Religious Rejection and the Bible | Holy Disruption

Summary

Brew City Church Podcast: “Religious Rejection and the Bible” | Holy Disruption

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Brew City Church continues its “Holy Disruption” series, focusing on Acts chapter 7 and the pivotal narrative of Stephen—the Church’s first martyr. The teaching dives into themes of religious rejection, the challenges facing those who follow the Spirit into new territory, and the enduring role of the Scriptures in shaping both personal and communal faith. The episode is rich with reflection for those who’ve experienced exclusion within their faith communities and offers encouragement to progressive Christians wrestling with their heritage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Acts 7 and the Tension of Change

• The Story’s Pivotal Moment
  The episode begins by situating listeners in Acts chapter 7, likening this part of the narrative to the 20-minute mark of a movie, where everything feels familiar—until a major shift changes everything ([02:09–05:14]).

  • Quote: “We’ve settled into this story... But if you had that feeling that something major, something bad is about to happen, that’s where we are in the story.” (04:02–04:08)

• Stephen Steps Forward
  Stephen, a Hellenist Jewish Christian appointed to serve marginalized widows, unexpectedly becomes the Church’s first martyr—a moment that radically disrupts and transforms the Christian community ([04:23–05:14]).

2. The Synagogue of the Freedmen & Internal Rejection

• Background: The Synagogue of the Freedmen

  • Explains that synagogues were not part of the Old Testament narrative and arose as a creative response during Israel's exile ([10:23–12:48]).
  • The synagogue of the Freedmen was comprised of former slaves now living as free people, primarily Hellenistic Jews from gentile regions ([13:07–14:33]).

• Irony and Tragedy: Oppressed People Rejecting the Liberated

  • The Freedmen, themselves formerly marginalized, oppose Stephen’s Spirit-empowered ministry out of fear and a desire not to jeopardize their own tenuous position ([14:49–15:27]).
  • Quote: "People who had been given their freedom, people who were oppressed—oppressed people whose lives were seen as less than... are now perceiving threats to that freedom that they'd been given." (14:52–15:06)

3. Religious Gatekeeping & the Pain of Being Rejected by One's Own

• Not ‘the World’—But Our Own
  The narrative challenges the interpretation that Christian persecution is typically “the world versus the Church”; instead, Stephen is rejected by religious insiders, not pagans ([16:11–17:30]).

  • Quote: "Stephen's being rejected by his own religious people—the people who think that they hold the keys to the lock on where God lives." (17:30–17:42)

• Rejection as a Common Experience
  Many listeners can relate to this experience—being marginalized, judged, or called heretics by those closest within their own tradition due to a new, liberating sense of faith or spirituality ([18:42–20:55]).

  • Quote: “[We’ve] been invited by the spirit of God to inhabit this new kind of spirituality... and that means that many of us have experienced rejection by our own religious tradition.” (18:42–19:12)

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Stephen’s Speech before the Sanhedrin

Major Themes (23:29–27:26)

1. The People of God Are Pilgrims, Not Settlers

• God’s Presence is Not Confined
  • Stephen’s first point: God's presence has never been limited to one place or building (like the Temple); the people of God are “a pilgrim people” ([22:04–24:42]).
  • He recounts stories: Abraham called from Mesopotamia, Moses encountering God in exile, the burning bush described as "holy ground"—all demonstrating that God shows up outside perceived sacred spaces.
  • Quote: “The Holy Land is everywhere. There is no place... where you can step into the temple and that’s more sacred than stepping anywhere else.” (24:35–24:42)
  • Quote: “God cannot be contained by these walls... you gotta think beyond the walls of your religion.” (24:42–25:17)

2. God’s People Habitually Reject God’s Messengers

• A Pattern of Rejection
  • The second major point: throughout history, God's people have often rejected the very people sent to lead or liberate them (Joseph, Moses, the prophets—and ultimately, Jesus) ([25:17–27:26]).
  • Stephen calls out this “bad habit,” ultimately culminating in his stinging denunciation:
    • Quote: “You stiff-necked people, your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors; you always resist the Holy Spirit.” (26:46–27:01)
    • Quote: “Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute?... And now you have betrayed and murdered [the Righteous One].” (27:01–27:26)

