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Our text today comes from John,
well, no, John is the public reading of scripture. Comes from
Acts 8, 6, oh my word, it's gonna be a rough one. Acts 6, verses
8 through 15. I believe it's about on page
1094 or so of the Bible's in the seats. So last week we saw
the introduction of the first seven deacons, the servers of
the tables, and that included a man named Stephen that was
mentioned. And this week we see the beginnings of the incident.
We're not gonna get through the whole thing, but the beginnings
of the incident that led to basically his eternal notoriety. So we're
gonna read from verse eight of chapter six to the end of the
chapter. And Stephen, full of grace and
power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. But
some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen,
including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia
and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen. But they were unable
to cope with the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking.
Then they secretly induced men to say, we have heard him speak
blasphemous words against Moses and against God. And they stirred
up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came
up to him and dragged him away and brought him before the council.
They put forward false witnesses who said, this man incessantly
speaks against this holy place and the law. For we have heard
him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and alter
the customs which Moses handed down to us. and fixing their
gaze on him, all who were sitting in the council saw his face like
the face of an angel. Let's pray. Lord of heaven and earth, we
turn now to your word in expectation of being reformed and remade
in the likeness of your son. Renew our minds through your
preached word and the power of your spirit. Make us receptive
to the truth found in these scriptures. Bless our gathering with your
presence. May it be glorifying to you, faithful to the text,
and helpful for your people. Please send your spirit to work
in us now. We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen. This is now the third chapter
in a row where we have read of an arrest by the Jewish religious
authorities of one of the broader group of the apostles. The first
arrest came in chapter four. It ended with a warning. The
second arrest came in chapter five. It ended with a flogging.
And now the third arrest here in chapter six, as we will see,
ends with even greater violence than the previous ones. And we
see leading up to the arrest and that lead up that the opposition
that is debating with Steven is being more aggressive than
we saw in the previous arrest. Perhaps he lacked the prestige
of Peter and John who had been previously arrested and the Jews
that opposed him, therefore, maybe lacked some of the reserve
that they had that they might have otherwise had toward one
of the primary apostles, one that had greater notoriety and
because this was, I don't know, they viewed him as a lesser apostle
possibly, they were willing to be more aggressive, or maybe
their patience is just wearing thin. One thing is for sure,
though, the hesitation that Gamaliel had recommended in chapter five,
that kept the Sanhedrin from condemning Peter and John, where
he said, be careful what you do with these men. They're going
to fizzle out if they're not of God. That hesitation about
persecuting the Christians does not seem to be a concern for
the crowd here in Acts 6 and for these next couple of chapters.
That's not really on their minds. And this incident does indeed
span a couple chapters. It's going to take us several
weeks to complete, I think. I do believe it is the single
longest trial scene that we have in the Bible, primarily because
Luke gives us this really extensive record of Stephen's defense,
which takes up the bulk of Chapter 7. But today, we're only going
to read about the arrest and then the charges that are leveled
against him. Now, we already know of Stephen's
high moral character because of the fact that he was one of
the seven that were chosen to serve the tables to ensure that
the Hellenized Jewish widows were not being overlooked. They
had some requirements for the character of those men. Stephen
was one of them. He was known for that. His maturity and his
reputation were well known to the growing church in Jerusalem.
That's why they chose him. But then in verse eight, we read
that he was full of grace and power, full of grace and power,
and was among the broader group of apostles who were performing
these great signs and wonders. So even though Acts 6 is the
first time we're reading about him, he is indeed a significant
figure. We don't know a ton about him,
but he was a significant figure. And the way that this incident
plays out proves for certain that his godly reputation was
indeed indicative of the type of man that he really was. He
does not wither under the pressure. Like the other apostles, he was
out doing his job, preaching that Jesus was the Christ. And
like the other apostles, the Holy Spirit was confirming the
truth of his message through the signs and the wonders that
he was empowered to do. For the most part, as we read
in chapter five, that typically gained the respect of the people.
