Stephen's Message - Acts 7

So there's certain songs in the 80s that I think are just great songs.

And there's other songs in the 80s that I think are great 80s songs.

Agreed.

Not all songs, you know what I mean?

And I was trying to actually come up with like this is a real thing I th I I did with my time one day, driving.

You know, I drive a lot.

But I was like, what would make a song the best 80s song?

And I was like, well, it's gotta have synth.

Like it has to.

Like there's gotta be some type of synth, okay?

It's gotta have like drums, but they sound like a rubber trash can being hit really hard.

It's gotta have that, like, that kind of sound.

I don't know the right musical term for that.

And then I was like, it needs to have a guitar solo, because the guitar solos were big in the 80s.

Yeah.

Like a big time.

I'm thinking more like pop rock.

And the guitar solo needs to feel like it could be the backing track to a Mega Man boss fight.

And by those criteria that I came up with, uh, and I've listened to many songs thinking through that, it is definitely, in my opinion, um it is the final countdown by Europe.

Yeah.

Because I mean quintessential synth.

Yeah.

It has, if you listen to it, it's like it's just very trash can rhymes.

And then that guitar solo, listen to the guitar solo for final countdown, close your eyes, and imagine a Mega Man boss battle from like it's it's it's it, it's it.

And uh directly related to this is Acts chapter seven.

Which is the most eighties chapter.

The most eighties chapter.

It this could be turned into an 80s song.

This is the video.

The most 1980s chapter of the Bible.

You could turn Steven's speech here into a pretty epic, like uh you're shaking your head as if we're sh we're we're going into sacrilege here.

I'm just uh it's bold.

It's just it it's like a rock opera song.

I was gonna say, like, we can't there's not even a connection.

No, no, no.

I was I was literally just uh trying to segue off a ridiculous conversation and failed.

All right, so here we are, Acts chapter seven, which is pretty much the entire thing is Stephen, who has been dragged before the leaders of the the church in Jerusalem.

That not the church, sorry, the the Jewish synagogue.

Um and uh he's just this is just him.

He's also gonna give like a recap of the whole Bible.

He does.

So it's a long chapter.

Do you want to just power through it?

Which translation are we powering through?

Read it all at once.

Yep.

I mean I have I have ESV in my hand, but I also have a phone, so I could do any of it.

Is that your preferred when you read as ESV?

That's cool.

Mostly.

Yeah.

All right.

Uh all right, here we go.

It's a long one.

Acts chapter seven.

And the high priest said, Are these things so?

And Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me.

The glory of God appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.

Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran.

And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.

Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised it to him as a possession and to his offsprings after him, though he had no child.

And God spoke to this effect, that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.

But I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.

So can we pause for a sec?

Yes, can I get yeah, go for it.

No, no, go.

I was just gonna say I could read the next verse, and then we're done with the Abraham stuff.

Um And he gave them the covenant of circumcision, and so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

Okay.

So that's the Abraham story.

I think this is really cool because spoiler alert, but this has been in the Bible for a really long time.

Right.

Like since the Bible, you know, since the New Testament.

Stephen's gonna die.

Yes.

At the end of this.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So he is, you know, up to this point, we've kind of looked at the growing uh you you did a great job of this the last episode.

Looked at there is there's challenges happening internally in the church.

There's people not getting along.

Uh that's got to be figured out.

That's gonna be a theme that continues.

Uh, and then there's also external challenges.

There's persecution happening on behalf of the right now, it's on behalf of the Jewish religious leaders because this is a major disruption to what they've got going on.

This hasn't like hit Rome yet in terms of well, I guess it hit Rome with Jesus, but they're assuming it's done.

Are we gonna see that come back?

Or is there like conflict with Rome after this?

This is completely localized at this point in time.

There's nothing in the move the Jesus movement has not extended beyond Israel at all at this point.

So all the conflict is here.

Rome's only involved because Rome, you know, is is I mean, essentially Israel is a province of Rome now, and they want to keep they just want to keep things peaceful.

Peaceful and Christians are pretty peaceful.

