Episode 226: Stephen's Speech | Tim Henderson+

Introduction

Thank you, Brian. How you guys doing? Good. Alright. So this morning, we are gonna be looking at Acts chapter seven. So if you have a Bible, you might want to open it up to that. Acts seven is this famous speech given by a guy named Stephen. And if you were paying really close attention last week, you may have noticed that Stephen is the first, and I think you could argue like the most kind of preeminent among a new set of church leaders that were just kind of born the previous chapter in Acts chapter eight. What's that called? Remember who they are? Stephen was the first what? Not yet. He's gonna be the first martyr by the end of the hour, but first, he's the first, what is it Quig? Deacon. Deacon, okay. And the word deacon is just the ordinary word for servant. What had been going on is that within the church, this is what Quig preached on last week, is within the church, they realized they needed some more leadership because there were some problems that were keeping the apostles from the ministry of the word and prayer. So they created this official new role, but instead of giving it a fancy title, they just gave it the term servant or deacon.

And, it's a good word because the essence of Christian leadership is service, right? So these guys, their job was to focus on meeting the physical needs of the community of believers. They were wise, they were godly, they had great faith, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And one of them, Stephen in particular, immediately got into huge trouble. Stephen was not merely all of those things and not merely kind of fulfilling the role of a deacon. He's supposed to be distributing food, but he couldn't stay in that box. He was really gifted as a communicator and so he liked to argue persuasively about who Jesus was and he had, what the text says, is that he had the ability to perform signs and wonders. We don't know exactly what that means, but it's probably the case that he could heal people.

But this intersection of who he was and all of his giftings really troubled the religious leaders. They didn't like him, he was powerful. And so they put him on trial. And in the trial, they gave him the opportunity to speak, to defend himself, and speak he did. Acts seven, which is our passage this morning, is a transcript of that speech. And if I'm just being honest with you, it kinda goes on and on and on. Right? Sixty verses is a long time, and it would be way too much for me to treat comprehensively in just the few minutes that we have. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you the high level view of Stephen's speech, and I really hope, do this, go back and read it. Okay, the way I'm gonna handle it this morning is I'm gonna give you the categories to make sense of it, so that when you go through it, it won't seem as rambly as it might otherwise seem. And it does seem kinda rambly. The essence of his speech is that it is a history of the people of Israel. It's kinda, he's kinda giving you this narrative arc through the scriptures. But it's a little bit of a strange history. It's strange because he includes some things that you're like, okay, I mean, why was that? So what about that? And he excludes some things that are pretty important. He skips over some significant things. And so if you just read it straight through, my guess would be, you might think it's kind of rambly, you might even think he's filibustering, right? That he knows that maybe there's a judgment at the end of the speech, and so he's just gonna kinda keep talking and talking. I don't think that's the case. But I had to read it like several times to be like, where are you going with this Stephen? Like what is the rule that kinda governs it? And honestly, I had to cheat. I had to like look at some commentaries, some really brilliant people. I'm like, that is a, I see. Okay. So I'm gonna tell you what they told me, because I think it's the right answer. Okay. When you read a speech, you probably won't figure out the organizing principle. So here it is. Okay. The secret to the speech is that he is responding to the charge that has just been laid against him, or really the charges, okay? He is under a very specific set of accusations, and they show up in Acts chapter six, verse 13. So if you go back a page, listen to what they say, okay? This is the people that are not happy with Stephen—healing too many people, arguing too persuasively—and they say this in 13. They produced false witnesses who testified, this fellow never stops speaking, first, against this holy place, and second, against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will, firstly, destroy this place, and secondly, change the customs that Moses handed down to us. They're basically saying the same thing twice. They're saying, there's something that Stephen's doing that's oppositional to this place, and number two, he's gonna change the laws or the customs of Moses. Okay?

So, here's the double charge. Number one, he's accused of not respecting a place. What's the place? The temple. The temple. Specifically the building. This particular building in which they worship, where the sacrifices are offered, something there about that. And then number two, he's accused of not respecting Moses, or at the very least of consorting with Jesus who is not respecting Moses, advocating for these customs. Okay? So his speech, his response, is a defense against those two charges. That's pretty simple. Ready? So far so good?

