know that her husband had died as a result of his hypocrisy. And then a few hours later she shows up:

“After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?” (Acts 5:7-9b)

Commenting on this conversation, Patrick Schreiner points out something very important about Sapphira. He writes,

“Luke presents Sapphira (a woman) as an independent moral character in the community. In those days many women were viewed merely as an extension of their husbands and not culpable for their crimes, but Sapphira is a capable though corrupted moral agent. Peter gives Sapphira her own opportunity to confess or condemn herself, and she is held individually accountable for her knowing participation.”[3]

I don’t know what sort of situation you might be in – it could be at home, it could be in the church, it could be in the workplace, it could be in some other relationship. Perhaps you are tempted to feel like a helpless person who has no capacity to withstand, no capacity to make a courageous moral decision, no capacity to resist and push back against human authority. But I hope that you can start to catch a vision for your life in which you see yourself as a personal and moral agent who has a right and responsibility to think, to examine, to question, to decide, to push back, to speak, and to let your voice be heard.

Learn to think carefully and discerningly

One of the saddest realities in this broken world is that millions and millions of people have had their personal and moral agency taken away by authoritarian contexts in which unquestioned conformity to the people or ideology at the top is the rule for all, and these people grow up not realizing that they actually have the right and responsibility to think for themselves and to make their own decisions. Of course, I’m not encouraging anyone to think rebelliously against God. But I am encouraging everyone to think carefully and discerningly when it comes to the human authorities who are over you and the human influencers around you. So often, other people want your robotic compliance: ‘As long as you comply like a robot with our demands and with a plastic smile on your face, we really don’t care about what’s going on in your heart. We really don’t care about you, as long as you play your dutiful part in our system.’ Let’s be clear: robotic compliance to human authorities is not God’s will for your life.

Another reason why it is so important to think carefully and discerningly when it comes to human authorities is because you must be able to distinguish the voice of God from the voice of men. If you are brought up or discipled in a high-control religious environment, it may actually be difficult for you to tell the difference. You may have been taught to think: the Bible means whatever the pope or the priest or the pastor says it means. You may have been taught to disallow your right to process and question. Our desire should be to know what Scripture actually says, not what the religious authorities say it means.

And here’s the point I’m driving at: unquestioned and unthinking obedience to human authorities is not God’s design for your life or mine. When a political leader, or the company boss, or the pastors and elders of a church, or a husband, or parents, give off authoritarian vibes such as, ‘How dare you question me?’, ‘How dare you think for yourself and form your own opinion?’, ‘How dare you imply that we would ever make a mistake?’, ‘How dare you express anything but total confidence in my leadership?’, ‘How dare you exhibit the slightest bit of disloyalty to us?, you are in an oppressive environment that is harmful to your soul. Of course, you don’t have control over what other people do and demand, but you do have a responsibility to follow Christ even if other people aren’t, and even if your leaders aren’t.

The very fact that the apostles say, “We must obey God rather than men”, and the very fact that there are numerous instances in the Bible of godly people resisting human authority, means that you are meant to think, process, and question other people’s use of authority. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a cynic who always assumes the worst about others. This doesn’t mean you have to pushback against any and all direction that you receive from human authorities. But it does mean that God intends for you to exercise your moral agency by discerning whether another human being’s assertion of authority is wise or unwise, appropriate or inappropriate, constructive or destructive, worth following or worth resisting.

Some other Scriptural passages to remember

In Exodus 1:15-21, Pharoah the king of Egypt commanded the two Hebrew midwives to kill all the baby boys who were born to the Hebrew women. These midwives feared God and rightly disobeyed the king’s order.

In 1 Samuel 22:17, King Saul ordered his servants to kill the priests of the Lord. But the king’s servants rightly refused to comply with the king’s demand.

In 1 Kings 21:5-14, Jezebel the wife of King Ahab used the king’s authority to command the elders and leaders in a certain city to have a good man named Naboth falsely accused and unjustly condemned to death. These elders and leaders wrongly submitted to Jezebel’s words and carried out the evil scheme.

In 2 Chronicles 24:20-22, King Joash commanded the people to kill the faithful priest Zechariah. The people wrongly complied with the king’s command.

In 2 Kings 21:1-16, King Manasseh pursued an aggressive program of idolatry and wickedness, so much so that he “made Judah also to sin with his idols” (2 Kings 21:11). This statement reflects the heavy-handed top-down influence that is hard to resist. But the people of Judah should have resisted it. Instead, they wrongly followed Manasseh into his idolatrous ways. And so, they would face God’s judgment “because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger” (2 Kings 21:15).

In Daniel 6, the officials of King Darius schemed wickedly to get the king to make a law that for thirty days people could make petitions to the king alone, and they could not make petitions to any god or any other man. King Darius unwisely agreed to his officials’ request. That godly man Daniel rightly disregarded the king’s foolish decree, and he went on praying to the Most High God.

In Matthew 1, King Herod had instructed the wise men from another country to return to him after they had visited the Messiah. But the wise men, having received a warning from God in a dream, wisely disregarded the king’s instruction and returned to their home country a different way. The wise men honored the principle that “We must obey God rather than men.”

When human authorities lead in such a way that they contradict, undermine, or diminish God’s authority in your life, “[you] must obey God rather than men” – you must resist the human authority. Of course, you shouldn’t use today’s teaching as a convenient excuse to quickly dismiss human authorities in order to carry out your selfish ambitions. That misses the point entirely. But you should use today’s teaching as an exhortation and invitation to carefully discern whether a human authority is acting appropriately and constructively – and if they are not, then you must safeguard your soul by following God and not people.

Lord-willing, next week we will continue with Part 2, and consider a more complete picture of how we should go about resisting unjust human authorities. And by the way, what I have presented to you today is incomplete without Part 2. You might have question marks in your mind about – well, what about this or what about that? Well, wait till next week. And after we get through next week’s Part 2, we can have a discussion if you would like.

REMEMBER THAT YOU BELONG TO JESUS

But to conclude this sermon, let me highlight why it is so important to devote our total allegiance to Jesus alone. The bottom line is that if you are a Christian, then the Lord Jesus Christ has purchased you with His blood. You belong to Him. It says in 1 Corinthians 6, “[Do] you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) “You are not your own”: ultimately, you don’t belong to yourself. And if you don’t belong to yourself, then you don’t belong to any other human being, either. And so it is written in 1 Corinthians 7: “You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.” (1 Corinthians 7:23)

The great challenge before us is to live as we truly are in Christ: our great King bought us, redeemed us, and made us His own. Jesus has a claim upon us that no other human being has. We dare not live as slaves to men. We dare not surrender our freedom and dignity to human authorities. We dare not replace God’s words with human opinions. Instead we must live and sing as God’s faithful people: 

“Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance, now and always

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart

High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art”[4]

ENDNOTES

[1] I drew the quotations from the article “The Martyrdom of Polycarp: Who would have thought the old man had so much courage?” Published by The Word Among Us® and available online: https://wau.org/resources/article/the_martyrdom_of_polycarp_1/. My referencing this article does not imply endorsement of the Roman Catholic orientation of the site.

[2] I drew the quotation from the article “Martin Luther’s “Here I stand” speech”. Published by David Bahn – Reflections on October 31, 2017 and available online: https://davidbahn-reflections.com/2017/10/31/martin-luthers-here-i-stand-speech/.

[3] Patrick Schreiner, Acts (Christian Standard Commentary). Holman Reference, 2022: p. 196.

[4] From the hymn “Be Thou My Vision”