Remember, the people held them in high esteem, even if they
wouldn't agree with them, they held them in high esteem. But
some of the more stiff-necked and hard-hearted Jews hated Stephen. They just hated this guy. We're
not sure if the apostles kind of, I don't know, they might've
divided up the city of Jerusalem and kind of assigned territories
to one another where they're like, all right, you go cover
this, you go there and you preach throughout this area, I've got
this area, you evangelize there, I'll evangelize here, I don't
know. It seems like for some reason though, he might've been
in the same area repeatedly. They got to know him. This group
of Jews kept encountering him. And for some reason or another,
this group of Jews rose up in opposition to Stephen. We're
told that it's meant from a particular synagogue, at least one of the
synagogues is mentioned, or possibly even a group of synagogues. Remember,
a synagogue was different than the temple. It's not the main
temple where they had been preaching a lot, but they would go out,
and there were synagogues. And that's not where they went to
offer the sacrifices. It was sort of like church in a way,
but not like their main temple. It was a place for Jewish prayers,
Jewish worship, Jewish teaching. They could go and start a new
synagogue in a certain area. As long as they had 10 men ready
to go, that was kind of like the threshold, and they would
start one. Each synagogue had an established leadership to
it. And it would serve as a sort of community center for the Jews
as well. They had community meetings.
They would educate the children there. It's where they'd go to
discuss and adjudicate their traditions and their practices,
things like that. A synagogue could even serve
as living quarters for officials and visiting Jews. And when the
Jews would be in a certain place or a group of them would be together,
usually a collection from the same area or whatever, they would
start a synagogue, typically. The synagogue mentioned here
is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, which was a term for
slaves who had gained their freedom. So this was probably a synagogue
largely made up of such folks, freedmen, or their descendants,
or and their descendants. Or perhaps it was initially built
by freedmen, and it's their descendants now that continued it on. Archaeologists
have actually found a dedicatory inscription from a synagogue
of the freedmen. A real thing. It's accurate.
And along with that synagogue, Luke tells us there were both
Cyrenians and Alexandrians. That's mostly North Africans.
And some from Cilicia and Asia. That's basically Asia Minor. So these were the Diaspora Jews.
Remember we talked about those Jews spread out. Diaspora Jews
from North Africa and Asia Minor. Basically modern-day Turkey.
A lot of those Jews would come back into Jerusalem, especially
if it's at the end of their life. We talked about that last week.
It's not entirely clear if these diaspora Jews were part of the
synagogue of the freedmen. They probably weren't. That was
probably one of the synagogues, and then there's synagogues associated
with the others. And it seems like they kind of
teamed up together, this group of synagogues. It was likely
at least two additional synagogues. There was either one for the
Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and then one for the Cilicians and
those from Asia. Or it could possibly be up to
four additional synagogues. It could be the Freedmen's had
one, the Cilicians had one, the Alexandrians had one, et cetera,
et cetera, right? It's somewhere between one and
five synagogues worth of people. We're not exactly sure. We have
sources that do attest to the existence of two of those synagogues
as well. So it's probably, most likely, at least three different
synagogues. And notably, the capital of Cilicia
was Tarsus. That was Paul's hometown. So
in all likelihood, this was his synagogue. because he was in
Jerusalem by this time. So there was a synagogue of those
from Cilicia. The Cilicians had a synagogue
and that's probably his because the ones that were from a certain
area usually collected together, lived together, worshiped together,
did synagogue together. In fact, it's almost certain
since he shows up with these folks very shortly, he's gonna
be introduced here into the narrative very shortly and he's with this
group of angry folks. And he very well may have been
one of the Jews that was arguing with Stephen, as mentioned in
verse 9. That's pretty likely, actually.
Stephen's arguing with Paul. One of many, but Paul's included
here. Very likely. So that's interesting
stuff. Remember, these were largely people whose faith had brought
them back from foreign lands to be in Jerusalem. They were
devout. They were serious and defensive
about Judaism. And that can be intimidating.
Interacting with the most strident devotees of a religion that is
steeped in tradition, I mean, that is often quite unpleasant. That's some of the most unpleasant
evangelizing that you will do. But Jesus prepared his disciples
beforehand to put them at ease when facing such folks. He told
them in Luke 21, so make up your minds not to prepare beforehand
to defend yourselves, for I will give you utterance and wisdom
which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.