But the Israel the Israel yeah, the uh Israel as a that whole part of the world has always been a hotbed of conflict, still is to this day, right?

So uh Rome's only involved at this point, and just keep people right.

Whoever's the governor of that area had a hard job.

But point is, this is local.

We'll see later on in Acts as the church extends into other communities, there's also going to be it's still a disruptive force wherever it goes, because people are leaving their pagan religions, becoming Christians, and now they're not going to those pagan temples and that there's like a whole economy built on that, right?

So there's gonna be a disruptive right now, it's just in the Jewish community.

And Stephen and the other uh leaders of the church, the disciples, especially the apostles, they have been told numerous times, stop talking about Jesus, stop talking about Jesus, stop it.

But they're doing signs and wonders, and Jesus' ministry appears to be continuing through them, and no matter how many times they're arrested and beaten, they keep doing it.

So now Stephen is being pulled in.

And he's gonna end up at the end of this chapter being the first martyr, right?

First first Christian ever to be killed for his faith.

But what he does here is really brilliant.

You just have to like give him the Holy Spirit through him props because there's nothing he has said right now that could be argued with.

Not a controversial giving like a pretty standard uh, you know, here's what the Bible says.

Yes.

I mean, this would be like you're dragged in front of a mathematics board at a college because you have a controversial paper and you're like one plus one equals two.

Do we all agree?

You know, and we we know that you know, it's like but but it's really smart.

We're gonna see the brilliance through it, because this is a brilliant, brilliant thing that happens here.

Um but I I just think there's a tremendous wisdom and even kind of a life lesson, not to be overly, you know, sometimes you can try to make scripture apply in ways it maybe wasn't meant to, but there it is interesting to begin with common ground.

You know what I mean?

Um because if you're gonna convince someone you can't start with the part they disagree with, right?

Because then you'll just fight immediately.

But if you say, like, hey, this is where we stand on the same place, like do you see the the the connections that I'm drawing?

He's gonna continue to draw across the pretty much whole Bible.

Now he's gonna I don't know if his purpose here was to He's confrontational.

He's confrontational here, but he's beginning they have to listen at this point.

Yeah.

And there's an audience, and everything he's saying right now is so like, yeah, this is he's building a foundation for who Jesus is going to be through this, but I just think it's really brilliant that he begins the way that he begins.

I also love, you know, I know this is more part of like Jewish education and like the world at the time, and you know, I guess not everybody's educated, but the idea that, you know, if I'm pulled in front of a group of people who's trying to beat me up and they're asking me about the Bible, it's like uh obviously the Holy Spirit will speak through me and empower me to do that.

But I've been in a lot of conversations where I've probably like uh fumbled the ball a little bit because I'm like, the Bible kind of says somewhere here, this, and I like get the the point across, and um, you know, there's grace in all of that.

But it's like there's just such a clarity of purpose and like training.

Like he is not stalling, he's not um well, I mean, how can you go about this?

No, there is a there's not a strategy or anything, it's just here's the truth, and he just lays it out in a very distinct and clear way, which I just think is awesome.

No, absolutely.

Okay.

And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt, but God was with him.

And patriarchs meaning the the fathers of the faith.

Yes.

Well, these would be the the men who were the sons of Jacob, who is named later named Israel, and they become the tw the namesake of the tribes of Israel.

So they're like the fathers of the tribes of Israel, but at this point in the story, they're the brothers of Joseph.

Correct.

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

Uh so they sold him into Egypt, but God was with him, and rescued him out of all of his afflictions, and gave him favor and and wisdom before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.

But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fat sent out our fathers on their first visit.

And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh.

And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob, his father, and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all, and Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, and he uh he and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

Yeah, and here we go.

Again, can't argue with with him, but he's also establishing, he's like, I know the story.

Right.

We're not talking about the same God.

And he's giving very specific details.

He says, Shechem and Hamor.

All right, here we go.

But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt, until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.

He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive.

At this time Moses was born, and he uh was beautiful in God's sight, and he was brought up for three months in his father's house, and when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.

And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in words and deeds.

When he was forty years old, it came to into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel, and seeing one of them being wrong, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.

