Strange Story: Stephen Was Not Stoned; He Was murdered with Stones (Part 1)

Stephen was not one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, therefore, not one of the Apostles, and not one of the key leaders of the church. He was chosen for a special role because of his love of serving others and because God used him in special ways to show His power, this included healings and other miracles. However, he was also effective at engaging people with the truth of the Gospel and was fearless when confronted with opposition.

The miracles God preformed through Stephen brought attention on him more so than on others, and with that attention came opposition. Members of the synagogue of the Freedmen made up primarily of foreign-born Jews (from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia and Asia), began to argue with Stephen (Acts 6:9). I take this to mean that they could not deny the miracles he preformed so they exerted great effort to find fault with what he taught. However, even though they started a verbal attack against him, they found themselves trying to play defense against someone who out-classed them because he was filled with knowledge of the Scriptures and wisdom in how to use that knowledge, and was guided by the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:10).

So they changed tactics. Instead of debating him man-to-man, they started making accusations against him that they knew would get him in trouble with the Jewish authorities. They accused him of blasphemy against the Law written by Moses, and against God (Acts 6:11), of speaking in favor of the destruction of the temple and of changing the customs handed down by Moses (Acts 6:13-14).

These accusations landed him in front of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court made up of 70 of the most venerated leaders of Israel plus the High Priest, so 71 in all. By law they had to allow the accused to speak in his own defense, and Stephen relished the opportunity to do just that. His response, or at least the part of it that was recorded for us in written form, makes up 52 verses of Acts chapter 7.

Allow me to summarize it for you and pull out a few things that will help the seemingly sudden change of gears in verse 51 make perfect sense.

He started with Abram and walked through most of Jewish history up to his own day. This was an effective and often-used technique for establishing a good foundation for the points someone wanted to make. I heard of a Christ-follower in a Muslim country who shares the Gospel one-on-one in people’s homes and he uses this technique as well. It usually takes him 5 hours to walk through the Old Testament (the Muslims believe in the Old Testament, but they listen to the Quran more.)

But the way Stephen walked them through their own history was a bit different than usual. He emphasized three things – God’s purposeful activity, the way people rejected what God was doing, and the punishment that came to those who rejected God’s purpose and methods.

Here are the verses in Acts 7 that clearly show God’s purpose and methods:  3, 5, 8, 10, 17, 20-22, 32-34, 35-36, 37, 44, 45-47, 48-50.

Here are the verses that show people rejecting what God was doing: (6-7), 9, 39-41, 52.

Here are the verses that point to punishment (in one case shaming) for rejecting God’s purpose and methods: (7), 9-13, 42-43.

After reaching what we consider verse 50 of his speech, he could have given a short summary as follows: “I have shown you 12 times in our history when God’s purpose was made clear, four times when people rejected what God was doing, and three times that consequences came to those who rejected what God was doing. Now I will apply these three points to all of you.”

But he did not give such a summary; it was unnecessary. They knew their history very well, and the difference between the standard way of presenting it and the way Stephen had presented it was obvious to them. Therefore, after setting the stage carefully, he launched into his accusations that they were rejecting God by rejecting the purpose and methods God had chosen. Since they were rejecting God, they would face consequences (but only God knew what the specific consequences would be).

They were in shock, unable to utter a sound. That is why Stephen’s accusations against them lasted for three verses without being shouted down or silenced. But after three verses, either Stephen had finished what he wanted to say, or they came out of their shock enough to utter some sounds. The text says they “gnashed their teeth at him” which was a way they expressed extreme anguish or anger. We would say they began to growl and spit and make other expressions of intense anger.

In this moment, when they were seething with anger, making unintelligible sounds, for they had not yet found their words, Stephen gave them something else to be angry about.

Not long before this, Jesus had stood in that same chamber and proclaimed to that same ruling body that he was “the son of man”. Now Jesus, who had suffered much by their hands, was promising to help Stephen face a similar end.