In chapter 6, Stephen is arrested and accused of teaching blasphemous words against Moses and God. They accused him of teaching that the temple would be torn down and the Jewish customs would be done away with.  Chapter 7 contains Stephen's response. Most likely, Stephen knew that no matter what he said, short of denying Christ, would satisfy his accusers. They were out to kill him. So he knew he had one shot only to speak to them. If you were in this situation, what would you say and how would you say it?  Chapters 7 shows us what Stephen said. In 7:1, the high priest gives Stephen a chance to defend himself or explain his actions and his teachings.

If you've read this sermon from Stephen before, you know that at first it seems to be a long drawn out history of the Israelite people from the time of Abraham to the time of Solomon. The content of the message doesn't really seem to be speaking to the accusations at all. Stephen doesn't seem to be defending himself, or defending his views. He just seems to be giving a summary of Israelite history.

So it is surprising, when we come to 7:51, he all of a sudden comes out with this stinging rebuke to the Sanhedrin. He seems to lash out at them. You stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and hears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.

Where did that come from? How in the world did his sermon lead up to that? It seems at first glance that his sermons could have skipped the first 50 verses, and just started right in with that.  But the truth is that we only think this because we are not as familiar with the Old Testament as Stephen and the Sanhedrin were, nor are we familiar with the Jewish style of debate and argumentation. The form of Stephen's defense was common in his culture, but is uncommon in ours.

To make his point, Stephen reviews Israelite history and points out key elements that he wants to emphasize. And then when he thinks he has made his case, he states his point clearly at the end. In our way of thinking, this is a bit backward. We always state our point first, and then use illustrations and pictures to help support the point.  So to help us understand Stephen's argument a little bit better, we are going to convert it to our western way of thinking. Let's begin with his point at the end of the sermon, and then go through the sermon to see how he builds up to that point.

But before we actually begin with Stephen's point, I want you to notice that Luke, as the author of the book of Acts, throws in another point which he doesn't want us to miss. We read it right at the beginning of Stephen's address in verse 2 and then also at the end of this account in verse 55.  In both places we read of the Glory of God.

In verse 2 we read, ²And he said, "Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran.

And then in verse 55, we read, ⁵⁵But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God.

Luke wants to show us that Stephen's main goal in his sermon, in his life and even in his death was the glory of God. Everything Stephen said, everything Stephen did was to bring glory to God.  When we live with the glory of God as our main goal, any circumstance that comes our way can be an opportunity to bring glory to God. When we live with the glory of God as our goal, we make sure that our words and our actions truly do bring honor and glory to Him.  God created us to bring glory to Him, and He wants us to live with His glory as our ultimate goal. The way Luke presents this account reveals that this was Luke's goal, and it was Stephen's also. This was the point of Stephen's life and his death. To bring glory to God.

But the main point of Stephen's sermon is found in verses 51-53.

Here is the point that Stephen is building up to. We will need to keep this in mind as we go through his examples. His point is that the Israelite people have always resisted what the Holy Spirit was trying to do in and through them.  As Stephen builds up to this point, he also masterfully responds to the accusations that have been made against him. So while he responds to his accusers, he builds his case for an accusation of his own. He says, "It is not I who have misunderstood the Scriptures, but you. The things I have taught are clearly seen throughout the Bible, but you have ignored and overlooked them. My knowledge of these truths has kept me in the will of God, whereas your ignorance has led you into great sin."

Stephen is saying something very similar to what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3. "You are the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?" Stephen presents this truth in a masterful way, beginning with the Forefather of Israel, the Father of faith, Abraham.

The accusation was that Stephen has spoken blasphemous words against God. So Stephen sets out to show that rather than speaking against God, he was actually agreeing with God in what he had said. With what Stephen says in verses 2-8, he had probably taught something about Israel's connection with the land, and how God could strip it away from them. To defend this view, he begins with the example of Abraham.

Notice that Stephen begins by calling them brethren and fathers. He begins with respect and love for them. They are his Jewish brethren. He harbors no ill will toward them. He is not trying to condemn them or speak harshly to them. He wants them to know that he loves them and wants what is best for them.  Then he begins with talking about Abraham coming form Mesopotamia. He is reminding them that before Abraham, there was no such thing as a Jew. Abraham was a Gentile before God called him. And beyond this, God was not bound to the land of Israel, for when God first spoke to Abraham, it was not in Israel, but in Mesopotamia.

Following this reminder, Stephen lays out three things which God said to Abraham. These three things challenge all that the Israelite people held dear. They challenge all that the Jewish leaders held as most important to their identity as Jews. The three most important things to the Jew were the land, the Law and the temple. They also held dear the covenant blessings of God, their prominence among the nations as the people of God, and that the prophets of God had come through them. Stephen is going to challenge almost all of this. He is about to rip away from them almost everything that was central to their belief system.

