You can find this post on You Tube here: https://youtu.be/BE_lyZsIAJ
Acts 7 Here’s a link if your Bible isn’t nearby: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%207&version=NLT
A history lesson instead of a defence
The high priest asks Stephen if the charges of blasphemy against him are true. Stephen doesn’t even bother answering the question. He sees a platform from which he can witness to the fact that God’s promised rescuer of Israel, the Messiah, is Jesus who they had crucified. So he takes his moment.
If you know nothing about the history of Israel, about the Old Testament, or about the promised Messiah, Stephen has very graciously provided the best Sparks notes you will ever read.
It would be rude to skip over such a well-presented history, so please take a few minutes to read it. I’m not going to try to summarize his summary. Suffice it to say he has taken the books of Genesis, Exodus and first and second Kings and bits and pieces of many others and pieced them together clearly and succinctly in a way that demonstrates his point irrefutably. For a man facing death by stoning he is logical, well spoken and thorough.
God promised
What I want to take from this is the point of his discourse. The people to whom it was originally addressed completely missed it, so maybe you and I can make up for that loss. This is the point, God made a promise and regardless of our response to him, he has done what he said.
Stephen starts with Abraham, who wasn’t even living in what would become Israel when God promised him that he would become a great nation, be given the land of Canaan and bless the whole world through one of his descendants. It was kind of a wild promise because Abraham didn’t even have a kid at the time. He did eventually move to the land God promised, but he never owned it. He was extremely wealthy with servants and animals, but he was a nomad. The only land he ever owned was a little field with a cave in it where he buried his beloved wife Sarah when she died. His bones would rest there, as well as those of his son Isaac and his wife Rebecca and Isaac’s son Jacob and his wife Leah. In Jacob’s day there was a famine that threatened to wipe the family out and void the promise, but God had already worked that out. He used the jealous cruelty of Jacob’s sons toward one another to provide a place for them to go where they would be well taken care of.
The long version of this story is mostly in Exodus, and it is a great read. I hope I get to take you through it one day, but don’t wait for me! Read it for yourself.
They were becoming a great nation, but there was more
Anyways, this nomadic tribe rooted themselves in Egypt for several generations which was great because they prospered there and became numerous. As promised, they were becoming a great nation, but that was only part of the promise. Another piece was that Abraham’s descendants would inherit the land of Canaan, and they weren’t showing any interest in going there.
Once again jealousy and suspicion were turned to good. The family of Abraham, who had been thriving in Egypt, were starting to make the Egyptians nervous and envious. Everything they touched prospered, and they just kept having kids so it started to look like they’d be taking over Egypt. Eventually one of the Pharaohs decided that his peaceful guests were becoming a threat. He enslaved and persecuted them. When they continued to thrive even in slavery he tried to kill off the baby boys to slow the growth of their numbers, but one little man slipped through the cracks. Through a series of divine finaglings, Moses ended up being adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, raised and educated in the palace at Pharaoh’s expense. God is a master of dramatic irony.
Moses has a false start that sees him flee the country and once again it seems that God’s promise is in jeopardy. But it’s not. God just has some work to do in Moses before he is ready for the monumental and, as it turns out extremely aggravating, task of leading Abraham’s family to the land God promised them. For forty years God’s promise remained, but no one, least of all Moses, would have believed it. But God’s time arrives and he picks Moses up out of the desert and, after a little bickering on Moses’ part, sends him back to Egypt to bring the family of Abraham to the land God promised them. That is also a fiasco.
Forty years in the desert pass while these nomads whine, bicker and test God’s patience. Moses finally understood and accepted his assignment from God. So he leads these people with super-human humility and perseverance though even he has a couple not stellar moments. While wandering the desert, they keep rejecting the God who is actively rescuing them. They worship any random god they have ever heard of and even invent one or two of their own along the way. God is not happy with them. He lets them suffer the consequences of their rebellion, but he never stops keeping his promise. He even sets up camp with them by getting Moses to build a tent for him (a very fancy one known as the tabernacle) which is a visual reminder of his presence among them. God has said he would be their God and he is making it happen. He keeps his promises.
Great nation, Promised Land, but God’s not done
Eventually Moses’ successor Joshua leads them into the land that God promised them. Even there they worshipped other gods at times. They completely ignored many of God’s instructions. But they had become a great nation that kept growing. And they were living in the land God had promised. All that was left was for God to bless and rescue the whole world through Abraham’s offspring.
Stephen points out that many of the prophets who served in Israel had told them that a rescuer/deliverer/Messiah was coming. They predicted many things he would do, and they predicted how he would be treated. Israel often thanked their prophets by persecuting and killing them. God’s people throughout time have worked very hard to make him abandon his promises. It has never worked.
Finally, the subject of all that prophecy arrived on the scene. It was Jesus. Everything the prophets said about him was true. They said he would make blind eyes see, heal leprosy and make the lame walk. He did. They also said he would be rejected just like every other facet of God’s rescue plan. He was.
Concluding arguments from Stephen
Stephen finishes with a flair. “The prophets who this nation has consistently ignored said you would murder him and, would you look at that, you murdered him.”
Suddenly it’s like Stephen’s attention is stolen from his furious audience. He looks up at the sky above them and announces, “There he is! Jesus is in the throne room of heaven. In the place of worship beside his Father.”
You decide for yourself why the high counsel covered their ears and shrieked their condemnation as they sentenced him to death. Did they really think he was blaspheming because he stated that Jesus was being worshipped in heaven? Or were they just furious because he had so clearly demonstrated that they were just as rebellious and hard-hearted as all of their predecessors?
The first martyr and a notable witness
Regardless, there was no deliberation, no gavel, no well-reasoned sentencing to be taken out by the appropriate personnel. They flew at him in a rage, dragged him out of the city and pelted him with rocks.
It seems like even in the chaos, Stephen’s focus was the vision he had been given of Jesus and the Father. He asks Jesus to take his spirit and forgive those who were killing him. I don’t imagine anyone present missed the reference. We know that as Jesus was dying he also committed his spirit to his Father and asked him to forgive his murderers. It should have sent shivers up the spine of every onlooker.
But it seems like there was at least one who was unmoved by Stephen’s composure and grace. There was a young man named Saul. To this moment, we had no idea he existed. But now Luke tells us that he watched the proceedings while keeping an eye on the coats of those who stoned Stephen. Luke also wants us to know that Saul approved.
