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Acts 7:1–23

7/2/2012

 
Click here to read today's passage on Bible Gateway.

Stephen's Speech
We don't finish the speech today, but I'm going to draw out some major themes to look for.  Notice that Stephen is defending the faith, but he uses things that are familiar to his audience to do so:  the Scripture and the history of Israel.  There are three major themes to look for:

1. The activity of God is not confined to the geographical land of Israel.
2. Worship acceptable to God is not confined to the Jerusalem temple.
3. The Jews have constantly rejected God’s representatives. [1]

This sounds great to us, but was both shocking and blasphemous to Stephen's audience.  Keep paying attention to these speeches - they explain the early Church's views on the Old Testament, history, and a variety of other things.  More they anything else they really help us to fit all the pieces together regarding the relationship between the Old Testament and New Testament, and what the Church is.  They usually don't present the Gospel the way that we would now, because their audience is working from an entirely different worldview and foundation.  We probably wouldn't think to use the three points above to defend our faith, but Stephen proclaims them fearlessly, basically with no regard for his own life.  There is little chance his audience will take it well, but that's for later...

[1] Ajith Fernando, Acts, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), 246-47.
Andrei
7/2/2012 03:48:12 pm

Cindy taught from this passage this past Friday... Janet explained to us that Stephen was using the Abrahamic covenant to point out to his audience that they were rejected the fulfillment of God's promises (or something like that?).

'They usually don't present the Gospel the way that we would now, because their audience is working from an entirely different worldview and foundation.' -- This got me thinking a little bit; there are times I read what some of the apostles are saying and think: 'shouldn't this be obvious?' And vice versa; there are a lot of times where I don't know what some people in the Bible are talking about. Perspective is interesting. .

Greg
7/3/2012 06:39:32 am

There is a balance that you need to remember: there is a sense in which the message NEVER changes: it is and will always be the death and resurrection of Jesus the Son of God for our sins, but another sense in which the method you use to present this truth changes in order to make sure that message is understandable to your audience. That is why so many of the speeches/sermons in Acts are so heavy with Old Testament references, but then when we get to Acts 17 Paul presents the Good News without any "Jewishness" in it. The message is always the same, but the method of presenting it is often different.


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