This Week’s Reading: Acts 7:51–8:3
“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But 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. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”When he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of their killing him.
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
—Acts 7:51–8:3
Introduction and Ice Breaker
How are you celebrating the mother’s in your life today?
What was your favorite homemade food or dish your family (or mother) made when you were growing up?
Why would the church choose Mother’s Day to talk about a guy getting stoned to death? What is their problem?
Themes to Consider
IDOLS: The most ancient struggle of the human heart is what will have our greatest allegiance, deepest devotion, and strongest affection. The Scriptures insist our hearts were made for God and nothing else can truly satisfy us or lead us to our true purpose and relational home.
REPENTANCE: Without an ongoing life of repentance our faith will become brittle, fearful, mechanical, apathetic, or lifeless? Repentance is the relational process of trusting God enough to cooperate with the change God brings in our life? It involves confession and a commitment to change, going the other way.
GOD PRESENT IN OUR PAIN: The early church fulfilled the instructions Jesus gave them to go to the ends of the earth, but the process involved persecution and pain. We can look for God in the middle of our pain.
THE CHURCH SCATTERED: We are in a unique time, but actually all times are unique and we can look at the examples of earlier days to see way that God is still at work when we are scattered.
Discussion Questions
Those who were accusing Stephen saw Jesus and his teaching (and therefore Stephen) as a threat to their whole way of life. Perhaps we don’t like to think of Jesus as threatening, but can you name ways that Jesus threatens the life you are comfortable with?
The way idols (false or counterfeit gods) work in the Scriptures is they begin with requests that appear reasonable and then “they ask for more and more, while giving less and less, until eventually they demand everything and give nothing.” Have you had experience with this dynamic?
Why is repentance essential for our faith? How do you practice it?
Have you seen or heard of examples of communal repentance? How would that be possible?
What comes to your mind when you hear the church was scattered because of pain and persecution?
What are the clearest ways you have seen God at work during the scattering of quarantine? What has been the hardest part?
Guided Prayer
Holy and righteous God, we confess that like Isaiah, we are a people of unclean lips. But it is not only unclean lips we possess. We are people with unclean hands and unclean hearts. We have broken your law times without number, and are guilty of pride, unbelief, self-centeredness and idolatry. Affect our hearts with the severity of our sin and the glory of your righteousness as we now acknowledge our sins in your holy presence.
Confess any specific things you have looked to for hope and salvation other than God. “Yet you are slow to anger and abounding in Love.”
Pray out loud:
“Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—He who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with loving devotion and compassion, who satisfies you with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” —Psalm 103
Paul prayed this over the church in Thessalonica. This week, pray this along with us for our church in Park Slope and the Church in New York City. Read it a few times and may your heart be encouraged and strengthened as you join in this ancient Prayer.
“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” —2 Thessalonians 2:16–17
Quotes
“We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit God, especially the very best things in life….
What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything which absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life, that, should you lose it, your life would hardly feel worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources on it without a second thought…
It can be family or children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving face and social standing. it can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry.”
—Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods
“Stephen is claiming the high moral ground. He stands with Abraham, with Moses, with David and Solomon, and with the prophets, while the present Jewish leadership are standing with Joseph’s brothers, with the Israelites who rejected Moses, and with those who helped Aaron build and worship the golden calf. As we consider our own traditions, and think of them lovingly since they ‘prove’ that we ourselves are in the right place in our worship and witness, perhaps sometimes we need to allow the story to be told differently, and to see whether we ourselves might be in the wrong place within it.”
—N.T. Wright
“At the end, idols completely fail. They not only fail to deliver the godlikeness and immortality they promised at first, they rob their worshipers of even the most minimal human dignity and agency. Of all the charges the biblical prophets file against idols, the most damning is this: “Those who make them become like them.” The very human creativity that was able to fashion a god substitute is undermined and eventually eradicated by idolatry. The idol maker, originally an image bearer, becomes as inanimate and mute as a statue, no longer able to move, feel, care or love. The idol, originally invested with all the human hopes for power, ends up robbing human beings of their power…
All idols begin by offering great things for a very small price. All idols then fail, more and more consistently, to deliver on their original promises, while ratcheting up their demands, which initially seemed so reasonable, for worship and sacrifice. In the end they fail completely, even as they make categorical demands. In the memorable phrase of the psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover, idols ask for more and more, while giving less and less, until eventually they demand everything and give nothing.”
—Andy Crouch, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power