He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

On the following day when he appeared to them as they qu Oh goodness, and let me restart that.

And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarrelling, and tried to reconcile them, saying, Men, you are brothers.

Why do you wrong each other?

But the man who is wrongdoing or wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, Who made you a ruler and judge over us?

Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?

At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he began or where he became the father of two sons.

Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look there came a voice from the Lord, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.

And Moses trembled and didn't dare to look.

Then the Lord said to him, Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you're standing is holy ground.

I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them.

And now come I will send you to Egypt.

This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and judge?

This man God sent, both as ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt, and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers.

He received living oracles to give to us.

Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, Make for us gods who will go before us.

As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what's become of him.

And they made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.

But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of to over to worship the host of heaven, as it's written in the book of the prophets.

Did you bring me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Raphon, the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.

I mean, this is just like so dense.

This is the whole story.

Yeah, he's Molech and all these other.

Um We can keep going.

We're almost there.

No, no, I know.

Well, he's he's also laying a found he's starting to show a trend line that he's going to connect to the Pharisees here in just a year.

In verse 35, this Moses, whom they rejected.

Right.

There's a there's It's like I'm he's planting some seeds that he's about to uh yeah, yeah, here we go.

Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen.

Our fathers in turn brought in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers.

So it was until the day of days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

But it was Solomon who built the house for him.

Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophets say.

Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord?

Or what is the place of my rest?

Did not my hands make all these things?

So he's describing the period of time where Moses built the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, as it's called in your translation.

And so the Israelites used to carry this very elaborate, very huge uh tent, and literally, like everyone had different pieces that they would carry with them, and then they would set it up when they would camp, and that would be where they would worship.

And then David is like, I want to build you an awesome permanent temple, like all these other nations have for their false gods.

And God's like, I mean, okay, it's not gonna be a good idea.

David raises the money, Solomon actually.

Solomon builds it.

But even God tells David, I don't need that, don't want that.

Right.

You know, um, there's actually some interesting stuff you can read about.

There's a lot of stuff on that, but yeah, here we go.

And so he's built up this idea of this rejection of God's will, as spoken by the prophets, or whoever's raised up among them.

But then he's also bringing to mind this idea of God dwells with his people, but it's not that the house has ever been the thing.

Correct.

Yes, which uh, you know, is a is a touchy subject with the the people who are in charge of the temple.

So here we go, here we go.

Here's the big one.

You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.

As your fathers did, so do you.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who have received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.

So that's the big moment.

Now when they heard these things, they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears, and rushed together at him.

Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

And when he had this, or when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Yep.

So we get the introduction of an important character here, Saul.

Saul, who uh is going to be known as Paul.

This is the first mention we have of him.

He's called a young man here.

Okay.

Um, Stephen is is stoned to death.

He's killed.

I like that Stephen's words are the words of Jesus or like a version of the words, you know, Father, into your hand, I commend my spirit.

That's the and don't don't you know forgive them.

Forgive them for what they do.

And that's also gonna happen when James, I believe, is is killed later.

Oh, really?

Uh yeah, I believe James says essentially, not the commend my I think he's gonna say they don't know what they're doing, very similar to what Jesus says on the cross.

And that's an interesting thing.

There's a these early Christians, when they're killed, they have the same heart.

It has to be the Holy Spirit.

Right.

Because I don't care if if you're someone who's religious and you're just and you're murdered, I think in that moment your real self is gonna be shown.

You know what I mean?

Like and here they are and they're like, forgive them, Father, forgive them.

And that and they're following the lead of Jesus.

So yeah, that's that's the entirety of Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

It is a 60 verse chapter, the entirety pretty much there till the end is Stephen giving a speech to the Jewish leaders that leads to his death.

And this is a this is the first moment since Jesus that the Jewish leaders have killed someone related to the movement of Jesus.

Um and it's been a while at this point.

I it'd be interesting to see when the next martyr.

Well, no, I want to see the time.

You keep I'm gonna I'm gonna research something real fast as as we keep talking.

What are your what's your immediate take on it?

Well, I started to think about, you know, a lot of the times when I'm reading a scripture, it's because I have to preach it.

