Acts Episode 14: Stephen’s Brilliant Defense: Part 1

Wes

Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study Podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys ministry. If you’re interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now, on to today’s episode.

This is episode 14 in our Acts Bible Study podcast. This episode is entitled Stephen’s Brilliant Defense, Part One, where we’ll discuss Acts chapter seven verses one through 29. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?

Andy

Well, we’re going to begin walking through Stephen’s amazing defense before the Sanhedrin, and in that defense, we’re going to get a sense of his mind, the way he works, and his understanding of where he was at in redemptive history. Now that Christ has died, now that the curtain of the temple has been torn in two from top to bottom, he understands in ways that seem very few other people did at that point. How that animal sacrificial system had become obsolete, how Jesus had fulfilled all of the animal sacrifices, how the time for the temple was finished and how they were into a whole new pattern of religion.

Not only that, in a very powerful and convicting way, he’s going to show that it was the tendency of the Jews again and again to be hostile to the ones that God sent to establish them in their right relationship with God. They always tended to persecute the ones that God sent, the one that the Holy Spirit was speaking through. And the culmination of that was their rejection of and their persecution of Jesus even to death. So, we’re not going to get there yet, but he’s building a case step by step of how it was the pattern of the Jews again and again to persecute their deliverers. And so, we’ll see that in the beginning of his message today.

Wes

Let me go ahead and read the first 29 verses of chapter 7.

And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” And Steven said, “Brothers and fathers hear me, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. And God spoke to this effect that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them 400 years.

“‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’ And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs. And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit.

“And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, 75 persons in all. And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive.

“At this time, Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house, and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brother would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

“And on the following day, he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.”

Andy, remind us where and before whom this trial takes place as we set the stage for these verses we’re looking at today.

Andy

Okay, so Stephen is arraigned before the Sanhedrin, the council of elders who are in authority in Israel and who are hostile to Christianity. And so, Stephen is brought before them on the charges of blasphemy and that he was speaking against the temple and against the animal sacrificial system, and proclaiming in Jesus basically a new faith, a new religion. Which all of it is true, but it would be more fully developed later, especially in the Book of Hebrews. So, they’re charging him with blasphemy against Moses and against God. And so, he’s been arraigned before the council, the Sanhedrin, and he’s on trial really for his life.

Wes

What’s Stephen trying to prove in his defense and how does he go about doing that?

Andy

Well, first of all, it’s pretty clear by the end of this message, now a lot of the most spectacular aspects of this whole defense will come next time, God willing, not today. He’s really building up step-by-step, he’s building a case, and right now he’s just been rehearsing Jewish history in ways that would not be objectionable to anybody. It’s just this is their family heritage, and they love their own story. And so, he’s really very wise in how he goes about it, but he’s really boiling the frog. Step-by-step, he’s going to bring in some key evidence with Joseph and Moses in particular being types of Christ. They were deliverers who were sent by God and were rejected by the Jewish people.

I think I would just say his point here really it seems is not to save his own life. His point here is to call them out of their stiff-necked rebellion into faith in Christ.

And so, the punchline is going to come next time. You stiff-necked people who always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet you did not persecute? And now you’ve done the same to Jesus. So, Jesus is the ultimate Joseph-like or Moses-like deliverer who they are going to persecute. But he’s just not there yet. In the section that we’re looking at today, he’s little by little kind of ramping up his case. So, I think I would just say his point here really it seems is not to save his own life. His point here is to call them out of their stiff-necked rebellion into faith in Christ.

Wes

So, Stephen’s really gaining a hearing before them by laying out facts that they all agree upon to make a point that he’ll get to later on.

Andy

Yeah, he’s got them in the palm of his hand. They’re excited, they’re interested in his story, they are quiet before him. And he’s doing a masterful job at weaving them in, but they don’t see how he’s already making a case as Jesus himself did. “You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ And so, you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.” Jesus said, “Fill up then the measure of your fathers” (Matthew 23:29-32). In other words, keep doing it. And they did in Jesus’ case, and now Stephen’s going to accuse them of it.

Wes

In verse 2, Stephen gives the title, “the God of Glory,” to the Lord. What is the significance of this title that Stephen gives to God in verse 2?

