They rejoiced!

"So at daybreak the apostles entered the Temple, as they were told, and immediately began teaching. When the high priest and his officials arrived, they convened the high council —the full assembly of the elders of Israel. Then they sent for the apostles to be brought from the jail for trial..."

As the apostles were being tried, Gamaliel, one member of the council, a Pharisee, who was an expert in religious law and respected by all the people, stood up and ordered that the men be sent outside the council chamber for a while as he discussed with the Council the repercussions of holding the apostles further. This man had witnessed the power of God in earlier times saying that they may be fighting against the power of God and suffer the consequences.

"The others accepted his advice. They called in the apostles and had them flogged. Then they ordered them never again to speak in the name of Jesus, and they let them go. The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.” (Acts 5:21, 34, 40-42 NLT)

What stood out for me in this passage was that eventually Peter and the other apostles were flogged before they were set free. And yet the Bible says, they left REJOICING, and continued even bolder to preach. In other translations it said HAPPY (CEV), OVERJOYED (MSG). Amazing! How could it be? So I looked up how exactly flogging was done in the Roman times, and this is what I found (let your imagination take you back with the graphic definition):

In the Roman Empire, flagellation was often used as a prelude to crucifixion, and in this context is sometimes referred to as scourging. Whips with small pieces of metal or bone at the tips were commonly used. Such a device could easily cause disfigurement and serious trauma, such as ripping pieces of flesh from the body or loss of an eye. In addition to causing severe pain, the victim would be made to approach a state of hypovolemic shock due to loss of blood. The Romans reserved this torture for non-citizens, as stated in the lex Porcia and lex Sempronia, dating from 195 and 123 BC. The poet Horace refers to the horribile flagellum (horrible whip) in his Satires, calling for the end of its use. Typically, the one to be punished was stripped naked and bound to a low pillar so that he could bend over it, or chained to an upright pillar as to be stretched out. Two lictors (some reports indicate scourgings with four or six lictors) alternated blows from the bare shoulders down the body to the soles of the feet. There was no limit to the number of blows inflicted— this was left to the lictors to decide, though they were normally not supposed to kill the victim. Nonetheless, Livy, Suetonius and Josephus report cases of flagellation where victims died while still bound to the post. Flagellation was referred to as "half death" by some authors and apparently, many died shortly thereafter. Cicero reports in In Verrem, "pro mortuo sublatus brevi postea mortuus" ("taken away for a dead man, shortly thereafter he was dead"). Often the victim was turned over to allow flagellation on the chest, though this proceeded with more caution, as the possibility of inflicting a fatal blow was much greater. Ref: http://flagellation.askdefine.com/

This account humbles me. If put in the same situation, after suffering extreme beating, i.e., flogging, because of persecutions, will I still rejoice, be happy, be overjoyed and continue to proclaim that Jesus is the Messiah? I wonder. I am just overwhelmingly amazed and inspired by what the apostles did- to be strong for the Lord. Whatever it takes.