And so I start to think about what are the things I have to do to preach this clearly.

And it's one of those like uh scriptures where it really quickly gets into the entirety of the Bible.

And so it's like I probably wouldn't teach the entirety of the Bible if I had to teach this.

Um, but I we were talking about it as we were going through it.

Like, he does develop this idea that um, yeah, there's been a constant hardness of heart toward the things that God's that God has been doing throughout the entire story of Israel.

Yes.

And like people will say, like, you know, if I could just see Jesus, it would be a little bit easier.

And it's like, well, he said it'd be easier if we had the Holy Spirit.

Right.

So like he said that would be a benefit to us.

But you imagine you read those Old Testament stories and you see the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud leading the Israelites through the wilderness.

You see like uh food spawning from the ground, and they're still really quickly going, like, we're gonna die.

Like, we're not provided for.

We're gonna God makes manna from heaven and they're like, but we wanted meat.

We want and then he gives them quail.

And so he we don't like quail.

I don't like quail.

It's like, well, what do you like?

Are there chickens yet?

Like, yeah.

And so this idea that it's like that's like a human situation that's still playing out to the time of Jesus, and that's that's the problem that wasn't able to be overcome with Jesus.

So, you know, I wonder being walking around as a follower of Jesus during the time, like, would I have seen Jesus for who he was, or would I have been caught up in my own like yeah, this is the way it's supposed to be, sort of thing.

You always want to imagine that you would never have been the one to oppose Jesus or to oppose the prophets, as he mentioned, you know, all the all the prophets were opposed, right?

Um you always want to imagine, man, I would have been one of the followers.

I'm the follower.

And I think there's an interesting dynamic too where you know when he says you, who's he talking to?

Like just the Israelites?

Maybe to a certain degree, like yeah, and that could apply to Christians, followers of God who disobey, there's there's a lot of parallels.

But it's also those who who are in power, sure.

Right?

Those whom the the religious system uh benefited most, right?

Like they they fought the hardest against it.

Um but I mean he's telling these these Pharisees you got.

I mean, this is where the real accusation is that the setup is okay, Moses, because the Pharisees we see many times in the story of Jesus are going to invoke Moses as their authority.

Like you've offended the law of Moses.

Yeah, or they tell the man transgressed.

Yeah, the man who was healed of blindness.

They're like we're followers of Moses, and we don't even know where this man, Jesus, has come from, right?

They they use like that's interesting uh that you don't know where he came from.

I mean feels pretty obvious, right?

But like so there in so he uses Moses here and he puts this hint Moses said there would be a prophet to come from our people like me.

And that's an interesting thing because Moses did say that.

Moses Moses pros prophesied, there will be a prophet like me.

And then you have to look at the story of the Old Testament, go, did that prophet show up?

So in the story of the Old Testament, is there another prophet that arrives that is like Moses?

And what would that mean to be like?

A prophet like Moses.

Well, you would have to perform miracles.

That would be a part of that, right?

Because Moses performed wonders.

There were Red Sea parted, plagues, like there's like a f a fallen, like a designated leadership.

Leadership, right?

There's a movement, right?

There has to be like this man that leads a movement.

And I don't you haven't had that person yet.

Now you have some people that like, is this the next Moses?

Is this the next you know what I mean?

Is it like, well, it's Joseph's agree.

He uses Joseph here.

Um, could it be Joseph?

And you know, Joseph is I mean, he interprets a dream, he becomes a leader in Egypt, but he's not.

He's not the next Moses.

It's almost like the well, I guess would Joseph be first?

Am I getting that out of order?

What's that?

Joseph's before.

Yeah.

So Joseph, yeah, my Paul.

Yeah, so he mentioned Joseph first.

So yes, but so you have Elijah, you have Elisha, you have these prophets that are gonna show up in the world.

Jeremiah, Isaiah.

And they're going to, they're gonna do things, they're gonna say things.

But like Isaiah is a great example.

Okay.

You mentioned Isaiah.

Isaiah was not beloved in his own time.

Right.