Andy

Yeah, it’s just a great, great statement. He’s talking about the God, the creator of the ends of the earth, and he calls him the God of Glory, who appeared to our Father Abraham. And so, for me, in my understanding of heaven and the book that I wrote on heaven, heaven is all about a revelation of God as a glorious God. And what is the glory of God? I think a good definition is the radiant display of God’s perfections or God’s attributes, his omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, God’s holiness, God’s justice, his love. All of that is summed up in the term the glory of God. Here he’s just saying, the God who is Glory. All glory comes from God, that God, the God of Glory is the centerpiece of everything. It’s the centerpiece of his defense and of his case. This God, the God of Glory, appeared to our Father Abraham.

Wes

Andy, we’ve mentioned before that there are times when we read things in the New Testament that maybe give us new or unique insights into the Old Testament, things that we would probably be cautious to do on our own. Why does Stephen start with the call of Abraham and what do we learn about Abraham’s call that perhaps wasn’t as clear in the Genesis account?

Andy

Well, first of all, what we learned, especially for us as gentile believers in Christ, is that there is a developed story. And story in that it’s not true, it is historical and accurate, but there’s a developed narrative or story that we are, to use the image that Paul uses in Romans 11, grafted into. There’s a tree, a cultivated tree with a developed root system that has been going on for centuries and centuries, and the call of Abraham is the beginning of it. So, when God determined to save all peoples, nations, and men of every language, he did it through one family. He did it through one nation. And it began with a childless man, a childless couple, Abraham and Sarah, and calling them out of a pagan lifestyle, out of being moon worshipers, out of being pagans. That’s where it began for Abram when God called him. And so, the whole thing is God initiates and God establishes true and pure religion by his sovereign call.

Wes

So how does Stephen link this ancient history to their present situation in verse 4, and why do you think he does this?

Andy

Yeah. I think what’s happening here is that from the very beginning of his message, he’s establishing Abraham as their father in faith. All of the true, faith-filled children of Abraham will, as Paul says in Romans 4, follow in the footsteps of the faith that their father Abraham had. They’re not just physically descended from Abraham. If they’re genuinely born again, if they’re genuinely saved through faith in Christ, they’re going to follow Abraham’s faith. And the point that Stephen’s going to make here is the very same thing that the author of Hebrews does in Hebrews 11. He establishes Abraham as an alien and a stranger in this world who lived in tents, similar to Jesus saying, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

So, what he’s doing is he’s trying to uproot these rooted Jews in the Promised Land in their present structure, their Sanhedrin and their relationship with Rome and all their power structure. He’s trying to say, all of that is hindering you. You need to be men of faith who follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had while he was still uncircumcised. He lived in a pagan land; God spoke to him and told him to leave, and he did. He obeyed and left even though he did not know where he was going. You need to follow Abraham in faith and follow him and follow to the point of following Jesus Christ. Don’t be clinging to the temple, don’t be clinging to all the traditions and all that. Follow Jesus. I think that’s what he is getting at.

Wes

What main point does Stephen then make in verse 5, and why does he make this point?

Andy

He gave him no inheritance here, speaking of Abraham, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child. So, I think what he’s saying here is the point that I was making from the Book of Hebrews in Hebrews 11, all of these great heroes of the faith, the patriarchs, lived by faith, and they died not having received the promises. The promises are not ultimately for this world, they’re for the next world. And so, to live like an alien and a stranger means that you’re looking ahead to a city that is to come, a city that has eternal foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

You’re looking ahead to a country that you’re going to receive for all eternity, which we know as Christians is the new heaven and the new earth. You’re not looking for it in this world, you’re looking for it in eternity, and you get it by faith in Christ. So, I think that’s what Stephen’s leading to right now. He didn’t get any of the things that were promised, not in this life. He died not having received the promise, but God is going to keep that promise through resurrection and through the resurrection body in the world that is coming.

Wes

In verses 6-8, he goes on to begin to lay the foundation really for the rest of the message. How do verses 6-8 set up the rest of what he’s going to say in this chapter?

Andy

So, this is the prediction that God made in Genesis 15, that Abraham’s own descendants would be enslaved by the Egyptians. And he predicts it very plainly that they’ll be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years. And the fundamental issue here is again, pointing toward the fact that we are aliens and strangers in this world and there’s a deliverer that’s coming. And so, he’s going to use Joseph as a deliverer character and then Moses also as a deliverer. And so, the fact that they were in Egypt and there’s this famine in the time of Joseph, and Joseph was the deliverer from the famine, and the fact that they were embondaged and enslaved by the Egyptians and Moses was a deliverer. And the fact that they rebelled against both Joseph and Moses, the very ones that God sent to be deliverers, all of that is in the matrix of the trip down to Egypt and the enslavement in Egypt.

