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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...
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.
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