In fact, uh historically, and I might, again, I haven't done a deep dive because you just mentioned this, but but I'm pretty sure this is true if it gets checked.

Most of Isaiah's writings were not, they were, they were kept because he had he had disciples, he had people that followed him, but his writings were not actually deemed as scripture by the Jewish people until many of the things he predicted happened.

Because he was opposed.

He said, you know, this will happen and this will happen.

And they were like, get away from here.

You're he was viewed as like a nut job by a lot of the religious elite in his day.

Well, a lot of the prophets are nutjobs because what they had to say most of the time wasn't a super positive situation.

It was not situation.

Yeah, these were not the prophets were not uh good news deliberately.

Right.

So a prophet like Moses, it's like, well, who's this prop?

I I think to the element of like Moses' judge, like Moses judges Israel.

And like there's all these cases to him, too.

Yeah, there's all the there's authority, right?

There's all this stuff.

And so Moses made that, yeah, yeah.

And when I said the Joseph thing, I was thinking about actually the Bible Project did a really interesting dive on, deep dive on like in Genesis, there's this mention of uh someone that's gonna come and crush the head of the snake.

And like in then the you know, the guy who does the Bible project, um Tim Mackey.

Tim Mackey, yeah, he loves like the narrative stuff.

He's like, it's all about then all these characters are being introduced.

Is it this one?

Is it this one?

I was thinking of that.

But same thing with Moses.

Moses is one will come like me, well then who comes after him?

And it's like there's no one.

There's no one in the story of the Old Testament post-Moses that rises to the level of Moses, which is clear when the Pharisees are always pointing to Moses.

Right.

Right?

He's the most recent significant figure there.

And so what Stephen's saying here, he's like, You are followers of Moses, and Moses himself said, Someone's coming after me that will be like me.

And that person showed up and you killed him.

Yeah, and he makes this uh argument and he and it's an accusation that you murdered the very one that Moses, your supposed you know, uh master, you are so far from Moses in your heart that you murdered the very one that Moses spoke of.

And uh shaking their face.

And that not even Moses, who you who received the law as delivered by angels.

It's like there's like it's clearly a God thing, and this is you're by extension completely denying what God is doing here, which is just it's just an interesting yeah.

Do you think the the connection to you know the tabernacle and the temple is this idea of Stevens trying to say like the Holy Spirit dwells like you know, Pentecost just happened not too long before this?

Right.

Is he like drawing that connection of saying like there is a new order of of things, there's a new way that the Holy Spirit dwells?

Because otherwise, why does he bring up the temple, the tabernacle and temple, and then that that prophecy, you know, heaven's my throne, earth is my footstool.

What kind of house would you build for me?

Didn't I make these things?

Yeah, and I mean I yes, that could be the case for sure.

Uh you you have the story of Jesus where they're so in enamored with the temple, right?

The temple becomes an idol in and of itself for these men.

Um that Jesus actually says, tear down this temple, I'll restore it in three days.

And they're like, How could you even?

It took this many years to build this.

And he was talking about himself, right?

So Jesus challenged them when it came to their adoration of the temple.

Um, it could be that, you know what I mean?

That he knows that that's a touchy subject, and he's letting them know that, like, look, the temple.

You know, here's Moses that you hold in such high esteem.

But Moses talked about another to come.

Here's this temple that you love so much, but we know that the temple, but it's not really because it's that and that's Old Testament.

Like he knows the scriptures and he's kind of pulling apart all the things that they view as most sacred.

Right.

And then he makes the accusation.

Um then the cool part, right, obviously, is he sees a vision.

He gazed steadily into heaven.

I'm reading from the New Living Translation.

Right.

And he sees Jesus standing at the place of honor next to God the Father, right?

At the God the Father's right hand.

And he says, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God's right hand.

And they are like they rush him, drag him out.

They literally plug their ears.

Yeah.

Like they can't.

That's crazy.

I'm trying to think if I've ever had any experience in life similar to this, where someone can't I mean, I here's YouTube clips of like incendiary, you know, the we we live in a time where you get clicks, and so if someone goes to a college campus with a very different political view and says things so angry, and people can like shout them down.

