Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. And you know how you have this weird spidey sense when you watch a movie or a TV show where you just know by the way someone turns their head, you know when a certain new character is introduced is shown on screen for the first time, that they are going to really matter to this story later. And I suppose a good cinematographer is tipping their hand that this character is going to matter with just how they frame them or the depth of field. A lot of times when you see an important character introduced, they'll be in slow motion. And maybe the background of the shot will be all blown out and kind of fuzzy and they're really separated from the background. So you're only paying attention to them and they're lit a certain way. And you just know you can intuit. We're in the right place in the unfolding of the pacing of a movie. We're in the right place in terms of the look and the feel for that person to be important. Mental note. Think about when you meet Hangman, Glenn. Dang it, what's the guy's name? He's the Mr. Handsome Mr. Ick guy right now. And he was in the Hitman movie and he was in that one with Sidney Sweeney that was awful, and I only watched half of it and I left because I was miserable. And he was just in twisters. Glenn, is it Powell? Dang it, I don't know the guy's name. I'm gonna say it's Glenn Powell, but that sounds like a World War II general or an explorer in Wyoming in the 1800s. I'm gonna go with Glenn Powell. If it's something else you can make fun of me later. But that Glenn, whatever his name is, character, he shows up at the bar in Top Gun Maverick, and you just go, oh dang. Yeah, that guy's gonna matter. Because he's got all that swagger and he's lit the right way. And sure enough, it turns out that he really matters. And whether or not he gets a redemptive arc through the story is gonna kind of determine the outcome of whether the good guys win or lose in Top Gun Maverick. Or how about big long sweeping series like Game of Thrones, which again is a series I don't recommend you or anyone ever watch ever, but I watched it so that I could report the details to anyone who might want to know as a service to you. And in that show, there's an introduction of a character played by Natalie Dormer, Marjorie Tyrell, and you can just tell in that moment, ooh, she is dynamic and interesting, and she is going to play a big role in how this story is going to shake out. You just know this for a variety of conscious and subconscious reasons. And we, my friends, are about to get a moment like that in the New Testament in the book of Acts. There is a character who is going to play a huge role in the history of everything about Christianity, in the writing of the Bible, in the establishment of the church. And we've never even heard of him up until this point. Up until Acts chapter seven, he hasn't been on screen, he hasn't been mentioned, he hasn't been alluded to, but there's just something about the way Luke, that's the guy who wrote the book of Acts, there's something about the way Luke handles the description in this passage where you're like, uh, that guy right there who's just playing a bit part, that guy over there in the corner of the metaphorical bar lit by the metaphorical pool light leaning against the metaphorical wall, that dude right there, he is going to factor heavily. And indeed, that's what's about to happen. Okay, if you recall, yesterday we were talking about a generation two Christian, a dude named Stephen, who's just a complete baller. He's great with words, he is talented in a way that the religious leaders they can't defeat. Stephen is pro-Jesus, the religious leaders are anti-Jesus. They want to verbally rough up Stephen to make an example of him, and they can't. He can outmaneuver them, he understands the scriptures apparently better. And so they bring him in. They're like, Well, if we can't beat you, we'll just flog you or maybe kill you. They invite him in with the high priest and the Sanhedrin, that's the religious leadership council. And they're like, all right, Stephen, what are you doing? What's with all of this stuff? Are you blaspheming Moses? And he gives this brilliant speech where he basically says, nah, I'm not blaspheming Moses, you guys are. Because Moses, everything about him was pointing to Jesus. And so I'm actually on Team Moses. You guys who act like you're on Team Moses, you're actually on not Team Moses. That makes him real, real, real mad. And they start gnashing their teeth at him. I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I imagine it's just like there's mouth noises and clicking. I don't know. I don't know what gnashing is, but apparently it was very intimidating and meant they were very angry at Stephen. And so Acts 7.54 says, when they 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. Okay, I just I want to keep going with the story, but I need to pause right here. I know that there are a bunch of you who listen to this who are like, I am a Christian and I have gone to church for a long time. I know there are others of you who are like, I was a Christian, I think, but then my life hurt and things got weird. Maybe I'm not now, or maybe I don't know exactly where I'm at on all of this now, but I'm interested in the Bible, so I'm here. I know there are others of you who are here simply out of empathy because there are people in your life who you care about whose lives are shaped by the Bible and who believe in God. And because you are a kind and compassionate person and you want to understand the people in your life who you care about, you listen to this. It's kind of like your little cheat sheet. I love it. That's brilliant. Thank you for being here, and thank you for caring about other people and trying to put yourself in their shoes and to see the best in what they believe in and what shapes them. That's super admirable. I know there are others of you who are here who do not think there's a God. You do not think God is behind the Bible. Maybe some of you in this camp hope there's a God. Maybe some of you don't know what you hope for, but the point is, I understand, I am very well aware, it is super not lost on me, that we're different. I mean, there's a huge variety of us involved in this conversation. I know for some of you, you might imagine that anybody who is a Christian would report things like this. Like you might imagine that Christians believe that they just look up to heaven all the time and just see Jesus at the right hand of the Father. It's a miracle. But to those of you who are not Christians and have never been, I want to tell you that what is being reported here in Acts chapter 7 is actually very abnormal. I've never looked to heaven and seen God physically. That's not something I've ever heard anybody else I know well report. This is very unusual, and it's easy to gloss over it because it just sounds like Bible