"Rabbi, when
did you get here?"
Piety
All those who sat
in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face
of an angel. Acts
6:15
"Rabbi, when
did you get here?" John 6:25
Study
The members of the Sanhedrin are up to the same tricks
and tactics that they used to try to entrap Jesus – even to the point of using
false witnesses. Getting witnesses to
lie is a tactic as old as Cain and Abel and the tale of Susannah (falsely
accused in the Hebrew Bible). It never
ends well for the deceivers.
The
charges that Stephen depreciated the importance of the temple and the Mosaic
law and elevated Jesus to a stature above Moses (Acts 6:13–14) were in fact
true. Before the Sanhedrin, no defense against them was possible. With Stephen, who thus perceived the fuller
implications of the teachings of Jesus, the differences between Judaism and
Christianity began to appear. Luke’s account of Stephen’s martyrdom and its
aftermath shows how the major impetus behind the Christian movement passed from
Jerusalem, where the temple and law prevailed, to Antioch in Syria, where these
influences were less pressing.[i]
(emphasis added)
Stephen and the history told in the Acts of the Apostles
is the history of the beginning of the Church (aka The Way). Just looking at his countenance, the Sanhedrin
knew something different was happening here.
Jesus lived among us to affect that break. No longer did the Lord ask people to obey
laws etched in stone tablets. The Lord
sought obedience of a higher order. He acted subtlety – so quietly in fact that
people did not sense that the world around them was changing.
There was no earthquake that night in Bethlehem. Just the faint cries of a baby coming into
the world. He worked quietly and miraculously until people started following
him. Then, all of a sudden, they realized that something different was happening.
The simple act of eating from a few blessed loaves and dried fish –- an everyday
occurrence for most Jews -- planted the seed of change.
Jesus answered and
said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
(6:29) The serenity of belief and obedience is what the Sanhedrin saw in the face
of Stephen.
Action
Look around…what signs of belief and obedience do you
think people can recognize in your life? When did Rabbi Jesus appear in your life? What signs can you show?
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