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The Bible: Rooting New Faith in Old Stories

Improvisation Rooted in Scripture ([28:06–30:09])

• Stephen’s Spontaneous, Scripture-Soaked Defense
  • Stephen’s epic, jazz-like speech wasn’t rehearsed, but flowed from deep familiarity with the Scriptures.
  • Quote: “This is spontaneous theology brought to you by Stephen the Apostle… Stephen just knew his Bible.” (28:49–29:41)

The Progressive Christian’s Tension with Scripture ([30:09–35:52])

• Wrestling with the Bible

  • The speaker acknowledges many progressive Christians (himself included) feel ambivalence or even aversion toward the Bible, often due to negative church experiences or prior traditions that “idolized” the Bible ([30:59–32:12]).
  • But Stephen models a way of being deeply scriptural—even and especially when challenging traditional interpretations.
  • Quote: “It’s not that I or we want to be a church that believes these things and stands for these things in spite of the Bible... it’s because of the Bible that we’re following Jesus into these new spaces.” (35:33–35:52)

• Changing Convictions Because of, Not Despite, Scripture

  • The speaker shares personal examples: affirming inclusion, women in ministry, and a critique of judgmentalism—all “because of the Bible,” not in spite of it ([33:54–35:08]).
  • Quote: “I changed what I think about something like even human sexuality... not in spite of the scriptures, but because Galatians 5 exists...” (33:54–34:26)
  • Quote: “I believe women can lead in the church not because I don’t care about the scriptures, but because of all the women I see leading the church in the Bible.” (34:26–35:08)

• Pastoral Encouragement for the Weary

  • For those who feel disengaged or burned out on the Bible, there is no condemnation (“you got all the space in the world to be in that place”) ([36:11–36:24]).
  • Yet, the speaker sees his scriptural heritage—even from a tradition he’s moved beyond—as a deep gift: “I know and love the Bible... because of my upbringing.” ([36:40–36:51])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------| | 04:02–04:08 | "But if you had that feeling that something major, something bad is about to happen, that’s where we are in the story." | B | | 14:52–15:06 | "People who had been given their freedom, people who were oppressed... are now perceiving threats to that freedom that they'd been given." | C | | 17:30–17:42 | "Stephen's being rejected by his own religious people—the people who think that they hold the keys to the lock on where God lives." | B | | 18:42–19:12 | "[We’ve] been invited by the spirit of God to inhabit this new kind of spirituality... and that means that many of us have experienced rejection by our own religious tradition." | C | | 24:35–24:42 | "The Holy Land is everywhere. There is no place... where you can step into the temple and that’s more sacred than stepping anywhere else." | C | | 28:49–29:41 | “This is spontaneous theology brought to you by Stephen the Apostle… Stephen just knew his Bible.” | B | | 35:33–35:52 | "It’s not that I or we want to be a church that believes these things and stands for these things in spite of the Bible... it’s because of the Bible that we’re following Jesus into these new spaces." | C |

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:18–02:02: Opening prayer, setting the tone for reflection and gratitude.
• 04:02–05:14: Introducing the pivotal moment in Acts—Stephen’s martyrdom.
• 07:11–08:58: Stephen’s introduction, accusations, and echoes of Jesus’ trial.
• 10:23–12:48: Explanation of synagogues and the synagogue of the Freedmen.
• 14:49–16:10: The irony of oppression and marginalized communities fearing new moves of God.
• 16:53–20:58: Universal experience of religious rejection and its emotional cost.
• 22:04–24:42: First key point in Stephen’s speech: God’s presence transcends buildings.
• 25:17–27:26: Second key point in Stephen’s speech: a pattern of rejecting God’s messengers.
• 28:06–30:09: The improvisational, jazz-like nature of Stephen’s scripture-rooted speech.
• 31:01–35:52: Wrestling with scripture as a progressive Christian; convictions based on the Bible.
• 36:11–36:51: Pastoral, grace-filled encouragement for those weary or wounded by their scriptural heritage.