And that's a really cool promise. And because God keeps his promises,
that is precisely what happened with Stephen. We read in verse
10 that the Jews arguing with Stephen were unable to cope with
the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. Couldn't
cope with it, couldn't handle it. He's too wise. The spirit about him was empowering
him. In their ignorance, they were actually arguing against
the Holy Spirit himself. Stephen's just kind of the mouthpiece
in this case, and they're arguing with God through Stephen. And as expected, when men argue
against God, they debated until they had no answer whatsoever.
They couldn't cope with it. They couldn't deal with the facts.
They couldn't deal with his understanding. They couldn't handle the obvious
fulfillment of the Old Testament typology and the fulfilled prophecies.
So he argued them to silence. And yet, they were not converted. They had everything that they
needed to know and hear and have explained, and they were not
converted. Their hearts were not softened by the truth. They
hardened their hearts. Intellectually, they had no response. But spiritually, they still refused. Their brain is not leading their
heart into conversion. And that is because conversion
is a matter of the will. And our will is a matter of our
nature. And our nature being changed
is a matter of God's grace. So it is dependent on God gracing
them with a new nature to change their wills. These men did not
have an intellectual problem. They had a heart problem and
they needed the Holy Spirit to convince them because they had
the Holy Spirit sitting there telling them the truth, giving them all
the data and the information and explanation that they needed.
Stephen was essentially the ideal evangelist, right? He was doing
it exactly how we could all hope to do it, full of grace and power
and truth and wisdom. It's full of grace, he's speaking
the truth in gentleness and in love. He's full of the spirit.
What he was saying was accurate. It was basically inspired by
the Holy Spirit. He's not miscommunicating to these folks so as to confuse
them. It's not like he's messing up in what he's saying, his interpretation,
his explanation. What he's saying is it's accurate
and it's gentle and it's kind. This is as good of job as anyone
could possibly hope to do in speaking to unbelievers and presenting
the gospel. Yet, It is fruitless without
the grace of regeneration. He's doing his job, but the Spirit
has to act if there's going to be conversion. I've seen men
evangelize Jews in modern Israel. You can see this kind of thing
on YouTube, and they will do this same thing. Converted Jews,
ones that are now Christian, will go onto the streets in Jerusalem,
in Israel, and they will kindly and gently make an undeniable
case that Jesus is the Christ. They'll cite the prophecies,
they'll get the people to affirm those prophecies, and they'll
say, this is the only person that fits those prophecies. Undeniable. And the people don't have any
answer for it. They have no explanation. They just deny it. They have
no meaningful response. Because there is no meaningful
response. There's not an answer that can be given to deny what
is obviously true. But they still will not submit
to Christ as Lord. The human condition needs more
than intellectual information. We need a heart change. A spiritual
problem needs a spiritual solution. So the church is not a gathering
of all those that are just lucky enough to have heard the good
news, to just have happened to have the opportunity to have
it explained to us. And we are not the ones that
are smart enough to understand who Jesus is, to hear this explanation
and be like, that makes sense, I believe that. We're just so
smart that we get it when it's explained. The church, it's not
that those, the church is a gathering of those that have been blessed
by God's gracious act of being called and justified by faith.
Just like Steve said, we are blessed. He mentioned it in his
assurance of pardon. Talked about how blessed we are.
That is what the church is. Those that have been blessed
by God with regeneration, a calling, justification by faith. Faith
has been granted to us. Repentance has been granted to
us. They are products of God's grace. We see it in action here. The perfect evangelist telling
the truth perfectly with inspired words and it doesn't convert
because God has to do the converting. The only difference between us
and these angry Jews is what God has done. The only difference
between Stephen and these angry Jews is what God has done. It's
not intellectual. It's spiritual. Still an intellectual
component to it, obviously, but it's a spiritual issue. Now,
this crowd, after being intellectually argued to silence, when that
happens, people tend to get angry. If their hearts aren't softened
by it, if God doesn't soften their hearts by it, they tend
to get mad. If you argue someone to silence, how do they tend
to react? They get mad. They attack you. They come at
you, the person, instead of you, the argument that you present.
