Acts 7

Ultimately, Stephen died for his faith, but this chapter is more interesting for what happened in the moments leading up to his death. Stephen chose not to defend actions directly. He chose not to argue with the Sanhedrin over who said or did what. He chose not accuse anyone of falsely charging him or of lying. He chose to simply recount the facts of the Israelites’ history in dealing with prophets of God, and he chose to stand firm on the Word of God.

In this dissertation, Stephen reminds the Sanhedrin that God has always been true to His promises and that every time there was a separation between God and His people it was the people’s that had turned away. He reminded them that the Israelites had a long history of not listening to the prophets of God until after the prophecy had come true, which meant that they spent most of history crawling back to God to beg forgiveness. Most importantly, though, Stephen offered the Sanhedrin a chance to change: a chance to recognize that they were on the same old familiar road again and to choose this time to follow God before things got out of hand.

The Sanhedrin obviously did not like seeing themselves clearly in the mirror that Stephen held in front of them, so they had him stoned. This gives us two things to learn from. First, we can be like Stephen and rise above the petty disagreements of men to stand on the Word of God which is always true. Be careful, though, because when you do that you might find yourself in the position of the Sanhedrin, and that is the second thing we can learn from. When you see yourself as God sees you, will you change?