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Final Takeaways

• The story of Stephen in Acts is not about “the world” persecuting Christians, but about religious insiders fearing and resisting the new, even when it’s the Spirit leading.
• There’s a deep encouragement for those who have been rejected by their faith communities for seeking a greater, freer experience of God—“your story is found in the Scripture.”
• Even for those reshaping their theology or spirituality, the Scriptures are not an adversary but a generative resource—a “gift in our inheritance.”
• This episode invites listeners to hold both the wound and the wisdom of their tradition, rooting progressive faith in the ancient soil of the Bible, even amidst holy disruption.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Bruce City Church Podcast. We are a Christian church following in the way of Jesus and located in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. We're glad you've joined us and we hope you enjoy this week's message.

[B]

Let me pray before we dive into the story of Acts in the scriptures again.

[C]

God, I'm.

[B]

I'm always just grateful. It's easy to just go through the motions and sing the songs and take communion and listen to the sermon and do all the things, but I just want to tell you I'm grateful as I sat down with the elements this week. I'm just grateful, Jesus, that you inhabited a human body. And what that means. Jeez, I don't have time to think about everything that means, but I think it means something about my body, about humanity, about God, about the world we live in, and about the stuff in our lives that we don't think matter. I think it matters because you inhabited matter. I'm grateful for these rituals and reminders that can teach us and remind us of different things on different weeks. And so would you use this story that's been told many, many times in similar fashions? Would you maybe use it to speak to us in similar and different ways? We just welcome you, Holy Spirit. Thank you for guiding us and shaping us just like you did to the church a couple thousand years ago. Thank you, God, for these stories. Would you continue to root us in them? In Jesus name, Amen.

[C]

Well, just as the kids, as we

[B]

can hear, are getting rooted in the

[C]

stories that we're telling this morning, we're

[B]

continuing our series in the Book of Acts. We're probably three months or so into our series in the Book of Acts.

[C]

We're in chapter seven this morning. We've. We're. If the Book of Acts were a

[B]

movie that we're going through, we'd probably

[C]

be at that like 20 minute, ish stage of the movie where you're about

[B]

20, 25 minutes in, some things have

[C]

happened, but you feel really acquainted with the main characters. Do you know what I'm talking about? Where you're like, okay, I get this. I get where I'm where I should be in the story. This feels good. I like the characters. We've developed some rapport. We're good to go. But then usually at that point in the story, when you're about 20ish minutes in and you feel good, you feel solid, you feel like, okay, I'm here.

[B]

You also know that there's another dynamic that you feel in that point in the movie, right? Because when you feel good about where things are, that's often when, you know,

[C]

you can just feel it.

[B]

Sometimes in a movie, it's gonna explode,

[C]

like something bad's about to happen. Do you have a person in your

[B]

life where you watch a movie and you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't like this.

[C]

Like, don't go into that room. Don't do it.

[B]

Right. You just feel something's about to happen.

[C]

They get a little jittery. Like, could you just calm down because

[B]

I can't do this with you right now. Right. You know, we're at that point in the story of the Book of Acts

[C]

where the jittery people starts getting restless

[B]

in their seats because something is clearly about to happen.

[C]

We've settled into this story, and we've gotten to know the main characters. We've gotten to know Peter and John and the. And the disciples and the Holy Spirit doing some really beautiful and fun and unique things. We've settled into the story.

[B]

But if you had that feeling that

[C]

something major, something bad is about to

[B]

happen, that's where we are in the story.

[C]

It's not even that something bad is about to happen.

[B]

Something bad is about to happen, but

[C]

it's this occurrence that changes everything, everything

[B]

in the story, this moment that we're at right now. Stephen, who we just met last week in Acts 6, who's one of these seven Hellenist Jewish Christian men who have been appointed to just serve and to lead in some fairly normal ways, he's going to take center stage. And we're at that point in the story where Stephen is going to become

[C]

the first martyr in the church.

[B]

And when Stephen dies, it's basically the spark that lights the fire, that burns down all the walls and boundaries that the church had known up until this moment. And everything in the story is going to change. So we're at that moment, and what

[C]

we're going to do this morning, we're going to walk through the story. Last week we looked at seven verses.