So they start making accusations. They start attacking the person
verbally at times, physically even, right? And that's what
this crowd does. They come up with a plan. Not
at all unlike the methods that they used against Jesus. That
is, they arranged for men to make false accusations to justify
an arrest with the hope of the arrest leading to condemnation
based on those same false accusations. These false accusations that
they stirred up the people to do were enough to stir up the
people to the anger that they needed. They needed a mob. And
they got the mob through the lies. And not just the people. They didn't just stir up the
people. They stirred up the elders and the scribes. Once they have the elders and
the scribes, then they're able to employ the temple authorities
once again, who then come and drag Stephen away to face the
council, just like Peter and John had done twice already.
It doesn't explicitly mention them. They're probably involved
if the elders and scribes are involved. It's often called an
arrest, you know, when we speak of the arrest of St. Stephen.
You know, it probably technically was, but it reads more like just
a straight up abduction. They get so angry, they're just
like, get him, grab him, drag him away. So these people are
reacting out of a passionate anger because they couldn't cope
with his wisdom. Luke doesn't tell us the precise
details here. We don't know if the Sanhedrin was already in
session and they just drag him in and throw him in there. Probably
took him, put him in the jail cell overnight like before, same
as the other ones, until the Sanhedrin could be gathered the
next day. As Luke records, he was brought out then to be questioned
and faced the accusations against him, just like before. This time,
the Jews use the method that worked to get Jesus killed, though.
If you remember, Matthew 26 details this for us. He's before the
Sanhedrin, Jesus. It says, now the chief priests
and the whole council kept trying to obtain false testimony against
Jesus so that they might put him to death. Arrange for liars
to make false accusations for the excuse of putting him to
death. They did not find any, even though many false witnesses
came forward, but later on, two came forward. and said, this
man stated, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild
it in three days. We all know what they're talking
about there. So that's what they did this time as well. So in
verse 13 and 14, what's it tell us? They put forward a false
witness who said, this man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the law, they're at the temple
by now, this holy place, the temple, and the law, for we have
heard him say that this Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place
and alter the customs which Moses handed down to us. Right there,
very, very similar. It doesn't take a Bible scholar
to know what Stephen had said that they were twisting. You
know, these guys are like modern day journalists. They change
the meaning of words, they use partial quotes, on purpose so
that you can't get the full context of what's being said. They completely
mischaracterized the meaning of what's being stated, what
Stephen had said, what Jesus had said, same thing. Obviously,
Stephen had taught about Christ's prophecy. Remember, when the
disciples are marveling at the beauty of the temple and the
huge stones, that sort of thing, it's recorded for us in John
2. So we know Stephen may have been there with that group of
disciples. And Jesus, when they're doing that, he predicts his resurrection.
He told them, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise
it up again. And they're all shocked, like, oh, it took years
to build this temple, and we're told. He's not talking about
the physical temple, he's talking about himself. He is the temple.
