FEARLESS FAITH

9.00am and 10.30am Sunday 21 May 2006

Readings: Acts 6:8-7:2a; 7:51-8:1a

 

At the beginning of a church service the minister announced that there would be a brief meeting of the Board at the front of the church when the service concluded that morning. He was surprised when after the service a total stranger came up to the front and asked, "Is this where the meeting of the 'bored' is to be? I certainly was bored!"

 

When you first read Acts 7, the defence of Stephen before the Jewish Sanhedrin in the Book of Acts, what did you think of it? We have omitted the most part from our reading this morning not because of its content but because of its length. My own impression was that Stephen was telling these religious leaders things they knew very well if not better than he did, and that he was unnecessarily padding it out with a lot of historical detail. George Bernard Shaw was certainly very negative in his assessment. He called Stephen "a quite intolerable young speaker," and "a tactless and conceited bore," who "delivered an oration to the council, in which he ... inflicted on them a tedious sketch of the history of Israel, with which they were presumably as well acquainted as he."[1] Others have thought quite differently. For example, William Neil in his commentary sees Stephen's speech as "a subtle and skilful proclamation of the gospel."[2]

 

In this the sixth in our series on 'The Speeches in Acts' we're going to look at the significance both of what Stephen said, and of what happened as a result of this incident in the life of the early church. We'll come to see that it's not only, as William Neil describes it, "a subtle and skilful proclamation of the gospel," but that it also thrusts the church into a new stage of its mission to the world, a mission that we continue today. Stephen's martyrdom was critical to the fulfilment of Jesus' instructions to his apostles at the beginning of Acts, that they would be his witnesses "in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."[3]

 

When Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin he was accused of two things: of speaking against "this holy place", referring to the temple; and of speaking "against the law", God's holy book. To the Jew there was nothing more precious than the temple and nothing more sacred the law, and so these were very serious crimes. To a Jew a person who spoke against the temple and who spoke against the law was the same as speaking against God himself. The word they had for it was 'blasphemy' and it was punishable by death. Jesus had similar accusations levelled against him when he appeared before the Sanhedrin. It therefore required from Stephen a careful response.

 

Before we look at what Stephen said, note what the Scripture said about his appearance. It says, "All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel."[4] How do you think Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, knew this? Can you think of anyone else in Scripture whose face glowed, and, if so, what is the significance of it happening to Stephen as well?

 

It could well have been Paul who gave Luke this information, as he and Luke travelled together on several of his later missionary journeys. Paul, or Saul as he was known then, would have been there at the trial because we're told that those who stoned Stephen "laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul."[5] Obviously something like this would have left an indelible impression on that young man's mind, and he may well have thought about it a great deal afterwards. If it was Paul who told Luke about it, he still remembered it vividly thirty years after the event when Luke wrote this book. And about its significance: was it not appropriate for God to give Stephen the same radiant face when accused of opposing the law, as he gave to Moses when he received the law. Would it not show God's approval of both these men? God's blessing on Stephen is evident throughout this passage. We're told that he was "a man full of God's grace and power", that he spoke with great "wisdom",[6] and then as we have just been considering in the appearance of his face. He was an outstanding person.

 

Now let's look at what he said in response to the charges laid against him. In his defence Stephen drew lessons from Israel's history that the Jewish leaders had either never learned or never noticed before, and these were critical to God's mission for his church. The Jews believed that they were God's chosen people, and that the Lord was Israel's God. Access to this God was only possible through their priests in Jerusalem and the sacrifices they offered. The temple was crucial to this. If anyone from another nation wanted to worship their God, they could do so, but they would have to renounce their own religion and its gods, and undergo the prescribed rites such as baptism and circumcision. By doing this they became a Jewish 'proselyte', and these are referred to in a number of places in Acts.[7]

 

Stephen, in line with all of Scripture, believed that God was the Lord of every nation. This is what the Scriptures plainly teach. Psalm 22 says, "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations."[8] Further, Stephen wanted to show that the temple and the law were not the only means to finding God. God was not confined to a building. Stephen was implying that people did not have to become Jews to come to God. In line with what Jesus said when he spoke to the woman of Samaria, "...a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ...a time ... when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks."[9]

 

In his defence, Stephen focuses on three of the outstanding heroes of the Jewish faith - Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. Every Jew believed that God had spoken to each of these men personally. However, the point that Stephen is making is that God didn't speak to any of these in the temple or within their own land. In fact that temple didn't even exist in their time. He spoke to all three outside the Promised Land. He spoke to Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia before he went to Haran. He revealed himself to Joseph while he was in Egypt, and it is worth noting the Luke mentions the name Egypt seven times when speaking of Joseph as if to emphasise the fact that this was where Joseph encountered God. God spoke to Moses from out of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When Moses turned aside to see the bush, God said to Moses, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."[10] This was central to the point that Stephen was making. There was holy ground outside the holy land. In fact wherever God is, is holy. None of these three significant men in the history of Israel had needed the temple to hear God speak to them. And as we read a little later, Jesus spoke to Paul outside of the Temple and most probably outside of Israel, too, when he appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

 

He then speaks of David and Solomon, and the tabernacle, the tent temple as it were, that Israel had prior to entering the land God had promised them, and long before the building of the first temple by King Solomon. Stephen was not saying that it was wrong for them to construct the tabernacle and the temple, but that they should not be regarded in any literal sense as being God's home. He says, "...the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands."[11] And then he sites Isaiah 66 where he says, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me?"[12] If God himself is the Creator, then how can the Maker of all things be confined within any man-made structure?