Yeah, but I'm trying to have I've ever been in a situation that's so charged where people are screaming.

That just made me think of that episode of the bear where they're at Christmas and they're all fighting.

Oh my gosh, that like my brain goes to family moments like that where it's like you know, someone said something that made everybody freak out, and then everyone's kind of like probably can't do it, but if no one's seen that, you can copyright-wise, you might be might be able to overlay like five seconds of the page.

It's just like one clip of a car going through a wall.

They're all screaming at yeah, it's a crazy moment.

Yeah, I don't think I I don't think I've ever been in something as charged as this, probably before.

Definitely not.

You know what I mean?

Because it's really interesting to think through it.

I mean, uh there's like political like revolutions, I think, are probably like a comparable.

Because what's happening here is this regime change, essentially, like a spiritual regime change.

And so Well, the movement of Jesus is a movement they cannot stop.

Right.

They've tried.

They first they tried by I mean, it's the same pattern, right?

They tried to beat Jesus a lot with with their own knowledge.

Every time they tried to debate him, failed.

Right.

They tried to threaten him, fails.

They try to kill him, they think they succeed.

I guess they did succeed in killing, but also the greatest failure.

And they knew that too.

Like they're the ones that went to Pilate and said, Hey, you gotta put soldiers outside of his tomb because he's claimed that he'll be resurrected.

His followers are gonna do that and claim he's and then we'll blah blah blah square one.

We'll be this will be horrible.

Fail.

Uh and so now they've done the same thing so far in Acts with the the apostles, with the leaders of the church.

They try to argue with them, fail.

They try to threaten them, jail them, beat them, fail.

And now they're like, oh, you're gonna kill him.

It's the same thing.

Um Yeah, it kind of makes me scared's not the right word, but uh introspective being in leadership at church and having like the way we think that church should be done and the way that we think God works.

And there are people that are Christians that we would affirm, you know, we would be like we're brothers and we share the same faith that we probably disagree with a bunch on like methodology or you know how to do how to do things.

Sure.

And so, you know, reading the Bible because I'm a follower of Jesus, my first impulse is to identify with the followers of Jesus.

But I see this other element of like, you know, this is church leadership that is metastasized into like political leadership, so that's not a good situation to be in.

But it's like I kind of try to be self-reflective on like I've had moments, there's this guy at the park one time, he's just sitting there and we were chatting, and it was like he was pretty um, he was pretty intense with his like, you know, the way you should be worshiping Jesus.

And it was ways that I disagree with, um, but it very counter from me.

But I could see in him there was like a genuine heart to pursue the Lord and and do all of that.

And so I always have to wrestle with that of like if Jesus showed up today and came to the non-denominational churches of the world, sure, or came to our church or came to church down the street.

He would give us our st his stamp of approval.

Yeah, he would he would like leave a little sticker on the window that says like five stars.

I know, yeah.

Sure.

What would he have to say to us?

Yeah, and so like this these moments where the religious leaders, it's like I'm a religious leader in to some extent.

And so I kind of wonder, like, oh yeah, how would that how would that play out?

What is the the the points of scripture that I'm completely either conveniently personally glazing over because I don't want to deal with it, or have misinterpreted entirely.

So I kind of go there too.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think there's some there's obviously cautionary tales all through scripture, right?

And I think with the Pharisees and the people here who who kill Stephen, um, your heart can be so hard, you can be so convinced that you do everything the right way and you know all the right things that you can completely and totally fall in the same pattern as the ones who killed the prophets and the ones who killed Jesus and all that.

Now, on the flip side, you can also, some people take it and just be the most wishy-washy person, like, well, I don't what's true.

Yeah.

You have no conviction.

That's not what we're talking about.

Um, it's interesting for me being in, because I've been in a leadership role in church for a long time now.

Really, before I even think I was a good leader, I was in the leader role.

Like, you know what I mean?

I'm not saying I'm a great leader now.

I'm just saying but I've learned a lot of leadership lessons the wrong way as the leader, making bad decisions.

Um there'll even be moments like, okay, we recently had a worship night for our 20th anniversary worship, and a lady who I did not recognize came and she brought flags.