He begins with challenging their concept of the land.

In these verses, God tells Abraham to leave his home and where he was comfortable and go to a place that God would show him. When Abraham left, he didn't even know exactly where he was going. But he obeyed God anyway. It was a scary move, but one that God wanted him to do. Stephen is implying here that God was asking the Jewish people to do the same thing. The Messiah had come and things were changing. God was asking them to move from their comfortable traditions and customs and change into something different that God would show them, but they were refusing to budge.

Abraham even had to leave his father. Now we actually know by comparing Genesis 11:26 and 32 with Genesis 12:4 that Terah actually lived another 60 years after Abraham left Haran and went to Canaan. What Stephen is saying here is that Terah, though he was physically alive, was dead to the will and plan of God for Abraham's life. He was holding Abraham back from obeying God. Abraham recognized this and left his father in Haran to follow God.

This is similar to what Jesus meant in Matthew 10:37 when he talks about leaving father and mother to be his disciple. Sometimes, family members will keep us back from following God, and when that happens, we must choose God rather than family. This is what Abraham did, and Stephen is implying here that though this ruling council is his brethren and fathers, he will leave them if they try to restrain him from following God.

But it is in verse 5 that Stephen's first point is made about the land. Though God said that he would give to land to Abraham, Abraham inherited no part of it. Not even a part big enough to set his foot in. Sure, there was a small plot which Abraham bought. But he was not given it as an inheritance, nor did he retain ownership of it. Stephen is reminding the Jews that although God had promised the land to Abraham and to his descendants, this land which they so highly valued and revered was only a small portion of what they were supposed to have and never did receive. Even to this day, almost 4000 years later, this promise of God to Israel still has not ever been completely fulfilled.

Stephen is saying, "This land you revere so much may be taken away from you again just as it has been in the past. But that is not blasphemy to say such a thing, for God didn't give the land to Abraham, nor has he ever given the land to us, not even up to this day. God's promises will be fulfilled, but in God's way and God's timing."

Quite likely, Stephen had also taught that God might not deliver the Israelite people from under Roman control, but might leave them under oppression. Worse yet, God might allow the oppression to get worse, and increase to a point where Israel is almost destroyed. This sort of teaching would certainly have caused sparks to fly among any Jewish audience, for they believed that as Jews, they were superior to all other nations and all other people, and that God would not allow them to remain under the control of someone else for very long.

But Stephen is saying exactly the opposite, and incidentally, he is simply agreeing with what Jesus taught in Matthew 23-25. But Stephen presents his case in verses 6-8. He says, "Despite what you all think the Old Testament teaches, here is what God says."

Jesus, and probably Stephen, had taught that unless the Jews repented and returned to God, God would punish them, and would hand them over to their enemies. This was blasphemy in the minds of most Jews, so Stephen reminds them here what God had said to Abraham. Though Abraham was promised the land of Canaan, God said that nevertheless, his descendants would end up on Egypt as slaves, and would remain there for over 400 years. Certainly, the Jews had their Scriptures which said that God would curse those who cursed Israel, but Stephen is telling them here that they are only remembering half the Scriptures.

 There were also curses pronounced on Israel for their disobedience (cf. Dt. 27-28). So Stephen was just reminding them of the full counsel of God. It was not blasphemy to say that God might judge Israel for her sins, for this is what the Word of God teaches. Stephen is saying that the most important thing is serving God. Circumcision is an outward sign of this inward obedience.  But beyond this even, Stephen is implying here that if these Jewish leaders persecute and kill the Jewish Christians, and God is with the Christians, then they will just be fighting against God and will bring more judgment on themselves. So they need to be careful, for in trying to stand up for God, they may actually be standing against Him.

The mention in verse 8 about the covenants and circumcision is just a reminder that God will keep His promises, because He always keeps them. They are covenant promises based on the personal obedience of the Jews to God. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the twelve patriarchs were obedient to this conditional covenant, not only in their flesh, but also in their heart. The Jewish people of Stephen's day were only obedient to it in their flesh.   Nevertheless, Stephen does not want anyone to think that he is saying that God does not keep His promises. God does keep them. Just not in the way or time we always think He should. When the Jews repent and return to God, and keep their part of the covenant, God will in turn keep His part.

So Stephen has stated his case for his first point. He has not blasphemed God about Abraham or the land; he has simply been teaching God's Word. Now Stephen goes on to his second line of argument using the historical figure of Joseph.

