<p>4:20 <i>F</i><i>or we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard<em>- </em></i>The basis of the Lord&rsquo;s exaltation was the resurrection. When asked why he preached when it was forbidden, Peter didn&rsquo;t shrug and say &lsquo;Well Jesus told me too so I have to&rsquo;. His response was: &ldquo;We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard&rdquo;. It would have been like saying that, say, sneezing or blinking was a sin. These things are involuntary reactions; and likewise, preaching is the involuntary reaction to a real belief in the Lord&rsquo;s death and resurrection. His preaching was a &lsquo;hearkening unto God&rsquo;, not so much to the specific commission to preach but rather to the imperative to witness which the Father had placed in the resurrection of His Son. When arrested for preaching a second time, Peter says the same. I&rsquo;d paraphrase the interview in Acts 5:29-31 like this: Q. &lsquo;Why do you keep preaching when it&rsquo;s forbidden?&rsquo;. A. &lsquo;Jesus has been raised, and been exalted to be a Prince and Saviour, &ldquo;for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins&rdquo;. We have to obey the wonderful imperative which God has placed in these things: to preach this wondrous message to those for whom so much has been made possible&rsquo;.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not that Peter was the most natural one to stand up and make the witness; he spoke <em>a-grammatos</em>, but it was somehow evident from his body language that he had &ldquo;been with Jesus&rdquo; (Acts 4:13). In rebuking the false teachers, he likens himself to the dumb ass that spoke in rebuke of Balaam- i.e. he felt compelled to make the witness to God&rsquo;s word which he did, although naturally, without the imperatives we have discussed, he would be simply a dumb ass. He told the Sanhedrin that to make true Christians agree not to preach was simply an inappropriate suggestion, because &quot;we <em>cannot but</em>&nbsp;speak&quot; out- it was something which went part and parcel with the experience of the risen Lord Jesus. Peter was not just an illiterate fisherman; so many of his words and phrasing indicate a thorough familiarity with the Greek Old Testament. Here, he seems to have Num. 24:13 at the back of his mind; Balaam says that although Balak is forbidding him to speak, he cannot but speak what God has inspired him with, even&nbsp;if it is intensely unpopular with those around him. Of course, the Christian preacher is not inspired as Balaam was, but the principle is the same: it is impossible to keep quiet, because of the very nature of what we believe and who we are. John had the spirit of Peter when he wrote (in one of his many allusions to Peter&rsquo;s words) that what they had heard and seen, that they declared / witnessed (1 Jn. 1:1,3), as if hearing and seeing / experiencing Christ inevitably lead to witness. Peter also seems to allude to Am. 3:8: &quot;The Lord Yahweh has spoken- who can but speak it forth?&quot;. The speaking of Yahweh was in the death and resurrection of His Son, and our hearing of these words puts us all in the same position as the Old Testament prophets. This is something which once heard simply has to be spoken forth. If we have really grasped the Gospel, there is no way we can hide it. We are immediately made a city set on a hill which cannot be hid.</p><p><em>&ldquo;We saw and heard&rdquo; is a</em> phrase which occurs often in the Gospels. It was not simply a case of repeating words heard. Those words were backed up by experience, what they had seen and known in the Lord Jesus. He was the word of hearing made flesh, made actual and visible. So often, the content of preaching tends to be unbalanced- more on experience 'seeing' than the word heard, or vice versa.</p>