Let me take the place one first. Take a look. The specific language in the accusation is, quote, we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place. What they're trying to do—and they're butchering it—is they're trying to quote Jesus. Okay? What was the moment in which Jesus said something about destroying the temple that they're trying to invoke? Do you remember this? We talked about it a month ago in this room. Exactly right. Do you remember where that was, Chris? It's—I don't know what you said because you're wearing a mask, but if you said John two, you're correct, okay? So do you guys remember this? It was like a month ago. We looked at John chapter two, where Jesus says, destroy this temple and in three days I will rebuild it. And they're like, we can't rebuild a temple in three days. It took decades to do. And we walked through together the history of the temple and the Garden of Eden and the tabernacle, Ezekiel's vision, all that whole thing. Right? They're invoking this—that Jesus had said destroy the temple and I’ll rebuild it. They misunderstood him and think that he is saying that they're here to destroy the temple, right? And so they're ticked off about that. Stephen's response to it is essentially to give them a history of place. He gives the history of Israel through the lens of space or geography. They are very concerned about a very particular place. And Stephen says, okay, let's talk about place. And his focus on location, on geography, is at least a partial explanation for the way that he goes, the things he includes, the things that he excludes. Later on, when you go back and read Acts seven to get the whole speech, just make note of how many times he gives geographic markers to what he's talking about. It's the whole thing is permeated with it. I'll give you like the first quarter of the speech really quick. Look at verse two. In verse two, if you have a pen, just make a note here. He mentions Mesopotamia and Haran. In verse three he says, leave one country, go to another land. In verse four he talks about the Chaldeans and Haran. In verse six he says, you'll be strangers in a country not your own. In verse seven he talks about coming out of that country and worshiping God in a new place. Right? In verse nine, he invokes Egypt. Verse eleven to fifteen, it's bouncing back and forth between Egypt and Canaan. In verse sixteen, he goes to Shechem. Okay? Now, none of those places very likely mean anything to anybody. Don't sweat the details. I don't really care which particular place. All I want you to notice is that he's like, place, place, place, place, place. He's very geographic. He's very locational. His whole speech is a response to this charge about a place. And I think that what Stephen is saying is, listen, you guys, we can worship God anywhere because he is everywhere. Now, God may call us to a particular place, and he may even call us to move from a particular place to another particular place, and in fact, he did that. He called you here. You are, you may not know it, but you are here because he put you here. In Acts 17, Paul is going to say that God determines the times set for us and the exact places where we should live, right? There is a theology of place, but it's just not theirs. Right? Paul goes on to say there in Acts 17 that he does this so that we will reach out to him and find him because he's not far from any one of us. Wherever you go, whatever place you occupy, wherever he puts you, you are near to him. God is not only in some particular building, not even in the particular building that Stephen's accusers are all excited about. He is everywhere. And that's part of what Stephen's speech is about, responding to that charge.

But, he weaves into this narrative of place some observations about Moses. And those comments are in response to that second charge. What was the second charge? You're screwing with the temple and number two? The law. The law. You're breaking the law, you're changing the customs, you're messing this whole thing up. And Stephen is basically being accused of changing the customs of Moses, so he's like, okay, let's talk about Moses. Let me give you a brief history of that. And when he does, Stephen points out the very uncomfortable fact that there was never really a time when the people of God were all that keen on obeying Moses. They like to claim him. They like the status of being a Mosesite. But when it comes to actually obeying him, that's much less interesting. And that's been going on for a very long time. It's still going on today.