Wes

So he begins with Joseph, how do verses 9 and 10 lay the groundwork for the scorching rebuke that we’ve mentioned that’s coming later in verses 51-53? What’s his point here?

Andy

Yes, you stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You’re just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet that your fathers did not persecute? And now they have killed the Messiah, etc. That’s where we’re heading. So, Joseph is a type of Christ in this regard. He is a deliverer who was sent ahead of time and was being prepared by God to be their deliverer. You remember he had as a teenager dreams in which he would be raised up ascendant and all of his brothers would bow down to him. Remember, his stalk of wheat stood up straight and all their stalks bowed down to him. He had a dream about this. And then the same thing with the sun and the moon and the 11 stars all bowed down to me and they’re like, “You’ve got a God complex here or something like that.”

But no, God actually was preparing him to be the deliverer which he would be. He would position Joseph in authority a second only to Pharaoh and by his wise policies there would be literal physical food during the seven-year famine that would enable his family to survive. But their jealousy of him and their hatred of him is actually essential to the story. Because they were jealous of him, because they hated him, they sold him as a slave, where? To Egypt. That’s why he was there. That was the fulfillment of the prediction made in Genesis 15:13, “Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own.” How did that come about? Well, it came about fundamentally here through the jealousy and the hatred of the patriarchs, the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel who represent them, the nation of Israel in their hatred, in their faithless unbelief toward the deliverers that God sends.

Wes

Stephen continues reciting Israel’s history unfolding what you referenced just a moment ago. He shows how God used Joseph to save Jacob’s family from famine, and he also sets the stage for the Exodus, fulfilling the prophecy that Stephen had referred to back in verses 6 and 7. What’s Stephen’s goal in reciting history and how does it relate to Israel’s present spiritual state?

Andy

Right. So, Joseph, again, is a type of Christ. We have to understand that Jesus is identified as the Messiah and the Savior of the world by fulfilled prophecy. The fulfilled prophecy comes in two patterns, typological prophecy and verbally predictive prophecy. Typological prophecy or type prophecy is where something is acted out in space and time in history, that then is a picture of Jesus’s saving work. And so, Joseph’s being rejected by the Jewish people, by the patriarchs, and his sufferings and then his exaltation and his authority and power are all pictures of Christ. Joseph was hated without a cause. What did he do wrong? He did nothing wrong, and they hated him and were murderous toward him. And that was instrumental to the providential positioning of Joseph as being second only to Pharaoh in the nation of Egypt.

So, it says, “God was with him, Joseph, and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.” So, he has power, he has authority, he has rulership. It’s the very thing that he’s going to say about Moses, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” God did, God established Moses as their ruler and judge, the very one they rejected from being ruler and judge over them. Same thing with Joseph, “Who made you ruler over all of us?” God did. And so that’s the same thing with Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. There’s no cause for jealousy. He’s going to use his kingship to save his people. And so, again, Joseph is positioned by his authority and by his wise policies that end up bringing about salvation for his own people as a type or picture of Christ.

Wes

Andy, Stephen’s defense reminds me of a well-written piece of music with a repeated theme and just this ongoing crescendo throughout, where it seems like he’s rehearsing again and again a familiar tune that’s going to come up as we’ve mentioned already in that rebuke that he’ll offer finally at the end. It’s stunning really how the Holy Spirit through Stephen crafts this to really get to the heart of what’s been their problem from the very beginning.

Andy

They always fight the ones that God sends. And this is the whole thing. I mean, we’re going to see this also with Moses and we know the history. The Jewish people, even throughout the Exodus, made life miserable for Moses. It’s like, “Did I give birth to these people? Do I have to carry them like a wailing infant every step of the way?” He was lamenting. It’s like, “These people are making my life miserable.” And it was the same also with Joseph’s brothers who were jealous and hated him and wanted to kill him.

Wes

Andy, one thing that strikes me as we walk through this is that Stephen is on trial here. I’m assuming not having things open before him, resources, writings. He’s recounted a lot of history, and we’ve noted that there’s some challenges, whether it be with Abraham and the age of his father Terah as they are in Haran. Or even at the end of the passage we were just discussing as we look at the number of people that came to Joseph in Egypt or we think about who bought the tomb in which these patriarchs were buried, how should we think about those and how should we approach harmonizing them or is that a worthy use of our endeavor, our time?

Andy

Well, first of all, it is worthy of us if we’re going from the basic principle of inerrancy, that anything the Bible asserts is true. And when the Bible asserts one thing and then another place asserts something else, we should try to harmonize them. We have that with the so-called synoptic problem with Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and how they’ll take aspects of Jesus’ life. And one of them reads one way and another one reads another way. Should we try to harmonize? And I say absolutely, we should do our best to harmonize them.

