Acts 4:24

And they, when they heard it, lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, O Lord, thou that didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is.

The Christians met the crisis through resort to prayer, and the prayer here recorded is remarkable in several particulars.

With one accord ... This expression occurs eleven times in the Acts, and only once elsewhere in the New Testament (Romans 15:6).[34] It stresses the unity of the Lord's followers, and thus reveals one of the great secrets of the success of Christianity during those first years.

O Lord ... The holy reverence of prayers recorded in the Bible is notable and, in all ages, a loss of reverence in prayers has proved to be a loss of effectiveness. "Lord" in this place is from the Greek term meaning "Master" (English Revised Version margin); and, coupled with the reference to creation, it has the force of acknowledging God's unlimited power over all that he made. "The church in danger finds support and solace in the thought of God's absolute sovereignty."[35]

Thou art he that did make ... is preferable to the English Revised Version (1885) rendition and is given as a permissible reading in the margin.

[34] A. C. Hervey, op. cit., p. 124.

[35] Ibid., p. 125.