I want to show you an example of this. This is a little bit more current. It's also a little bit cringey. Okay? So bear with me. We're gonna watch a clip of Stephen Colbert. You guys know Stephen Colbert? Stephen Colbert is a comedian, and his shtick is essentially that he's never out of character. He plays this kind of smarmy, journalist, political type, and he's like literally he's never out of character. This guy, Stephen Colbert, I don't know how this got arranged but he testified before Congress, like before the House of Representatives, and he was in character the whole time, right? It's just really, really odd and strange. In the clip we're gonna watch, he interviews a congressman who, bless his heart, never should have gone on this program. I am 100% sure that he had to fire a staffer after this. There should have been a 25-year-old on his team that had heard of Stephen Colbert and warned him, do not go on the show. The setup here is that, this particular congressman is sponsoring legislation that we should post the Ten Commandments in U.S. courtrooms. Okay? And Colbert is gonna interview him about that. You ready? Some of you aren't gonna like this very much. It's gonna be one of many things I'm gonna say today that you're not gonna like. So just, it's just, we're gonna ease you in right now. Okay, let's go. You co-sponsored a bill requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Mhmm. Why was that important to you? Well, the Ten Commandments is not a bad thing for people to understand and to respect. I'm with you. Where better place could you have something like that than in a judicial building or in a courthouse? That is a good question. Can you think of any better building to put the Ten Commandments in than in a public building? No. I think if we were totally without them, we may lose a sense of our direction. What are the Ten Commandments? What are all of them? You want me to name them all? Yeah. Please. Don't know. Don't lie. Don't steal. I can't name them all. Congressman thank you for taking time away from keeping the Sabbath. Okay. Do you get it? There's this vibe here that I love the Ten Commandments as a symbol, right? Enough to sponsor legislation about them, but not enough to actually know what they are. Right? Never mind. Let's not even talk about obeying them. Can you list them? Right? This vibe here, this is the thing that I think that Stephen is talking about. It's been going on for years and years and years. Right? But yeah, I love God, I love Moses, I love his law as some theoretical, symbolic, external thing. But I don't even know what they are, and I haven't even gotten to the point of thinking about how they impact my heart, right?

By the way, should tell you, if you're terrified that somebody's gonna ask you what the Ten Commandments are, you can find them in Exodus 20, if you wanna go look them up, right? There are four that are Godward, there are six that are manward, and you might be surprised if you go back and find there’s actually eleven. Strange, right? Two of these need to be grouped together with the other one—you can, and a couple different ways that people divide the pie. It's a little bit funny. But if you wanna look them up so you can rattle off, what are the four, what are the six? Exodus 20, did I say Acts 20? I meant Exodus 20. Exodus 20 was where Moses gives the law on Mount Sinai. Okay, so look them up. It might be useful just to know in case you're ever interviewed by Stephen Colbert.

You guys, the religious leaders, they wanted Moses externally. They wanted Moses symbolically. But did they want to worship with a full heart the God to whom Moses pointed? Not so much, right? At every turn they disobeyed. And so what Stephen does is he just runs through the life of Moses, and he shows that at every point the people of God opposed him, disbelieved him, would not follow him. He includes, go ahead and back to Acts seven, look at it. He includes the moment that Moses defended an Israelite slave who was being abused by an Egyptian, only to be accused in the very midst of his advocacy. Look at verse 25. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. And so, as a result, Moses ends up fleeing to Midian, which is another place, by the way. He says in verse 35, this is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words, who made you ruler and judge? And then Stephen invokes the giving of the law, Mount Sinai, and he says in verse 39, but our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him, and in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt. Stephen also brings up maybe the apex of Moses' misery and disobedience with the golden calf incident, that's in verse 41. Stephen says that was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made. Stephen goes on to accuse them of worshiping Molech, which invokes the murder of children. And he says, by the way, this is why we got sent to Babylon, which is yet another place, right? He weaves this whole thing together, and at the climax of his speech, he brings these two things together: this whole thing, this theology of place and the misunderstandings there, and they're conveniently forgetting their own history of how disobedient they have been to Moses.

Take a look at what he does here. In verse 44, he reminds them of the tabernacle and Solomon's temple, and then he says in verse 48, however, listen, guys, the most high does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says,

Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things? — Acts 7:48-50

What Stephen is saying is that you're overstating the significance of place because God is everywhere and he made everything, and he can be worshiped everywhere. So calm down a little bit. But then he goes on by not calming down. I don't know if you know this phenomenon, but if I'm talking about something that makes me mad, talking about it makes me madder. Has this ever happened to you? Right? This idea of venting your anger—I think it just actually, it just multiplies it. And that's what's about to happen for Stephen, okay? So he is, he's about to hit his climax of this speech, okay? He just goes off on their supposed obedience to the law. Okay? Here it is, verse 51. He says,

You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You're just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet that your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One, and now you've betrayed and murdered him.

And he calls them out for the murder of Christ. And this is a bridge too far. And at this moment now, as Stephen is at his most fiery, they just respond and they rush at him. He takes it so far that they stone him to death, and he does become—that is, he's gone from being the first deacon to being the first martyr. And he dies, of course, second martyr—Jesus is the first martyr, but you know, second behind Jesus. And that speech, as sure as can be, ended his life.