[B]

Acts 6, 1, 7, just seven verses, nice and neat and tidy. This week, there's 68 verses. Just gonna let you sit with that for a moment. Don't worry, I'm not gonna read them all. We're not gonna spend the next hour reading through this story. We're gonna.

[C]

I'm gonna paraphrase it a little bit. What we're gonna do. I've got four things I want to

[B]

say with the rest of our time.

[C]

And the first thing and the last thing are both observations about this Story,

[B]

our book ends just observations about the story in general.

[C]

And then the meat in the middle is going to be two facets. Stephen gives this epic speech. It actually. Luke fills up the Book of Acts with this speech. 5% of the entire book of Acts

[B]

is Stephen's speech here in front of the Sanhedrin. That's considerable.

[C]

But scholars would say there are two main points to Stephen's speech, and I

[B]

want to talk about them.

[C]

So we're gonna talk about an observation about this story to begin with.

[B]

Then his two main points, we're gonna go into and just paraphrase it. And then I want to make one last observation. Okay, so let's just dive in, because it's 60 verses. Don't. Again, we're not doing it all. But this is Acts 6. Starting in verse 8 again, we have that story that came before of the Hellenistic widows.

[C]

Get the. The Greek.

[B]

The.

[C]

The Greek widows, the Hellenistic widows who were being neglected and dehumanized by their Hebraic Jewish men in the. In their midst. It's a. It was a rich, rich topic.

[B]

You should check out the sermon if you weren't here last week. But let's just dive back into the story.

[C]

Verse 8. Now, Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power performed great wonders and

[B]

signs among the people.

[C]

Opposition arose, however, from members of the

[B]

Synagogue of Freedmen, as it was called,

[C]

Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria, as well

[B]

as provinces of Cilicia and Asia, who began to argue with. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.

[C]

Then they were secret.

[B]

Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, hey, we have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses, against God.

[C]

So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law.

[B]

They seized Stephen and brought him before

[C]

the Sanhedrin Again, this body of rulers

[B]

and leaders called the Sanhedrin. They produce false witnesses who testified.

[C]

Now, this should remind you of something.

[B]

A person going before the Sanhedrin being on trial and people being brought up who are being. Bringing false accusations and lying about. This person doesn't remind you of anything. Luke, the writer of the story, is hoping it does. So they stirred up the verse 12. So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen, brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses who testified. This fellow never stopped speaking against this holy place. That's the temple, and against the law. Those are the two most important things in ancient Jewish theology.

[C]

For we heard him Say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place

[B]

and change all the customs Moses handed down to us. Feeling more familiar, all who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen and they saw his face, that his face was like the face of an angel.

[C]

Now let's just, let me, let me

[B]

just point out a couple of things here.

[C]

First of all, it says now Stephen was a man full of God's grace in power and performed great wonders and signs among the people. Now this is, this should, this is starting out in a way that should be a really beautiful, life giving, powerful story. See this Stephen, who is one of these seven Hellenistic men who were, who were appointed to, to wait on tables to serve the Hellenistic widows and the Jewish, the Hellenistic Jewish Christian widows. He's doing more than just waiting on tables. Now like this Stephen, who was appointed and entrusted with caring for the least of these and the marginalized in the community now is obviously full of the Holy Spirit in such a way and full of it says God's grace and power. He begins breaking out of this role

[B]

that he was given to wait on tables.

[C]

He begins preaching the gospel in ways he wasn't. We don't know if he was empowered to do so or if it was just that he couldn't help himself. But this should be a good story.

[B]

Stephen. This guy you would never expect to

[C]

be this powerful leader in the church is doing it.

[B]

And what we find is that he's

[C]

kind of among his own people because it says that he, he goes to the synagogue of the Freedmen. Now let me just pause and let's geek out a little bit for a

[B]

moment on the synagogue of Freedmen.

[C]

First of all,

[B]

this synagogue, that word

[C]

should be, if we were new to

[B]

the Bible that, and we were just

[C]

reading through it in succession, this word synagogue would be a strange word to us. Because see, synagogues are a completely different

[B]

new phenomenon in the biblical canon at this point.