Stephen undoubtedly told the Jews of Christ's prediction being
fulfilled in the crucifixion and resurrection. He undoubtedly
told that story and said, Jesus said this, he was talking about
himself, you tried to destroy him in the crucifixion, he rose
up in three days, just like he said. He undoubtedly would have
explained that Jesus himself is the true temple. That's typology,
this imagery that's used in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the
New Testament. He tabernacled amongst us, as the apostles would
say. John wrote that in John 1.14. He tabernacled amongst
us. He is the temple. The temple,
remember in the Old Testament, it's representative of God's
presence with the people. You have this congregation of
people, the covenant people, God comes down and dwells with them
in a temple. That's God's presence. It's the
representative presence of God. And to enter that temple, they
can't just waltz in there. They needed to be ceremonially
clean. That's typological of holiness,
right? And to become ceremonially clean,
they need a priest to offer a sacrifice of atonement so they could dwell
in God's presence without being destroyed, right? And Stephen
would have explained that Christ is the true temple. He is God
in the flesh. He's God come down with us. Immanuel,
God with us. And to be in his presence, to
dwell with Christ, you need to be cleansed. You need to be holy. But instead of repeated animal
sacrifices that never take away sin and guilt, Christ himself
acts as the high priest. He himself served himself up
as the sacrifice, the lamb of God that takes away the sins
of the world. He's the temple, he's the priest, he's the sacrifice,
so that we can be not just ceremonially clean, but actually holy, so
we can dwell with God. And because of that work, we
can be in union with him. We can dwell in him as the true
temple. This is all Old Testament imagery
that the apostles used to explain to the Jews, Jesus is the Christ. And it's no mystery, that's exactly
what Stephen was teaching them. And even though they tried to
destroy the temple in the crucifixion, they tried to destroy Jesus once
and for all, he raised it up in three days when he was resurrected,
just like he predicted. That is obviously what Jesus,
or Stephen, had taught them. But what did they hear? Or really,
what did they say that they heard? He's threatening to destroy our
temple. That's it, that's all they, like, oh, that's something
we can seize on. Twist that, lie about that. He said word
destroy, he said temple. He's saying he's gonna destroy
the temple, and Jesus is gonna destroy the temple. Twisted his
words and his meaning to make him sound like a threat. What else did they falsely accuse
Stephen of? speaking against the law or against Moses by saying
that Jesus is going to alter the customs which Moses handed
down to them. The next accusation, again, that
was a serious charge. Josephus wrote of the Essenes,
one of the Jewish sects at that time, that after God, they hold
most in awe the name of their lawgiver and any blasphemer of
whom is punished with death. So if you spoke against Moses
or the law, they wanted to punish you with death. When he's writing
a blasphemy against the law or a lawgiver, that just means to
defame, denigrate, to demean in some way, and that's what
they're trying to accuse Stephen of, speaking against Moses, against
the law. So if they determined someone was speaking against
Moses in some way, that's what they wanted. That person should
die, in their opinion. This charge surely came from
them twisting Stephen's explanation of the old covenant being fulfilled
in Christ and instituting a new covenant. With new covenant comes
new law. So those customs that they cared
about so much are not altered. We're not altering the customs.
Those customs are fulfilled. They have served their purpose.
They're no longer needed. When you finish construction
on a building, you remove the scaffolding. It's no longer needed.
It served its purpose. That's how those old laws work.
So yes, of course, the positive laws of the old covenant are
abrogated and taken away, as our confession says it in chapter
19. Remember the distinction between moral and positive law.
We talk about this all the time. There's positive laws in each
covenant, like circumcision. We don't have to do that. It's
only particular to the covenant of Abraham and Moses. The ones
in that covenant need to be circumcised, but laws like do not murder,
moral law, those are always applicable no matter what. It's moral law,
it's always true. Positive laws for each covenant,
it's only applicable for that covenant. Moral laws for all
time. And that's what they're worried
about. Okay, you're saying the old covenant's going away and all
these customs, all these positive laws that we love so much, you're
gonna alter them. Like no, they're not altered,
they're fulfilled. It's a new covenant now, there's new positive laws.
The Jews understood this principle, too, because none of them are
obeying the positive law from the covenant of works. Remember,
God tells Adam, do not eat of the fruit of this tree. He forbids
one of those trees. They know that that's only applicable
to the covenant of works. They're not out there looking
for that tree, trying to avoid it. They get this principle. They recognize that covenant
was done away because it was broken, so positive laws no longer
apply. That positive law of that covenant,
they get this principle. But at this point, the Jews had
taken those positive laws of the old covenant, that mosaic
economy. Those customs handed down by
Moses, governing ceremonial worship and governing Israel as a theocratic
nation, those laws containing, this is how our confession says
it, containing several typical ordinances, typological typical
ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces,
actions, sufferings, and benefits, and partly holding forth diverse
instructions of moral duties. They took that temple and those
traditions and they turned them into an idol. Not like a temporary
thing to lead them to the Messiah, but they turned them into an
idol. And it wasn't just like these are our culture, which
it was, but it was their identity that went along with that, that
cultural identity as Jews. this thing that set them apart
as the chosen people. We're God's chosen people, we're
the Jews, we have this mosaic economy. They were clinging to
that, not to God, but to the traditions, the customs. And
now, even though they're no longer needed, they're unwilling to
give them up. In hearing about the fulfillment
of the old and the coming of something better, the Jews take
that as an attack. He's attacking us, our customs,
our people. If Jesus is the temple, if Jesus is the real temple,
and this temple is no longer needed, worship is to be centered
on Jesus, not at this location, then that temple building, one
of the wonders of the world, and the heart of their Jewish
culture and identity, that temple is no longer needed. They take
that as an attack. It was a relic of an outdated
religious worship, an old covenant relic. and it no longer applies. There's no purpose to that temple
any longer, because Jesus is a new and better temple. Now
here are these Jews showing up, telling people, coming out here,
and they're telling people, you know, not all Israel is really
Israel. And they're like, what? We're not all by default the
chosen people of God? And they're like, no, that's
not how it works. It's not the ethnic Hebrews are
the children of God, it's those that are chosen from every tribe,
tongue, people, and nation, Gentiles. And again, that's an attack on
them as a people, as a culture, and they hate that. I mean, they're
Hellenized Jews, but they're not that Hellenized, right? They
like the Greek culture, they have adopted a lot of it, but
they don't want to spend eternity with Greeks, Gentiles. That's how these Jews are thinking.
