At the end of Acts 6, St. Stephen has been dragged before the Sanhedrin, Israel’s highest court, on serious charges. The outcome of the trial, should Stephen be found guilty, would be life changing. To add to the drama, witnesses have been called who falsely testify that Stephen publicly stated that Jesus would destroy the temple and change the customs handed down by Moses.
After such serious charges had been leveled against him, and witnesses had lied about what he had said, we might expect Stephen to be at least a little anxious. But Stephen is not biting his fingernails. He stands calmly before his judges with a face like that of an angel.
The meaning of this last line is unclear. In our culture, when someone says, “He looks just like an angel,” they are almost always talking about a child, usually a sleeping child. They are implying that he looks sweet and innocent. But in the Bible, angels are never described that way. They often appear dangerous and perhaps fierce. Those who see them cower, or run, or faint dead away.
But whether Stephen looked sweet and innocent or looked dangerous and imposing, it is what happened next that I find so interesting. When (Acts 7:1ff) he was called to testify on his own behalf – Israel did not have a Fifth Amendment – he did not say, “Those witnesses are lying. I have witnesses who heard what I really said!” That is what I would have done. He did not even deny their accusations. Instead, he launched into a long recapitulation of Israel’s history, beginning with Abraham and continuing through the books of Genesis and Exodus and then skipping ahead to David and Solomon in the historical books.
That has always confused me. Why not deny the allegations, expose the false witnesses, and get back to life and ministry? When the high priest asked if the charges were true, why did Stephen not answer, “No”? Why launch into a rambling sermon on the history of Israel?
First, I think, it is a mistake to call Stephen’s defense a “rambling sermon.” He is providing the court with the context it needs to find in his and, frankly, Jesus’s, favor. Secondly, he does not deny the false witnesses’ allegations because at least some of what they claimed was based in fact, a fact he wanted to explain.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The men who testified against Stephen were false witnesses, intentionally distorting his words in order to get him in trouble and bring the Christians into a negative light. Nevertheless, Stephen had said things that were similar to what the false witnesses claimed, and untangling the truth from their skewed testimony required a full and careful explanation. Hence, the extended review of Israel’s history.
As I’ve already said, Stephen’s testimony always seemed to me to be a rambling sermon through unrelated biblical events. But this was not the case at all. Stephen chose the events he narrated because they would provide the context for what he had really said and help distinguish his teaching from the caricature the false witnesses presented.
A careful examination of Acts 7 reveals a connection between Stephen’s defense and the charges that were brought against him. Stephen takes his judges through the early history of the Jewish people, from Abraham to slavery in Egypt to Moses’s leadership in the wilderness. And at this point, Stephen does two important things: he reminds the court that Moses promised the Israelites that God would send a prophet like himself. Stephen is preparing them for the revelation that Jesus was that prophet.
Next, Stephen reminds his judges that their ancestors turned away from the true God and began to worship idols even though they had the tabernacle where God met with them and lived among them. This is a key point. God was among them. They had the tabernacle where they could always come to God, and yet they turned away from him. The tabernacle, as wonderful as it was, could not keep the people of God faithful.
Stephen continues. After David came along, things changed. Rather than a portable temple made of a frame covered by skins, David wanted to build a permanent, stationary temple in Jerusalem to the glory of God. He did not build it, but his son Solomon did. This temple was the pride of Israel, the center – the heart of – Judaism on earth. A smaller building had replaced the original temple after the Babylonian army destroyed it, but in the past century that smaller temple had been renovated – really, it had been entirely rebuilt by Herod the Great – and was now an architectural marvel. Yet, this beautiful temple in which the Jews took such great pride had not been the answer to Israel’s problems. Stephen says bluntly, “The Most High does not live in houses made by men.”
If you missed the connection between Stephen’s defense and the false witnesses testimony, let me make it clear: it was the temple. The false witnesses said that Jesus claimed he would destroy it and that Stephen constantly spoke against it. Stephen did not deny their testimony outright because there was a grain of truth in it. He believed the Jerusalem temple had ceased to exist as the meeting place with God. The early Christians had come to see Jesus himself as the new temple, the place where God and man can meet. What would lead them to think such a remarkable thing? The answer: Jesus’s own – and his apostles’ – teaching. Next week, we will explore that teaching as it was passed down from the apostles.
The Way Home 
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