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• Doesn’t Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 make so much more sense, having just read Genesis & Exodus in the past couple of months? It does to me. Stephen’s speech used to seem long and boring. But now I find it an amazingly compact telling of the story of the Old Testament. Reading the O.T. so enriches the N.T.

• Notice the position of Jesus as Stephen saw Him:

⁵⁵But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

In Luke 22 Jesus says that he will be seated at the right hand of God after His resurrection. In Colossians 3 Jesus is described as being seated at the right hand of God. Apparently Jesus stands up when He sees His saints martyred. Stephen looked up and saw Jesus standing. How hard it must be for Jesus not to come rushing in to save us. But thankfully, He sees the bigger picture.

• Did you notice the young man who stood by and watched the clothes of those who stoned Stephen? Yes, that was Saul, who later became Paul. At the time of Stephen’s stoning, Saul was a righteous young man in agreement with those throwing the stones.

⁵⁷At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him [Stephen], ⁵⁸dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Our God is a God who can change the heart of anyone. Thank you Lord!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 1:39 pm and is filed under God's power, Jesus, Reading the Bible, Reading through the Bible in a Year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.