[C]

If you read through the Old Testament

[B]

and you do it with a certain

[C]

filter, you'll realize synagogues are nowhere to

[B]

be found in the Old Testament. They didn't exist. See, the Old Testament was a, was

[C]

a religious tradition that was based on two main things. The Torah, the law that God gave the Israelites way back on Mount Sinai and and then added to it along the way to have a couple hundred laws that in and of itself was kind of like the end all be all for the Jewish people alongside the Temple.

[B]

The Temple is everything for the Jewish people.

[C]

It's where the, they believed, where the presence of God resided in Jerusalem, in the Temple, in this holy space. And so in the Old Testament, all you see is this worship of the Temple and this worship in the Temple. But all of a sudden in the

[B]

New Testament, Jesus arrives on the scene.

[C]

And what does he do in Luke 4, he just goes and he preaches in their synagogues, it says. And then he goes to one particular

[B]

synagogue and unrolls the scroll and starts preaching from it. What we find is that synagogues are completely new developments in this, what we would call second Temple Jewish reality. And this happened probably because the Israelites

[C]

were sent off into exile. They were conquered by the Babylonian people. Jerusalem was mostly destroyed. The Temple was completely destroyed. They were taken off into captivity. And what happens when you're not in that holy place, that holy land, you're taken all over the place. What happens? You can't be tied to that one place.

[B]

And you have to actually improvise and you have to actually kind of say,

[C]

what is the Spirit doing now? And so we see these synagogues being built all over the place, probably as a response to the diaspora, the people of God being decentralized and moving all

[B]

over the place, not being able to pilgrimage to the Temple anymore.

[C]

So this is just a new wrinkle, a new kind of religious practice that scholars would point out that we pretty much just roll right over.

[B]

It's interesting to me. That's all I'm going to say about it.

[C]

Then we have. It's not just a synagogue, but it's a synagogue of the freedmen.

[B]

It says, what's going on there? Who, who are the freed men that are in this story kind of causing all the trouble?

[C]

Well, it turns out that this was a fairly common practice. See, slavery was just a normal thing in this world. And it wasn't like chattel slavery. I'm not in one. I see when I say chattel slavery,

[B]

I mean American kind of slavery, race based slavery.

[C]

It was not that kind of slavery. It was just part of their society, part of their culture, part of their economics. And sometimes you would have slave owners who would emancipate their slaves and give slaves their freedom.

[B]

And when they did that, those slaves

[C]

would become part of their family. So they're mostly not slaves anymore, even though they still have to answer to

[B]

their slaves for former slave owner because of paterfamilia, this law that says the husband, the man, the father and the family has all the rights and all the save.

[C]

But these were former slaves who had been freed. You're now part of the family and they get to live their lives. And there's a whole synagogue made out of these synagogue of freedmen. These folks kind of wanted to band together and have the same experience on life together. And this is mostly Hellenistic Jewish people who are worshipping at this. At this synagogue. We know it because it says where they're from. Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria in the

[B]

provinces of Cilicia and Asia.

[C]

These are gentile areas. These are areas where Hellenistic Jewish people worshiped.

[B]

And this is the synagogue.

[C]

And what's interesting is that these freedmen

[B]

had an issue with Stephen preaching the gospel.

[C]

This is where the sad. It should be a beautiful story, but

[B]

it turns into a sad story. Because people who had been given their

[C]

freedom, people who were oppressed, oppressed people who were kind of their lives were seen as less than. And now they had their freedom. Are living their lives, seeing everything else.

[B]

It seems like perhaps perceiving threats to that freedom that they'd been given. They're good Jewish people, good Jewish men and women who are worshiping God. But they want to do so in a way that doesn't cause any attention to themselves.

[C]

That doesn't make. Put their newfound freedom at risk, perhaps.

[B]

And then they start doing. What religious people start doing is when it seems like God's doing something new and unique and fresh in the world. We religious people often perceive that thing as a threat. See, there's maybe even a couple of layers here. One is Stephen's a Hellenistic Jewish man,

[C]

just like these freedmen are.

[B]

And what's interesting is how they perceive Stephen's.