Stephen could see God's plan even more clearly than the apostles of Jesus could. The temple was not the one and only way to come to God. Jesus had come to replace the temple and fulfil the law. People could come to God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

 

Then when Stephen accused them of murdering their Messiah, as their ancestors had murdered the prophets before him, and were thus rejecting their own law that spoke of the Messiah, the Sanhedrin lost the plot completely. We are told that "they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him" (7:54). You can almost hear the grinding sound. The final straw was when Stephen said he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. That was just too much. "...yelling at the top of their voices" (7:57), and more like wild animals that human beings, let alone religious human beings, they rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and summarily stoned him to death. They did not want to hear another word. They had heard more than enough already. The amazing thing is that even in death Stephen remained gracious and, using words similar to those spoken by Jesus from the cross, he commended his spirit to God and sought forgiveness for those who killed him.

 

It is a sobering story because it shows what is in store for those who follow Jesus, and the kind of opposition Christians would face throughout their long history. As we heard only a few weeks ago, Ken Nayau, because of the translation work he is doing and what he stood for in his village, was targeted and attacked by a man wielding a bush knife. It was a miracle he survived. This is what the Bible said to expect. Writing to Timothy Paul said, "Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (1 Tim 3:12 TNIV). Not just one or two, but "everyone". So we shouldn't be surprised when we are rebuffed because we identify ourselves with Christ.

 

Of course it comes in more subtle ways in a country like New Zealand, but it is there all the same. Our society tends to be one that latches on to anything that puts Christianity in a bad light, and yet bends over backwards not to offend people of other faiths. Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code is an example of this. People will readily believe that the church as been involved in a cover-up about what really happened between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It certainly makes for a good story and everyone loves to have secrets exposed. But what Dan Brown has done is to take enough historical facts to give his story a degree of credence, and then mixed in a lot of other material which is blatantly untrue. And unless people are able to distinguish what is true from what is false, what is fact from what is fiction, they get sucked into believing the lies, too. The claim that Jesus had a daughter by Mary Magdalene whose descendants are still living in Europe today, just does not stand up to scrutiny. This is not new, of course. It is an idea that has been circulating since the nineteenth century. And that in itself is significant. If it is as recent as that, why has it taken so long to surface? If there really was substance to it, wouldn't you have expected it to have heard about a long time ago? Of course Dan Brown says the church has covered it up all these years. But do you really think it would be possible to cover up something of this nature and for so long?

 

Several of us attended the meeting at the Cathedral last Thursday at which a panel of four speakers spoke about different aspects of the novel. A number of helpful comments were made as well as highlighting many of the discrepancies in the novel when put alongside well-documented historical facts. The comment of one of the panel that stood out to me was that about the dishonesty of the author and film company. There is always a degree of artistic licence that one grants to novelists as well as to painters, but we should never tamper with the truth, and especially to the extent where money, and in this case lots of it, is made out of lies. Of course this is not the first time this has been done. It has been the devil's way right from the beginning.

 

Returning to the passage and applying its lessons to our lives, we can say the following things:

1. Stephen's example is an inspiration to us all. There was a graciousness and attractiveness about his life that shone through even in death. It illustrates what Paul meant when he said, "God ... uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere" (2 Cor 2:14 TNIV). It brings home the importance of being people of integrity, and as far as possible to live exemplary lives; because if we don't, people do notice, and we should not be in the business of providing unnecessary ammunition for those who love to pour scorn on the church and to ridicule those who follow Christ. Read 1 Peter 4:12-17.
2. God is sovereign. Stephen's death was the catalyst to initiate a period of intense persecution upon the church with the outcome that it began to spread into Samaria, and wherever the Christians went they took the gospel with them, which was God's intention all along. The church needed its nest to be stirred up, so that it would be obedient to what Jesus said it was to do. They were to 'go', as it is so for us as well.

 

His death was a catalyst in another way. Although we are not told this explicitly, we are left to surmise that his death had a profound affect on the life of the young Pharisee, Saul. Stephen's defence with its message that God was the God of both Jew and Gentile, was greatly furthered through the work of this one man, who became the apostle to the Gentiles.

 

3. Change is painful to us all, especially when it affects our cherished buildings and customs. The day would come when the Jewish temple and it sacrifices would be no more, evidence in itself that a new order had begun. This is not to say that we should seek change for the sake of change. Yet is God is not bound to his church, but is as much present out in the community as he is within these walls. How would you feel that if in the interests of the mission of the church, to make Jesus Christ known through love in action, we were called upon to dispose of our buildings?

 

God through his Spirit is continually empowering and guiding his Church to fulfil its God's appointed destiny on earth. It behoves us as his people to be continually listening to what the Spirit is saying to his Church in our day, and not only listening, but heeding his word. "Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22).