Tues. Aug. 5th :: Acts 7 :: Know the Narrative

So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law.
They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced
false witnesses, who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against this
holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of
Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down
to us."

(Luke 6.12-14)

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I’m reaching back to Acts chapter six to gain the context for chapter seven.

What I find fascinating about these two chapters is the way Stephen chose to respond to the accusations leveled against him. Like Jesus, he was charged with blasphemy, and with the even more serious crime of ‘speaking against the temple’.

This may not seem like that big of a deal to us, but to the Jews of the first-century this ‘building’ was nothing less than the visible proof that God was on their side. In the temple, the Jews has come to believe—quite literally—that they had God ‘in a box’. He resided in their building. So as long as they had their temple, they had a leg up on all the pagan rabble. It was a source of religious self-righteousness. But before we judge them too harshly, perhaps we should consider what idols function this way in our own lives.

But back to the point.

I find Stephen’s response to the charges to be fascinating. Like Jesus before him, he evades an answer at first (think back to Christ before this same Sanhedrin), and instead launches into a very long and detailed history lesson. He recounts the narrative of God’s people beginning with Abraham and continuing all the way to the present.

Why?

For Stephen the point is clear. By re-telling the story he shows where the religious leaders have missed the point. God has never been contained in buildings built by human hands: He wasn’t in the days of Abraham when the patriarchs didn’t even own a foot of land. He wasn’t in the days of Moses when a drafty tent was the symbol of his presence. He wasn’t even in the days of Solomon as the prophet says (vs. 49). The point is clear: Our God doesn’t do boxes. He blows them up. And never more so than when he came in the Person of Jesus.

So what’s the takeaway?

For me it’s this: I want to know the narrative—to know the Scriptures—as Stephen did. I don’t want to distort and misread the Bible like the religious leaders of the first century. I want to read rightly so that I might act rightly in turn. But to do that, I need to know the narrative with the help of God’s Holy Spirit.

Perhaps this is a convicting issue for you as well.

The plain fact is, most Christians just don't care much about the Bible. If we did, we'd read it. For many of us, we know far more about the children of Brad and Angelina than we do about the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So hear the words of Stephen: As Christians it isn’t enough to ‘love God’ if we don’t ‘love his Word’. We need to know the narrative by God's help.

So be encouraged. And dive into the Scriptures.