[C]

Like I said before, how they perceive Stephen's newfound life in the spirit. And newfound religious freedom and beauty. And being filled up and being inhabited by the God of all creation. You would think they'd be celebrating this,

[B]

but instead they perceive it, as I said, a threat. Because people who have been oppressed, it's easy for us to look out in the world and see how might this go away. And this is the first observation I want to make about the story. Is that this is just religious people in many ways, being religious people, religious people being religious people. And by that, I mean I used to take this story. And I was taught this story over and over again. Almost every time I heard it taught, it was that the world will always oppose itself to the people of God. Did you hear it that way as well?

[C]

That this is a story of Stephen, the first martyr. And that means that Stephen. That we can identify with Stephen. Because Stephen was oppressed by the world and opposed by the world. And they didn't want anything to do with the ways of Jesus because they were of the world.

[B]

Turns out that's not the case at all. Turns out Stephen's being rejected by Stephen's own people. Turns out Stephen's not being rejected by the godless pagans who don't want anything to do with God.

[C]

Turns out Stephen's being rejected by the

[B]

people who think that they hold the keys to the lock on where God lives. In other words, Stephen's being rejected by the gatekeepers.

[C]

Stephen's being rejected by his own religious people. Stephen's being rejected by the people who are insecure in their own position before God. And so they bring this attention to the gatekeepers.

[B]

This is a story of religious people being so addicted perhaps to the clarity

[C]

and the certainty that they have in

[B]

their religion that they've been given that when somebody brings a new message or God starts doing something new and unique, when there's a new message and a new way happening in this tradition, we perceive it as a threat and they reject their own. And the story gets uglier from there. And the reason that I'm pointing that out, friends, is because I know that many of us know exactly what this feels like. I know there's many of us who have, similarly to Stephen, I want to say, experienced and felt like we've been

[C]

invited by the spirit of God to

[B]

inhabit this new kind of spirituality. Does anybody else identify with that? We feel like we've been invited by God into a more spacious, more liberative, more generative kind of theology and spirituality. We feel like we've been invited by Jesus.

[C]

What we're doing by inhabiting this new spirituality is just simply following where Jesus is leading us.

[B]

And that means that many of us have been. Have experienced rejection by our own religious tradition. I know there's story after story here in this room and online listening along where we could say that Stephen's story is my story. Actually,

[C]

some of us have to censor

[B]

ourselves when we're talking to the people that we love the most. Sometimes even some of us are seen as heretics and are prayed for by the people that we love the most sometimes because of this new spirituality that we've been invited by the spirit of God into. Do you know what I'm talking about? And so I want to say, if that's you, if that's your story, I just want to tell you you've got good company in the scriptures. See, this is nothing. This is what comforts me. This is one of the. The many, many, many reasons why I want to root ourselves in the scriptures is because we find our stories in the scriptures. It's discouraging, but also encouraging to me that this reality of being rejected by your own religious tradition, being when you're just following Jesus, is actually just really normal, unfortunately. So take heart, friends. When God is doing something new and fresh, which is almost always, by the way, it's always going to be seen with slant eyes and side eye look

[C]

and stink eyes and a lot of

[B]

feeling threatened by the people who have their spirituality figured out perfectly when something new and fresh is happening. Are you with me?

[C]

So that's the first observation of the story.

[B]

Now, I want to.

[C]

We're going to dive into the speech that.

[B]

That Stephen gives, the whole 5% of

[C]

the book of Acts thing, but we don't have time to go into the whole speech.

[B]

I'm not going to read through it.

[C]

So I want to just highlight two main points that Stephen makes in this speech. There's two things. It seems like he just kind of goes on this rambly preach about this

[B]

history of the people of God, but

[C]

it's actually more than that. It's way more intentional. And Stephen, scholars believe, was trying to make two main points. The first of them is. So the first thing that his accusers are accusing him of is basically saying he's trying. He's saying that Jesus this, Jesus that he follows, doesn't care about the temple, and as a matter of fact, is going to destroy the temple, the most sacred place in Judaism, the place that gives us our identity as a people. Jesus is going to tear it down. And Stephen, in this course of. This message, in the course of defending himself, is making.

[B]

The first point is the people of God have always been a pilgrim people.

