I had long struggled with Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7. Why did he refer to Abraham and Joseph and Moses, but only mentioned David very briefly, and nothing of Joshua and Samuel?
Then I realised; Stephen answered the allegations made against him. The Sanhedrin heard ‘false witnesses’ say: “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.”
The phrase ‘this holy place’ betrayed a misunderstanding of the Old Testament. The holy place was, in reality, wherever God was present with His people; Abraham in Mesopotamia, Joseph in Egypt, Moses in the desert. The people had become obsessed with ‘this holy place.’ In the words of Stephen, they ‘always resist the Holy Spirit’ (v51). Their focus was entirely wrong – a land, Israel; a city, Jerusalem; a building, the temple. Actually God calls us to know Him through Jesus Christ. Location is not a problem.
The people that Stephen referred to, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, enjoyed God’s presence and blessing outside ‘this holy place.’ We might add Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego to this list; they knew the presence of the fourth person in the furnace, one ‘like a son of the gods.’ Under God’s sovereign influence, Mordecai and Esther similarly introduced the feast of Purim across a pagan empire (Esth 9.29-32).
Jesus sent His followers, the Twelve and the Seventy (Luke chapters 9 and 10) as sheep into the midst of wolves. He instructed them not to expect a warm welcome everywhere. Yet the message of life and hope is delivered to draw many to Christ.
The expectation from this chapter is that (1) the people of God will expect to find themselves in a hostile situation and (2) the people of God will bring blessing into that environment.