The chief priests and their colleagues knew that the power and confidence with which the apostles spoke did not spring from their unaided native genius and owed nothing to any rabbinical education. Their estimate of them as “uneducated, common men” (4:13) does not suggest that they were illiterate, but that they were untrained laymen. The source of their eloquence and ability to handle scripture was no mystery. Their judges took account of the fact that they had been
Acts 4:13–22