Sometimes, especially with Stephen’s history, his chronology, his numbers of people that go down to Egypt and then who bought what land from whom, for how much money, the efforts are very complex. I’ve read them, you read scholarly evangelical commentaries, and the footnotes go on and take up basically the whole page. Two thirds or three quarters of the page are four or five different options. It’s really beyond our podcast here to go into all those. There are decent efforts at harmonization. There are decent ways of saying, “Here is a man who was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke accurately.” But it is not necessarily easy to harmonize what he said with the other writers of scripture who are also filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke accurately.

Sometimes you just have to say, “I don’t really know how best to harmonize them.” However, the 66 books of the Bible perfectly do fit together and there are no doctrines hanging in the balance with harmonization. And so, in general, I think it’s a good effort beyond our podcast here to go into those details however, because those arguments and those answers are very complex and take up a lot of time.

Wes

Stephen himself covered a great amount of time. I mean, we’ve already looked at Abraham and Joseph. But in verse 17, he turns to another season in Israel’s history, looking at Moses and the law. What does verse 17 teach us about the way God manages history and time?

Andy

Now, first of all, the growth of Israel, of the nation of Israel in those 400 years is staggering. It’s absolutely staggering. If you look at further genealogical or census records, Israel never grew this explosively ever again. They would continue to grow in their population but not like this. If they continue to grow by that rate, they would’ve been in the tens and tens of millions in the time of David or Solomon. So, it was an explosive growth, and it was noteworthy to the Egyptian people. They noted how rapidly they were multiplying and how much God blessed them with children. So, it’s incredible. It’s not an accident. It’s part of God’s fulfillment of his promise that he made to Abraham, “Go out and look at the stars and count them if you can, so shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5), your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand in the seashore. It’s the fulfillment of that promise.

Wes

What role do verses 17-19 play in Stephen’s argument and defense, and how do they help prove the truthfulness of God’s prophetic Word?

Andy

Okay, so he had predicted in Genesis 15:13, “Know for certain your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, where they’ll be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years.” Fundamental to that is the loss of any goodwill that Joseph and the Jews had by Pharaoh king of Egypt. So, he’s not going to oppress the Jewish people. He loved Joseph, was grateful to Joseph, welcomed Jacob when he came and honored him as Joseph’s father, welcomed his family, got them established in Egypt having the best of the land. It was a good relationship. But then as Exodus begins, as you know, and another king came along who knew nothing about Joseph.

It just shows how much like the author of Ecclesiastes says, like Solomon says, “Even those who are yet to be born will not be remembered by those who follow.” People forget. And so, Joseph’s history is well remembered by us because it’s written in the Genesis account, but it was forgotten by Pharaoh. And so that sets the context for the persecution he’s going to do. He is going to enslave these Jews and use them, use their bodies to build his store cities and his pyramids or whatever, all his tombs and the different things. And that is going to be the context of the deliverance that Moses is going to work.

Wes

What insights about Moses’ training and upbringing do we get in 20-22, and how do we reconcile Stephen’s statement that Moses was powerful in word with Moses’ own protest to God at the burning bush in Exodus 4?

Andy

Well, we’ll take the Moses question first because it’s easy. Moses didn’t want to go.

Wes

An excuse.

Andy

And so, he’s making excuses. I’m going to go with Stephen on this one that he was powerful in speech and action. Here’s the man that wrote the first five books of the Bible, so clearly, he had a linguistic gift. He was a highly trained individual. He just did not want to go and say, “Let my people go.” And so, he is making excuses. You remember, it gets to the point where it says, “Please send the one whom you choose.” It says that literally in Hebrew, but some of the English translations just say, “Please send somebody else.” And so, he’s just trying to get out of it. He says, “I stutter, I’m not very good at speech.” But no, the fact of the matter is he had certainly all the linguistic ability that he needed.

And God also in the burning bush account gets his eyes off of himself, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” And God’s answer is, “I will be with you.” In other words, “No matter how eloquent you are, that’s not how my people are going to be delivered, but by my power and by my might.” But I think what we do get here is we get some of that providential preparation that God did in training Moses in the court of Pharaoh, and he understood what that royalty looked like, what that life of privilege looked like. And he was enabled to speak the court language. And he wasn’t intimidated by Pharaoh. He grew up seeing Pharaoh and his family, etc. And so, he was trained and prepared and was powerful in speech and action.