Stephen is still defending himself here against the accusation that he has blasphemed God. And based on what he says in verses 9-16, it appears that the specific teaching that got him in trouble this time was the fact that the Israelites had rejected the Deliverer that God had sent to them.  Stephen had undoubtedly taught somewhere along the lines something very similar to what Peter said in Acts 2:36 that God had sent the Messiah, and the Jews had killed Him. The Jews had very likely responded back that this was heresy. They would never do such a thing. They venerated and held in high esteem all of God's prophets and teachers. They would never truly reject someone whom God had sent.

So Stephen reminds them of their past. He gives them the example of Joseph in verses 9-16.

Right away, Stephen shows that Joseph's brothers rejected Joseph, even though he had been raised up by God. The reason they sold Joseph into slavery was because of envy and jealousy. This was very similar to the reasons the Jews killed Christ. He was gaining much popularity, and many followers, and so the Jewish leaders became envious and conspired to kill Jesus. They sold him for a price of a slave, just as Jesus was sold to some of those leaders standing here for 30 pieces of silver.

Picking back up in verse 9, we read But God was with him ¹⁰and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

Though Joseph's brothers tried to kill him, God turned in around for good, and caused Joseph to become the governor over Egypt. Similarly, this is what God did with Jesus, and the Jewish people were just beginning to see the effects of this. Jesus was killed, but was highly exalted above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Php 2; Zech. 12:10-14). This is what happened to Joseph's brothers.

God sent a famine on the land which caused Joseph's brothers to go to Egypt looking for food. When they arrived there, through a series of circumstances, they bowed down to Joseph, and he let them know who he was, and eventually, all of his family to Egypt - 75 in all.

Stephen closes his second example here with the conclusion of Joseph's and Jacob's lives and their burial site. His point again was to remind the Israelites that their forefather Joseph had been rejected by his own brothers, and yet they in turn did kneel to him. Similarly, the Jewish people Stephen was speaking to had rejected Christ, and yet prophecies such as Zechariah 12:10-14 indicate that they also will eventually kneel to Him.

So Stephen has been presenting his case. Exhibit A - Abraham did not receive the land that God had promised him, and in fact, no Jew ever has receive it yet - even up to this day. So it is not blasphemy to say that the land may be taken away or that they may not receive all the land right away.   Exhibit B - Joseph was rejected by his brothers and sold in to slavery just as Jesus was rejected and sold. It is not blasphemy to say that the Jews had rejected their Messiah and killed him, for they always reject God's prophets and kill them too. This is their typical pattern.  Well, Stephen goes on with three more proofs that he is not teaching blasphemy, which we will continue to look at next time.

But for now, I want you to look at the principles we learn from Stephen for how to deal with the accusation of heresy and blasphemy. You see, there are a lot of people out there who are happy to accuse everyone and anyone of teaching heresy. But Stephen tells us how to respond if and when this happens.  First, respond in love. I have found that theological witch hunts are often very angry and vitriolic, scathing, sarcastic arguments in which a lot of yelling and name calling happens, and nobody wins, but there are a lot of losers. The main losers are those new Christians, or non-Christians who get turned away from Christ by such an unloving display.

I have been in situations where a few Christians are trying to witness to non-Christians, and rather than a loving presentation of the truth, it turns into a heated argument between the two sides. This especially seems to happen when Christians debate with some of the cults that come knocking on the door.  When this happens, invite them in for a "friendly chat" and make sure that it stays friendly. Speak the truth, and do so in love. Like Stephen, respond in love.

Secondly, respond with Scripture. Don't just be able to quote Scripture, but like Stephen, understand what the Scriptures mean that you are using. Understand Scripture in its historical-cultural and grammatical contexts. Explain where you are coming from Scripturally. If you do not have Scripture, but have based your views on tradition or opinion, then admit where you are wrong and agree to change your views.  But when you have studied the Scripture and stated your case as best as you can, be like Martin Luther who, when he was accused of blasphemy, help up his Bible and said, "Here I stand. I can do no other."

Those are the two steps to responding to the charge of heresy and blasphemy.

But if you are on the other side of things, if you are the one accusing somebody else of heresy and blasphemy, make sure first of all that you have fully understood their position and argument and where they are coming from. It appears these Jewish leaders did not do that with Stephen. They were proud and didn't want anyone to disagree with them, and so they hired false witnesses to tell half-truths and white-lies about him. Make sure you fully understand the logical, Scriptural and theological arguments that they are using. There is nothing worse than hearing two Christians arguing theology when it is obvious that neither one fully understands where the other is coming from.

Finally, understand that the one making the accusation of heresy is often basing their complaints on tradition and worldly wisdom rather than on Scripture. There have been millions of Christians over the centuries who have been condemned and killed as heretics simply because they did not agree with the traditions of men that were prominent in the church.  The lesson from this account is that whether you are making the accusation of heresy, or defending yourself against the accusation, make sure that you are defending God's views, rather than your own, or some traditional viewpoint handed down by men.