stuff. I'm like, oh, you know, I see God and I believe in the Lord. But this is weird even in the Bible. There aren't tons and tons of instances where God, like God the Father, shows up in a visible way. This is very exceptional. And I mean, you're not you're not idiots. Even if you've never read this story before, you can tell where it's going. They're gonna kill him. And in a few more sentences, they kill him. They're gonna push him down into a like a pit or down a hill. And all of these religious leaders are about to pick up rocks and hit him in the head with them until he dies. That's what's coming. So this is gonna be the first martyrdom in Christianity that we're about to read together. And I think it is remarkable that one of the few places in the Bible where God the Father shows up and makes him visible to just some guy, one of his many, many, many, many, many, many followers. I think it's pretty cool that the Bible holds this out as having happened in this moment for this guy who would be the first one to follow in Jesus' footsteps and be killed by the enemies of Jesus. So I wanted to pause for a minute and acknowledge hey, whether you're a Christian or not a Christian or don't know what to make of it, like whoever you are, I just want you to know, I think this is pretty abnormal and a pretty remarkable thing, even in a book like the Bible that is full of miraculous accounts, this is still incredible. Well, you know what? I bet that none of those religious leaders who are about to pick up rocks and murder this dude, I bet none of them have ever looked into heaven and seen the Father either. I bet they've never seen Jesus at the right hand of the Father. I don't think they've seen God. So I guess their assumption would be, well, that can't happen because I'm the most righteous and perfect and noble ever, and I have this cool religious outfit on, and I have this cool religious title, and I haven't seen God. So if I hadn't, surely some guy who's just in here spouting off nonsense, surely he hasn't. So I think there are a couple layers to their outrage, the religious leader's outrage at Stephen over this, one being their own insecurity, the other being that he says Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, that outrages him. But I also think there's a couple layers to why God in his knowledge and wisdom and providence and restraint would choose to intervene here and to encourage this guy, the first person to lay down his life for Jesus. I just think it's a really remarkable scene. 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 him, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him. This is moral insanity, by the way. Again, history has a compressive effect. If this happened yesterday in your town, it would be the most traumatic, dramatic, meaningful thing you've ever seen in your life. Your world would be shaken and upside down. You wouldn't know what to do with this. But happened a couple thousand years ago, halfway across the planet for most of us. I don't know. People threw rocks at people a lot back then, I guess. I mean, that's very, very sad, I suppose. It's very easy to put emotional distance between us and this. But I want to just pause for a minute and think about the moral insanity of the moment. Okay, first of all, these guys do not have a double O license. They are not licensed to kill. They are not the government. They are a subject government of an occupied country that is supposed to be vaguely cooperative with the occupying Romans who have been there since the 60s BC. The Romans have owned this place for the better part of a century at this point. They're very established. And the religious leaders have known their place in the political pecking order for a long time. It isn't just slipping their mind that they're not allowed to engage in capital punishment. They know dang well what their limitations are. They are so unhinged and so angry, and maybe some of them are internally in total crisis because they're afraid that maybe Peter and Stephen and John have a point, and maybe they accidentally did kill the Messiah. But they can't admit that now. They shed blood. They got to double down on the thing. All of this moral insanity comes together at gels in one moment, and they, these mature, dignified suit wearing leaders bum rush a dude who's in there by himself. And even though they don't have the authority to do it, they violate all the rules, all the laws, they risk their own political standing with Rome, and they drag him out. And without any discussion, any debate, any further trial, any sense of moderation like we got in the previous chapter with Gamaliel, where he's like, well, if it's from God, we might want to leave them alone. No! That guy said a thing that we won't let him say, and now we're gonna hit him with rocks until he's dead, and that's exactly what they do. And it doesn't look like anyone is putting up any argument or any resistance at all. In fact, we even get a casual vignette, a quick shot off to the side in the shadows of someone leaning against the metaphorical pool table, illuminated partially by the metaphorical pool table light, looking on at the whole scene with approval. And this is the guy who we just get one quick passing glance at, but we can tell he's gonna matter for a long time. So they drag Stephen out of the city, they begin to stone him, and then it says, Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. I'm gonna give you a little bit of a spoiler heads up. This Saul guy, he's going to go through a lot in the coming chapters. He's gonna flip teams in the coming chapters, and he's gonna quit going by Saul and start going by Paul. This guy who's looking on with approval at the murder of Stephen by the religious leadership is the guy who is going to write the book of Galatians that we're looking at in this season. Let me wrap up the chapter. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he fell to his knees and cried out, Lord, do not hold the sin against them. When he had said this, he fell asleep. I told you, this Stephen guy is a thematic follow-through on all the stuff about Jesus. You know, what did Jesus say when he was on the cross? I mean, one of the few things he said was, Forgive them, they know not what they do. Same deal here. Stephen looks like he's really following through on the Jesus stuff. He looks like he really understood what the Jesus stuff was about. Saul doesn't understand what the Jesus stuff is about. Here's the final verse of the chapter. And Saul was there giving approval to his death. Put a pin in that. That little vignette, that little shot, that little beginning, that little introduction of a character is the beginning of a thing that has massive implications for the unfolding of the entire world and also obviously the rest of the New Testament. All right, that's plenty for today. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.