I don't know if you noticed that.

I noticed it.

Yeah.

What was going through your head?

I I don't even know where you were.

Okay, so I saw it.

Where were you?

Uh far away from her.

Were you like uh in the- I was in the front.

You were in the front.

Okay, yeah.

I was in the back.

I was in the front, like caddy corner from her flag.

I tend to stand in the sound booth and then I kind of like wander a little bit.

Yeah.

I was in the sound booth.

And this is a, you know, we bring up flags, it's like that is a type of worship that is not a normal thing for our church.

So it's it was an odd occurrence to see flags.

That's not a normal situation.

Yeah.

And if no one understands that, I think it was something that really like kind of got traction in the 80s in sort of the charismatic church world where you have these.

I'm talking like, when we say flags, we don't mean like like it's a patriotic uh the Fourth of July, and people have little maybe.

Iridescent fabric.

Six feet long, big old make your arms, they like attach to your arms, and you are, I mean, waving them around.

And it's it's in worship, but it's very, very visible.

It's it's definitely attention grabbing.

I'm not saying that your heart is attention seeking, right?

But it is attention grabbing because I saw it and you saw it, and it pulled me out.

Right.

So what's got what was going through your head?

So I thought about, you know, what what was the what's the context of the thing?

So like this night was about worship.

And so there will be people in the room that have never seen that before, because maybe his hands is their only context.

I don't think that they would be like, wow, the church is really all about flags.

This is like it was very obvious, like this is a one person, you know, because wait if a person listens to this, by the way.

I'm not I don't even know who it was.

Right.

Not no, it is a it is an interesting decision to go to somebody where you have not been invited to do this.

Right.

And you're like, and no one else is doing it.

Exactly.

And so I was like, should I go talk to her?

I had that.

So you had that thought.

Yeah, yeah.

And I obviously do too, right?

I'm sitting there at the sound booth watching and I'm like, you know what?

I I kind of found your backwards hat.

And I was, yeah, I was like, could he see it from there?

You were looking at her, looking to where Justice.

Yeah, and I was like, well, you know, if maybe if I was standing right next to her and it was distracting me, I probably would have said something.

Right.

I think, but from my thing was like, I don't want to distract others in a way that would be like, wow, Madison, like the church really hated that.

Because I really didn't have that strong of an opinion at the time.

Right.

But you notice you it's something was different and you're like suspicious of it.

Sure.

So I'm in the sound booth, I know I'm connected.

This connects.

I'm in the sound booth and I see it.

And my first thing was like, flag, we haven't had flags in a long time.

Yeah.

But in the early days of our church, there were people who were here at the start of his hands that that was a thing.

And so it was still like our church came a lot of people who helped start our church came from another church where that was a normal thing.

So again, this was not part of it.

I'd never seen a flag in church until I was here.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, Steve hated him.

Yeah, well, Steve, Steve's solution.

Do you know Steve's solution?

What?

Because I talked to a buddy about this.

Yeah.

Who knows Steve pretty well.

This would be his son.

Yeah.

And he said, he's like, yeah, Steve just asked him to that he they could totally do that.

They just had to do it in the back and in the dark.

Yeah, because that's where it would go.

He's like, but people stopped doing it once it was in the back and in the dark.

Because they wanted to be, yeah.

Well, okay.

But do I believe that someone could do that as a genuine expression of worship?

I do.

So here's so I see it, and I was like, and I couldn't tell who it was.

At first I thought it was someone I knew.

Yeah, I was going back and forth.

I think it might be someone I know.

Okay.

We'll talk later, but I don't think it is.

So I go back and I get close to enough to see, and I'm like, and I'm watching this, right?

Now I'd be very, I'm the pastor of the church.

I just walk and be like, hey, put the flags down.

Yeah.

It's distracting.

And I think it was distracting.

Right.

Um But Jesus was a distraction as well.

You definitely have to categorize the early church was distracting.

Right.

To the right.

The one question that ran ran through my head the most was like, Lord, is is this you?

Like, are you Is this woman's worship an authentic.

