Road Trippin With Rachael

Now that we have begun to understand the start of the Church in a broad sense, we are free to begin to narrow our view to specific events and people. The first person we are really going to be taking a look at is Stephen. 

If you remember, Stephen was one of the men who was chosen to serve in the office of deacon. This church office was created to assist the Apostles in caring for the physical needs of the church memebers – primarily the widows and the orphans. Although they are not in a position to have spiritual authoirty – they cannot fire a pastor – that is not meant to indicate that there aren’t deacons who are capable of preaching or teaching. It does mean that if they are acting in the office of deacon, they need to stay in their lane. Stephen, as we will see, is one of those who was able to preach, and today we are going to be taking a look at his sermon presented to the Jewish elders when they call him to trial. 

Moving forward, we are going to be looking at the order of his sermon, the key points he makes, and looking at the results of his sermon. 

An Appeal to the Old Testament

If yuo have been following along for the last several years with the blog or on my YouTube channel (Road Trippin with Rachael), you should have picked up my emphasis on how knowing history informs the how and why we see the actions that people throughout scripture take. The story of how God has acted throughout history informs our knowledge of God, and therefore gives us a reason for our faith. Stephen makes the same argument by appealing to history and using history to point the Sanhedrien towards faith. Within his sermon, he hits on two main figures who hold an important place in Hebraic history: Abraham and Moses. 

Abraham

As one of the Patriarchs, Abraham is highly regarded. He is the father of the Hebrew nation, and they would proudly refer to themselves as the sons and daughters of Abraham. Stephen, being a Hebrew and having grown up with this history, goes back to these stories that any good Hebrew would know.

• Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans and traveled to Canaan.
• Abraham eventually settled in Haran
• Abraham was a shepherd
• God spoke to Abraham about his progeny going into captivity (foreshadowing of their eventual move to Egypt).
• Abraham enters into a covenant with God (known as the Coveant of Circumcision), committing him and his family to following YHWH. 

If you want to know more about Abraham’s story read through the book of Genesis; a good place to start would be chapter 12. The key points of Stephen’s review is that Abraham was called and he entered into a covenant. The covenant, outlines the “if/then” statements of what would happen if the people failed to be faithful to God, and it also outlined what the outcome would be when they are faithful. This plays a part in what would eventually happen with Moses. 

Moses

Moses was a Hebrew born in Egypt during the time of the Hebrew captivity that Abraham was told would be coming to his future family. For more information about who Moses is, you can check out the first several chapters of Exodus. However, in consideration of Stephen’s sermon, Moses had a top tier education for the time and by the time he was called to lead the Israelites out of Egypt he also had the humility that came from having lived in the desert and being a shepherd. It was this humility that allowed him to be perceptive when God spoke to him through the burning bush.

It was under the leadership of Moses that Israel had the “Golden Calf Incident” (Exodus 32). Stephen refers to this as Israel’s rebellion – at the first instance of leadership being gone, the people immediately turned towards an idol. They saw miracles upon miracle while in Egypt as God displayed His glory, and yet they still aren’t able to to believe. Does this sound familiar? Jesus displayed his power over and over and yet the Jewish leaders still don’t beleive. 

Establishing the Tabernacle

I’ve talked about the tabernacle before while working our way through John, but it stands to be discussed. The tabernacle was meant to be symbolic of God being in the middle of the people. Tabernacle means “to dwell.” This is why John jopens his Gospel with “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Stephen makes the argument that as the tabernacle was meant to show that God was in and among his people, likewise Jesus was in and among his people. Stephen even goes so far as to quote the prophet Isaiah “But the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made of hand, as the prophet says” (Isaiah 7:48), “but the world is God’s dwelling place” (Isaiah 66:1-2). It is all meant to show that Jesus fulfilled what the prophets were saying: God dwells among his people, and he would not be confined to a room in the temple. 

Calling a Spade…A Spade

Stephen has goine finished his appeal from their history. He has demonstrated the part Abraham and Moses both played in being used by God and how they demonstrated who God is. The theological term for this is Type.  Now Stephen tells the religious leaders on no uncertain terms, that they are “stiff necked people.”

This isn’t just a commentary on their need to go to the chiropractor. This is telling these men that they are unwilling to bow their heads to someone who is derserving. They are unwilling to change their ways when confronted with the need to do so. They are determined to remain in their sin because it suits them. In a final blow to their unwillingness to bend, he tells them that they are doing the exact same thing that the people did to the prophets: they killed the prophets because they didn’t like what they were being told.   

The Results of the Trial

The result of all of this is the first martyr. Stephen’s dedication to Jesus’ fulfillment of the word of the prophet led him to pointing out the sins of Judaism leadership.  Personally, I think that these leaders, who had been seeing the Church growing with more and more people joining this group, were looking for an excuse to make a point. Stephen calling them out created that excuse. I think this is opinion can be supported by Gamaliel in Acts 5:34 where he said to leave Peter and John alone because if what they were saying was of God it would not be stopped and if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t go far. Obviously, if my thoughts are correct, the Sanhedrein chose to ignore Gamaliel’s advice. More importantly, there was a message that was sent to the Church – “you can be killed.” From that point on, in many ways the Jewish leadership went on a witch hunt, with a young Pharisee leading the charge; a young man named Saul.