Knowing when to obey God rather than human authority can be pretty tricky. In today's first reading Peter and the other disciples were imprisoned and flogged for trying to obey God rather than human authority, for defying those who admonished them to remain silent about Jesus and yet they rejoiced for having been found worthy of mistreatment for the sake of the name of Jesus. Saul of Tarsus had thought he was obeying God by persecuting the early Christians. He was authorized to do so by human authorities. And when he had his change of heart on the road to Damascus it led to all kinds of difficulties for Paul: stoning, beating, imprisonment and eventual beheading.

History is full of popular, charismatic leaders who take their people down the wrong road (e.g. Adolf Hitler) and fringe groups protesting or defying their government because of some perceived wrong. Staying comfortably in the middle of the crowd also cannot guarantee that one is on the right path. What is a Christian to do? Perhaps we begin with the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule and the Beatitudes. And we inform our conscience by trying to understand the teachings of the Church through the Bible and Tradition. Obeying God, discerning God's Will, can be tricky but God does not ration the Spirit. So let us then ask for the Spirit's gift of Wisdom so we may better understand how by our lives we are to affirm and continue the testimony given by Jesus, obeying God and engaging the struggle to discern when to obey and when to defy human authority.