An authentic, genuine thing, or is it a self-seeking thing?

Because I don't want to Now on a Sunday morning, it's a little different situation.

You're establishing what is normal practice, correct?

Essentially.

Correct.

But this was a special night of worship and and it was an anniversary night.

We're kind of hearkening back to the past, and that was a thing, you know, okay.

So and I'm and I guess the reason I'm saying that is because if that the Pharisees never seem to do that.

Even though it's pretty obvious that the Lord is moving.

Right.

Nicodemus might be the biggest flag of or not different willing to have a conversation with Jesus.

Or Gamalel, who's the rabbi we've already talked about in the book, who's like, guys, if this is God, it's gonna keep going and you can't stop it.

And if it's not God, it'll die out.

Right.

But here you have something is happening, and it is a distraction, it is a disruption.

But the Pharisees seem to have zero desire to investigate to see is God in this?

It's like and so there's a version, I don't think it would have been wrong for me to tell that woman to put the flags on.

What we end up doing is actually a safety uh guy on the like security.

He it was really great because I'm sitting there as the pastor, like struggling.

I'm close to it.

And I'm not like someone who's moved to inaction very often.

I was I was just genuinely trying to discern if I don't want to stop this woman's genuine worship right now and how distracting.

And he just was like, I don't think he had any context where he's like, hey ma'am, this is really distracting me.

Would you mind just doing it a little further back?

And she was like, Oh, okay.

It was fine.

I was like, Yeah, that's the right way to handle it.

So thank you, Lord, as I sit here and wrestle with it.

But what Because it was it was complicated for you because it had history where there was like more of a story there.

Yeah, and when the pastor tells you not to, it's different than uh I mean, I and I do that if I have to, but it's like, well, who do you appeal to?

Who do you know?

Um the pastor disrupted the Holy Spirit.

I've had those moments, but either way.

Well, the pastor told you to put your flags down, disrupt the Holy Spirit.

But my heart in that, and I think yours as well, is to investigate.

Yeah.

There's curiosity.

These men are not curious about God.

They're not curious about what is happening, they don't even seem to stop and go, guys, we're seeing things happen that have never happened before.

Like they're just immediately opposed.

There's so much pride, there's so much arrogance, so much control.

Um Yeah.

And so that fear you have of like, oh, would I be the one?

I don't I don't I don't think you would be.

Right.

Because you are A, you really love Jesus.

Yeah.

And you're genuinely curious.

I'm not that curious when people say they are Jesus, though.

I think that's the harder.

That's like the the other side of the coin where it's like, I'd kind of just instantly say they're not.

It's obviously a cult.

Like my brain goes there.

Oh, have you had experiences with yeah.

Just like there's like news stories or church movements or well, I think in our current culture, a lot of people will use the Holy Spirit as like Exactly.

I am vessel, like but I'm not very curious about that.

And so that's where I go like and part of it's because it's really off-putting.

Yeah.

And you don't see But I don't think I'd go kill someone.

I don't think you would either because of that.

Yeah.

But it is, I'll say, we'll wrap up.

It it is always the some of the when you read scripture, right?

It's always good to say, hey, how does this what does it have to say to me?

What does this ch How does this challenge me?

And it should be like Lord, it's a prayer, maybe.

Lord, keep me open to your movement and let me never be someone that stands against it or opposes it.

Right.

Um you know, and uh I don't I don't think you I don't think you would have, but these guys did, and they killed him.

And that's the end of Stephen.

I'm a pretty not I'm pretty earth.

I'm a pretty anti-killing kind of person.

Yeah, I'll say we're 20 years in.

We've just we've stoned no one.

That's true.

Nobody's been stoned.

Better track record than we have a thing in the back like days since last stoning, like like in a warehouse.

10,000 days.

It's like it's been a long time, you know.

No one break this record.

Um yeah.

But cool.

So and here we go.

And there's there's Saul.

Let me read the the first verse of chapter eight as the cliffhanger for the next episode.

Okay.

And Saul approved of his execution.

Dun dun dun.

Saul's like, yeah.

All right.

See you guys next time.