At this moment, we have the first Christian follower of Christ who gives his life in defense of the gospel. And that's Acts seven, okay?

Application

Now, the question is—I got six minutes left—who cares? What difference does it make in 2022, in Roanoke, Virginia, in this particular place, that Stephen gave the speech? I offer to you two different things to consider by way of application. Okay. Two things that are true about Stephen as he follows Christ that could be true of us as we follow them both.

First of all, notice this: Stephen knows his Bible. He has this understanding of the history of Israel at the ready. His speech is riddled with biblical illusions, biblical language, with direct quotations. And I wonder, could you do that? If we ask you to come up here, I won't, it's cool, but if I ask you to come up here and rattle off a summary of the biblical narrative, could you give me the story arc, just the narrative arc of the history of God's people? Some of you can't, I know you can, I've heard you do it. Some of you at feasts, I've heard you do it. I wonder though, could you do it through a filter? If I said, Bob Williams, get up here, give me a history of Israel, but I want you to do it through the filter of place. Organize your story through location. Or, we'll have somebody else do it. Bobo, get up here, and I want you to organize the story through—I want you to use Moses' life as the main vectors of change in the story. Could you do that? Do you know the story so well that you can faithfully present it, but it will be customized to your particular circumstance? You can make a coherent story that's suitable to the moment and faithful to the text. Let me phrase that question a little differently: Are you so absolutely taken by Jesus that knowing his word has become a delight and an obsession to you? Yes, the scriptures were fresh and they were vivid to Stephen. So he had this story at his fingertips. And it could be that to you. If you believe that this book is full of treasure and you believe that you can find it, then your life will become about the hunt and you'll find the treasure, you'll make the connections. The Bible will become the scaffolding of your life. It's what you will use to make sense of the world, it's what you'll use to make sense of your world, and you will discover Jesus on every page because he is actually there on every page. It reveals him everywhere. He is the true Moses to whom Moses points. He is the rejected one, he is the temple. It's all about him. And Stephen knew his Bible cold, and we could be a people just like that. It's all available to you.

Second thing about Stephen is that Stephen was courageous. This was a scary speech. So frightening, in fact, that it ended up costing him his life. And that honestly is what I most want to talk to you about today in the next just couple of minutes. So please indulge me. I don't know if you've noticed this, but courage is in short supply today. Have you seen this? We are surrounded by and have become cowards. And cowardice is contagious.

Something has happened whereby bullies who say false things and proffer absurd claims have garnered influence in nearly every major American institution. They own the universities, media, they own massive numbers of major corporations, and they say things about mankind and womankind that no one in the history of the world has ever believed to be true because they are self-evidently false. In this particular instance, I’m speaking about transgenderism, but you could walk through millennia of human history on any continent you choose and find zero persons to affirm the things that are being demanded, that you would affirm. That’s one topic. There are many others where there are favored views in life, and if you speak against those favored views, or if you fail to affirm those favored views, you will be labeled a heretic under the new orthodoxy. And so, our new gatekeepers shame and silence and punish people who dare to say things that are true.

Countless people have lost their jobs for having the audacity to say true things. What you need to understand is the purpose of punishing people is not merely to be vindictive, it is to intimidate the onlookers into silence. And it has worked shockingly well, because cowardice is contagious. But so is courage. I want you to hear what C.S. Lewis says about courage. He says, courage is not simply one of the virtues, it is the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty—honesty or mercy—which yields to danger will only be chased, honest, or merciful, only on conditions.

Pilate was merciful until it became risky. You guys, how many of you have found yourselves believing something to be true but declining to say it because you knew that it would cost you something to do so? How many of you have heard false things affirmed at work, in your neighborhood, in your family, but you just kept your head down because it was easier to be silent or at the very least safer? Now, it may be, it's possible that you are being wise to choose your time and your place. Sometimes wisdom is called for. But can I tell you, if the time and the place never come around, you are probably being cowardly and not being wise? Watch your own instinct for self-preservation and how it prevents you from saying true things and allowing false things to be affirmed.