Now again, Joseph and Moses, I believe, are set up by Stephen as types of Christ. So again, we get the same kind of indication that Moses in being wise and powerful in speech and action is a picture of Christ and his rulership over the world or over Israel. And so, Moses in this way is a type of Christ.

Wes

Stephen continues to craft his comments to shape Moses as a type of Christ in verses 23-26. How does he do that and why would he do that with Moses here?

Andy

All right, so Moses is going to cast his lot with the Jewish people. We get this much more clearly in the account in Hebrews 11, where he realized it was better to cast his lot with Christ and with God’s people than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. And so, he turned his back on a life of ease, he turned his back on a life of comfort, and he did it decisively. When he went out to look on his people and he realized that he was living a life of privilege, but they were enslaved. And as he looks around, his own heart is melting together with the Jewish people and he cared about them. And he was in that way picturing God looking down from heaven on his own people, enslaved. And it says, “God was concerned about them.”

Jesus saves us not by killing, but by dying.

And so, God raised up Moses, a man after his own heart in this regard, to be concerned also with his own people. And so again, Jesus in Hebrews 2 is not ashamed to call his own people brothers. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that he could deliver them by his death. And so again, Moses is a type of Christ here. He goes to visit his fellow Israelites, he sees one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, and so his loyalties are with the Jewish person, not with the Egyptian. And he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. He acted decisively on the part of his own people. Now it’s interesting how different this is from Jesus. Jesus saves us not by killing, but by dying. He saves us by being willing to lay down his life, but the motive is the same, to save his people.

Wes

Now, in Moses’ case, the response of the Israelites is important in Stephen’s overall defense and his final rebuke that we’ve already read in verses 51-53. How is the Israelites response to Moses a type of the Jews’ response to Christ?

Andy

Yeah. Well, it says in verse 25, “Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.” Now, we know where Stephen’s going, and that’s a key plank in his defense. He’s boiling the frog here in a brilliant sort of way. And he’s like, they don’t even know what’s happening here. I’m talking about the Sanhedrin as they listened to him. But Moses thought that his people would recognize what was going on, but they did not. They didn’t recognize how God had raised Moses up and was preparing him to be their rescuer and their deliverer. And so, the next day, he comes upon two Israelites that are fighting and he said, “Men, you are brothers. Why do you want to hurt each other?” And he’s trying to help them. But the man who was mistreating the other, pushed Moses aside and said, now this is a key statement, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?”

And so that question is key to Stephen’s whole defense, “Who made you ruler and judge?” And so next time we’re going to see the answer to that. But down in verse 35, this is the same Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, “Who made you ruler and judge?” So, Stephen quotes that; it’s clearly key to his whole defense. He was sent to be their ruler and their deliverer by God himself. So, there’s the answer to your question. Who made you ruler and judge? God did.

Wes

God did.

Andy

And that’s the same thing with Jesus.

Wes

So ultimately what happens as a result of the Israelites’ statement to Moses, and what final thoughts do you have for us as we wrap up this first part of Acts 7?

Andy

Well, all right. First of all, when Moses murders the Egyptian, he looks this way and that way before he does it. So, the Bible says anything that does not come from faith is sin. He’s not acting like he’s doing some righteous thing at this moment. We’re going to find out as we study the life of Moses, sometimes he acted impetuously and sometimes he acted angrily. And so, I don’t know that that was necessarily the God ordained path, that he was going to kill all of the Egyptians who were enslaving his people. However, that was the path that he would be on. If you think about the trail of wreckage, that Egypt was a smoldering ruin when the Exodus occurred, and every household in Egypt was burying someone. There was death all around. But it was God that did it, etc., and it was not by Moses’s own hand. Moses didn’t kill anybody.

But fundamentally, that was an early sign of loyalty and of his allegiance to his own people, but it also was the cause for him fleeing for his life because he knew very well that Pharaoh would want to hunt him down and kill him as a murderer. And he was not going to allow him to have his loyalties lined up with the enslaved Jewish people. And so that was the reason he fled. And everything had been orchestrated, and he would be gone for 40 years, and he’d come back as an 80-year-old deliverer. So, it sets up the entire thing. So, we are halfway through Stephen’s brilliant, brilliant defense. All of the framework has been made, the stage has been set, but all of the potency is yet to come, and so we’ll look at that next time.

Wes

Well, this has been Episode 14 in our Acts Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 15, which will be Stephen’s Brilliant Defense Part 2, where we’ll discuss Acts 7:30-8:1. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.