That's why they're getting so mad. If they trusted in Christ
as Messiah and His atoning sacrifice, then the very foundations of
their religion had to be reinterpreted because they got it wrong. They
could no longer look to obedience to the law as a basis for salvation,
to be holy and righteous before God. They would have to humble
themselves and they would have to abandon all self-righteousness. They did not see that message
as enlightening. They didn't see Stephen's words
as explanatory of the old covenant shadows. They instead took this
as blasphemy against the Mosaic law and the temple where it was
practiced. It's an attack in their minds.
The temple was not needed for access to God. The priests were
not needed. The sacrifices were not needed.
And they hated this idea. And they hated Stephen for teaching
it. They hated him even more because when he explained it,
they couldn't even argue against it. And oh, does that enrage
them. They hated him for graciously
explaining the new covenant and the greatness of the gospel accomplished
by Jesus. Jesus likewise prepared his disciples
for this hatred, and we read it. John 15, if the world hates
you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you
were of the world, the world would love its own. But because
you are not of the world, but I choose you out of the world
because of this, the world hates you. Remember the word that I
said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted
me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they
will also keep yours also. But all these things they will
do to you for my name's sake because they do not know the
one who sent me." And he talks about being kicked out of the
synagogues. And here it is, people of these synagogues attacking
Stephen. Unfortunately for Stephen, this
hatred that Jesus warned about, this hatred that we're seeing
from the Jews, it exceeds all rational restraint. He could
not persuade them through heavenly wisdom and gracious argument. It's not gonna stem their hatred. And even physical evidence couldn't
convince them. Because look at verse 15, tells
us, right before Luke records Stephen's defense, he tells us,
fixing their gaze on him, all who were sitting in the council
saw his face like the face of an angel. Now, what precisely
that means, I don't know. Every morning I wake up, I turn
to see a face like that of an angel, you know. Yeah, that's
how you do it, guys. She's not even in here to hear
it. But I'm guessing Luke did not mean that Stephen looked
like my wife, right? But seriously, you know, I don't
think we could describe what this meant with much certainty.
Perhaps it was similar to the face of Moses after he would
meet with God in the tent and he would come out and he'd be
radiant after he met with God. Perhaps it was just a look of
supernatural peace and joy, even in the face of these false accusations
of potential death. But he's standing before a death
panel, more or less, and he's just sitting there calm, ready
to answer the accusations. Whatever it was, It was visible,
they noticed it. And it testified to the presence
of God's spirit in Stephen. Physical evidence with their
eyes, this man is telling the truth. It testified to the fact
that his witness to them was true and accurate. It was authoritative
and inspired by the spirit that was within him. But facts like
these do not deter impassioned hatred. a
Synagogues Team Up Against Stephen When They Cannot Answer His Arguments About Jesus
Series Acts
| Sermon ID | 92224203588011 |
| Duration | 36:59 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Acts 6:8-15; John 15:18-16:4 |
| Language | English |
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