You guys, do you realize that if you are being cowardly today, you are only making it harder on those that will come after you, including your children. Just as those who went before you, their cowardice has made it harder for you. We are building a world that is becoming less and less habitable because too many cowards are being too quiet about things that are absurd. It’s happening in real time. It’s happening right now. We have an obligation at all times to speak in ways that are truthful and gracious. Jesus came from the Father, full of grace and full of truth, and we need to always be full of grace, full of truth.

Some of the things that you say that are truthful, no matter how graciously you communicate it, will cause people to hate you. And there's nothing you can do about it. So, suck it up. Be truthful. Be gracious and be willing to suffer. Be men and women of courage. I don't know if you saw this in the news, but just a couple of days ago, forgive me here. Hang on. You're probably tired of me clearing my throat. I'm tired of it. A couple of days ago, professional soccer player, a woman named Jaylene Daniels, was benched from her game. The reason she was benched is that she declined to wear her team’s uniform on a particular day that was emblazoned with a pride emblem. She had enough integrity that she would not display on her body something she did not believe in her heart, and so they benched her. And they could do that. And she accepted that benching graciously. And then she said this. This was her statement. She said, I remain committed to my faith and my desire for people to know that my love for them isn't based on their belief system or sexuality. I pray and I firmly believe that my teammates know how much I cherish them, respect them, and love them. You can bet that she's gonna be excoriated for having done so. She was, she is gracious in her communication. She's accepted the consequence. She is not complaining. She's issuing a message of love. But she will not say things that she believes to be untrue. She’s gracious and she's truthful. And we need more people like Jaylene Daniels. Be wise. Be gracious. Be truthful. Be silver tongued. Don't be some raving lunatic who is an embarrassment to Jesus. Keep it off social media, which is endlessly a train wreck. But my goodness, speak.

Friends, say true things and flatly refuse to say false things. It may cost you. It almost certainly will at work, in your neighborhood, in your family. We must say true things. We must say them graciously. We must say them courageously. We must never say false things. We must never speak ungraciously. And we must never be cowardly.

Conclusion

Okay. One more thing to note. The most quoted verse from the Old Testament in the New is from Psalm 110, right? It’s a psalm that depicts Christ reigning as king over all things. The psalm sees Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father reigning, and it shows up over and over in the New Testament. It is literally the New Testament’s favorite Old Testament passage. Here in Acts seven, that image is invoked with a subtle but significant twist. Look at verse 56.

I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. — Acts 7:56

What’s the change? He’s standing. Holy cow, you guys. Jesus stood in the presence of Stephen. He stood to honor this man of courage who loved Jesus, who loved his word. Can you imagine if, at your death, Jesus stood to honor you? I would lose my mind.

There might be a frightening place where you need to speak. It might be that your consciousness is pricked. It’d be like, I couldn’t render that history at all. I don’t scarcely spend any time in the word. However, God's word is speaking to you today, a call to greater truthfulness, a call to more graciousness or courage, a call to be in His word, to be steeped by it. We have a moment here for you to respond. What I hope you might choose to do is come down to these front curved rails. You just need to deal with Jesus alone and say, Lord, I have—I need your power. I want to be courageous like you. I want to love the things that you love. This is a moment for you to do that.

Straight rails, same thing. Come down. We'll have somebody greet you there who can pray with you. I pray that we would be a congregation that is radical in our graciousness, radical in our truthfulness, courageous and good and kind. And if you find that this is a moment that maybe the Lord is calling you into a deeper degree of that, come forward and pray together.

Lord Jesus, you are the one that we love. It’s for you that we would take all sorts of risks. It’s for you that we would speak up in truth, that what you love would be loved, that we would honor the things that honor you. Lord, be gracious to us. Forgive us for our cowardice, for the way that we have kowtowed to bullies, and thereby making it harder for those that come after us. Give us wisdom, ample, abundant, rich wisdom. Make a silver tongue to be gracious, to be persuasive. But Lord, we know we know. Everywhere we go, we smell like you. We are the aroma of Christ among those that are being saved, among those that are perishing. We know that we are to some fragrance of life, and to others, we are the stench of death. And Lord, we know we are not equal to such a task. Fill us with your Spirit that we might be what you want us to be in this particular moment, at this particular time, whatever it costs us. Lord, we love you. Amen.