April 11, 2014: Acts Chapter 7

The Book of Acts Chapter 7

Originally posted Monday, May 12, 2008

General Comment: The story of Stephen before the council is important in its portrayal of Stephen as the model for those who are being and will be persecuted because of their Christian faith. He is a convert from Judaism, one who has repented, turned to God, been baptized in water and with the Holy Spirit. Luke has included in his version of the Gospel several passages in which Jesus tells his disciples they should expect such persecution. Luke uses the event to demonstrate what it means to take one's stand and to speak not as a defendant but as an effective witness. Included is a reminder of Jesus' promise that the Holy Spirit will provide the confidence and words for those who will stand before Synagogues, Councils, Governors and Kings. It is also an opportunity to lay out the Christian view of the Old Testament as God's salvation history. From Abraham to Moses to Temple and finally to Jesus, God brings about the time of God's saving act. Stephen's object is to "prove" that Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophetic history and the one whom God has anointed as Messiah. Stephen martyrdom is an image of Jesus' faithfulness to God until the end. He will bear witness with his last breath, repeating Jesus' words, asking God's forgiveness for those who will kill him. 

Acts Chapter 7:1-53 Stephen Before the Council

The false charges against Stephen are that he has spoken blasphemy against Moses and God: against Moses because he has spoken against the Law and against God because he has spoken against the Temple. According to the accusers, Stephen's teaching is an affirmation of Jesus' teaching. In Stephen's presentation he will not only refute the charges but will claim that it is the Council, as representative of Israel that has blasphemed against the Law and the Temple, Moses and God.

Stephen's address can be separated into four sections: (1) Abraham and the promise of God; (2) Moses, the Prophet of God; (3) the Temple and the Presence of God; (4) Stephen indicts the Council. As you read the passages note the theme of offer and rejection.

(1) Abraham and the promise of God vss. 1-16

Abraham is the first of the Patriarchs and the model of obedience to God. He is called by God, led by God, and becomes the bearer of the promised blessing of God, passing it on to succeeding generations. Through Abraham all nations will be blessed. The land to which he is led by God will not be his own but will become the heritage of the multitude of his offspring, Israel, set apart through the covenant of circumcision.

Even though Abraham's offspring will receive the covenant blessing, they will be aliens in another land and mistreated for four hundred years. But God will save them out of that land and they will return and worship God in the place he has promised. Even though as a result of the jealousy of the later Patriarchs one of their own brothers, Joseph the dreamer was rejected and sold into slavery. God was with Joseph who grew wise and powerful in Egypt. Through him they and their father, Jacob, and all his relatives were sustained in times of famine. The one whom his brothers had rejected became their deliverer. 

(2) Moses the Prophet of God vss 17-43

The people flourished and multiplied until a new king ruled over Egypt. He enslaved and mistreated them according to God's word to Abraham. Even as slaves God was with them and their numbers multiplied. But the evil king ordered that their male children be abandoned to die. Of those Moses was saved, weaned in his own home, then abandoned to be found and adopted by the king's daughter. Like Joseph, God was with Moses, and he grew in wisdom and power.

One day, when Moses was forty years old, he sought to befriend his own people. He saw one of his own being abused by an Egyptian and he struck the abuser down and killed him. Later he found two others arguing and he tried to intervene to settle the matter. But he was "pushed aside" and rejected as one without authority to judge. When he was recognized as the one who had killed the Egyptian he fled and lived as an exile in the land of Midian.

One day, after forty years in Midian, Moses was confronted by God's messenger in the burning bush. As he looked, the voice of the God of the patriarchs, his ancestors, came to him from the fire. The voice commanded Moses to take off his sandals because wherever God is there is Holy ground. God had seen the mistreatment of God's people in Egypt and would send Moses to their aid. The one who had been rejected by his own people God will send as their judge and liberator. He obeyed God, went to Egypt, performing many signs and wonders and he led the people out through the waters and into the wilderness for forty years.

It was in the wilderness that Moses spoke of God's promise to raise up another prophet to liberate them as God had raised him up. He spoke with God and received God's commandments for the people. But the people rejected him; they would not obey him. They looked to Egypt for their gods and demanded of Aaron that he make idols as the work of his hands for them to see and to worship; and they treated Moses as if he were dead. They rejected Moses, their liberator and they rejected God, the author of their liberation. So God turned from them, leaving them to their own devices, to worship idols made with human hands.

(3) The Temple and the Presence of God vss. 44-50

According to Moses' instructions from God the people built the Tabernacle, the "Tent of Testimony" to God's continuing presence with them in the wilderness. The people brought it into the land with Joshua as they claimed the land God had promised to Abraham as the place they would worship God. The Tabernacle remained until the time of David who wished to build in its place a Temple as a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it would be his son, Solomon, who would build it. But as the prophet has said, God, the Most High, does not dwell in "houses made with human hands (Isa. 66:1-2)."

(4) Stephen Indicts the Council vss. 51-53

Stephen has finished his review of Israelites' record of rejecting those whom God has sent. The members of the Council are just like their ancestors, stiff necked, refusing to hear the Holy Spirit's guidance, rejecting the words of the prophets concerning the one who was to come. And when he came as the liberator they rejected him as well. As their ancestors rejected and killed the prophets who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, they have betrayed and killed him as well.

Acts Chapter 7:54-8:1 The Stoning of Stephen

Stephen has indicted the Council and all unrepentant Israel for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because they did not listen to what the Spirit said about Jesus through the prophets; and blasphemy against God for rejecting his anointed Messiah. The false charges brought against Stephen, speaking against the Temple and seeking to overthrow Moses Law, do have some basis in Luke (as well as John). Jesus did act prophetically against Temple corruption which negated its importance as God's house of prayer. He also made modifications in the interpretation of Sabbath and other traditions and this was considered by the Pharisees to be against Moses. However, nothing in the Law would have required the death penalty. His words and actions were consistent with similar words and deeds of the prophets of Israel

Luke writes that the cause of Stephen's stoning is his mystical vision of Jesus as the Son of Man, "standing at the right hand of God." He sees and describes a divine figure. The Council, to a man, takes this as the most egregious form of blasphemy against the sovereignty of the one God and they act out the common Jewish gesture of covering their ears lest they become contaminated, made unclean, by the blasphemy.  Stephan is taken outside the city walls, placed in a stoning pit and pelted with stones until he dies. As he dies, he repeats the essence of Jesus' words from the cross that "Lord Jesus" receive my spirit, and asks that this unjust sin not be held against the Council.

There is one more comment included by Luke who sets the stage for a shift in direction for the Jerusalem Christians: "and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul." The epic of Christian missions now takes a new direction. The Apostles have been Jesus' faithful witnesses as he directed. Now they will continue to labor to fulfill the goal of being his witnesses to the ends of the earth.