Slides: Acts 6:8-8:4
Slide 1
Acts 6:9:
Synagogue of freed persons
Synag’s community centers, prayer and Torah
Freed persons: libertini
-Roman cultures100%enslaved by Pompey, freed in Rome
Synagogue inser: Theodotus son of Vettenos (freedman)
Hellenists (6:1)
Internal issue in the community
Maybe compensating for forgiveness (like Agrippa 1)
Pharisees ranked 1st generation freed slaves just below proselytes
Locations:
Later sources attest synagogue of Alexandrians and that of Cilicians
Capital of Cilicia was Tarsus
Those freed in Rome often made way eastward
Slide 2
6:11-15
“Blasphemy”: nontechnical: disrespect for God
Ironically: false testimony under oath desecrates divine Name!
Rhet. Alex: how to lie under oath
False witnesses to be executed (Deut 19:18-19); also Roman law)
Slide 3
Charges: against Law and Temple
Nationalism as well as religious issue
-in US: God and country
- in Jeremiah Wright, Pat Robertson
Prophesying against temple punished:
Jeremiah, Joshua ben Hananiah
Stephen’s response
- Affirms Torah (cites laws)
- Challenges Temple- sort of
Slide 4
6:15: Face like angel
Cf. transfiguration (Luke 9)
Moses transfigured, received law via angels (7:30, 35, 38, 53)
Angels with God’s servants (5:19; 8:26; 10:3)
Slide 5
7:1-53
Two charges against him:
-Law
- Temple
Two responses:
- Explains temple issue: God not limited to Temple
- Returns charges; You climaxed our ancestors’ rebellion
a. Rejected Joseph; Moses
b. Prophet like Moses (7:37)
c. Killed prophets
Slide 6
Outline of Message
Abraham (7:2-8)
- God spoke in Mesopotamia
Joseph (7:9-16)
- God exalted in Egypt
Moses (7:17-37)
- “This holy place- not temple, but Mt. Sinai
Ancestors’ rebellion (7:38-50)
Charges accusers (7:51-53)
Slide 7
Stephen’s Parallels in history- some already in Pentateuch
See video @ 30:54 for spread sheet of these parallels
Slide 8
7:1 Judge- high priest- offers Stephen the opportunity to deny the charge
Stephen’s liberties
Usually follows LXX
Summarizes, so occasionally telescopes events
Most is biblical quotation
Occasionally, inference (e.g., Moses’s Egyptian education
Lacks most legendary embellishments of Josephus (fighting Ethiopia), etc.
Slide 9
Background observations:
7:25: ”Deliverance” through Moses
7:29 Moses’s interethnic marriage (Nubian; crosses cultures)
7:35-38: in Greek, “This one” 5X- rhetoric emphasis- the rejected deliverer
7:41: calf-idol:
Greeks despised Egyptian animal figures
Israel ashamed; Josephus omits scene
7:42: Worshiping sun, moon, stars
Greeks thought them gods
Jews: angels; astrology’s predictive value
Slide10
7:48: houses by human hands
“made-with-hands”: in 7:41, for idols
typical Jewish usage
7:49-50
Arguments often conclude with maxim or clinching point
Isaiah 66:1-2: heaven my throne… what house will you build me
Slide 11
7:51-53: returning the charges
Peroration, closing of speech- often most rousing
Returning charges against accusers- but here against even judges!
v. 51: stiff necked spiritually uncircumcised: together in Deut 10:16
v. 52: ancestors persecuted prophets: 1Kgs 18:4 (Jezebel): Ne 9:26; Uriah in Jer 26:20-23; tradition
v.53: tradition: angels mediated law
They resist HS: prophetic message
It is his critics who kill prophets and violate law
-They’ll prove it- by killing him
Slide 12
Parallels with Jesus in 7:54-60
At Sanhedrin trial, declares exalted Son of Man (Ac 7:56; Lk 22:69)
Entrusts spirit to God (Ac 7:59; Lk 23:46
Prays for persecutors to be forgiven (Ac 7:60; Lk 23:34)
Remember parallel biographies; also, disciples imitate teachers
Slide 13
Who’s really guilty?
Jesus stands in heaven- witness or judge (v.56)
Person to be executed stripped- but v.58
Executed person to confess sins- but v. 60
Sometimes ancient writers; unjust judges really on trial (before Truth or God)
Slide 14
Background on Stephen’s stoning:
Outside city
Customs:
- throw over cliff,
- large stones, aim for chest
- witnesses would strike first (Deut 17:7)
Illegal “lynching”:
- governor only in Jerusalem during festivals
- mobs did stone people
Stoning:
Penalty for blasphemy (Lev 24:16)
Seeking to stone God’s servants (Exod 17:4; Nu 14:10, 2Chronicles 24:21)
Slide 15
Saul as “young man”
- teens through 30’s; most often 20’s
- associated with strength; and rashness
Gal 1: advancing beyond contemporaries
Slide 16
Outline of Acts 8:
(Saul in 7:58-60 )+ 8:1-4: Persecution scatters believers
8:5-25: Philip’s ministry in Samaria
8:26-40: to African court official
-i.e. “to the ends of the earth”
Aithiopia (then= Africa S. of Egypt): “ends of the earth”
Careful structure:
-8:4: those scattered preached where they went
8:5: Philip preached in Samaria
8:25: Peter and John: good news in Samaritan villages en route to Jerusalem
8:40: Philip: good news in coastal towns until Caesarea
Slide 17
8: 1-4:
It took persecution to get the church to begin to do what Jesus had commanded them back in 1:8!
Ironically, Saul spreads church before conversion- by persecuting them!
Those who suffer for Christ: count the cost; more radical
V. 2 Stephen’s burial
- Dying unburied dishonor
-Risking life to bury honorable and heroic
-Adult sons of those closest to deceased would bury them
-Public mourning for condemned criminal prohibited
- Stephen’s pious friends ignore illegal ruling
V.3: Saul’s zeal: detaining women as well as men
v.4: Most ancient religions spread by travelers
-focus on apostles; but others did also (11:19-20)