[C]

The people of God have always been a people moving about and wandering and tied to one place, and God shows up in those places. That's the first point Stephen's trying to

[B]

make in this speech of his.

[C]

And Lee's gonna pop these verses up here that just kind of highlight and show how Stephen is highlighting how the people of God have always been a people who haven't been tied and tethered to one place in one location, but have been following God wherever God shows up. He highlights this as how Moses, from the very beginning, he first says how Abraham grew up in Mesopotamia and God called Moses from this pagan land. Not in the holy space, but in this pagan land, God called him. And then Moses lived his life with his family, wandering. He never saw the promised land, Stephen says. And then even Moses, Moses is one that we regard and revere so highly. He says Moses grew up in Egypt in the enemy territory. This is who God picked to lead the people of God as someone who didn't live in this central location. And then he says he keeps going and talks, talking about how Moses was encountered by God after he had to flee in exile and be in this foreign place, in this alien nation where this pagan nation was, where nothing good was, they thought.

[B]

And God shows up in the burning bush. And he says. Stephen says this little tidbit that is super fun.

[C]

He highlights how God spoke to Moses and said, hey, this is holy ground.

[B]

Just so you know. So take off your sandals, dude.

[C]

Show a little respect.

[B]

And the reason that Stephen highlighted that was to show them. Do you remember where this was that God said, this is holy and sacred land? It wasn't in the temple, friends. It wasn't in Jerusalem. It wasn't in Israel.

[C]

It was this place that we would

[B]

look at as a people, as a religious people and say, that is dirty over there. That is pagan. That is God forsaken. And. And Moses shows up and God says, bro, show a little respect, because this land that you're standing on is sacred. It's holy land. In other words, the Holy Land is everywhere. There is no place Stephen's trying to

[C]

tell us where we can go. There is. You can't step into the temple. And that's more sacred than stepping anywhere else.

[B]

See, the people of God have always been a pilgrim. People who are foolish following along wherever God leads them in. Those spaces are holy because the presence of God is there. The presence of God is everywhere. Stephen's trying to tell him, God cannot be contained by these walls. So don't be so threatened when somebody like Jesus says, you gotta think beyond the walls of your religion. You gotta think beyond the walls of this temple. Don't be surprised because this is. Stephen says this has always been happening. Second point that Stephen lays out in

[C]

this epically long speech is that there's this bad habit that the people of God have. And I already alluded to it a little bit, but right in the speech, he subversively is trying to point out with story after story after story that the bad habit the people of God have is rejecting the people that God

[B]

sends to God's people.

[C]

He tells story after story. If you look, because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave to Egypt. And then the story goes on, and you'll see these little hints and tidbits. You can keep going. The yes Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to save them, but they did not. He keeps kind of going through and making these points of. There's always along the way in our story of the history of God's people. God's people reject the people that God

[B]

sends to rescue them.

[C]

It happens over and over and over again. Paul Stephen keeps highlighting it and this is kind of echoing Jesus. Jesus told parable after parable about this same reality happening that God's people don't seem to understand when God is doing

[B]

something liberative in bringing freedom.

[C]

God's people don't seem to ever recognize

[B]

that when God sends someone begins a

[C]

movement of doing something new, we always

[B]

seem to miss it and get it wrong. This is nothing new. Stephen showing and he ends it by

[C]

saying, you stiff necked people, your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. These are such fighting words, friends. You stubborn stiff necked people. Can you go back?

[B]

I'm sorry.

[C]

Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Now you can keep going. Lee, thank you. 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. He's just highlighting Jesus is the culmination of all those ones, of all the Abrahams and Moses and all the prophets that God sent that were rejected.

[B]

And now you've married and betrayed the Holy One of Israel. So Stephen, what we find is Stephen

[C]

uses their story, the story of the people of Israel, the people who are

[B]

accusing him of heresy, of accusing him

[C]

of just trying to destroy their faith tradition. And he uses what their faith tradition

[B]

is built on the scriptures to show harang there. And that's the last little observation that I want to leave you with, that I want to talk about for a few minutes. Here is how Stephen came at his accusers and what Stephen brought to them.

[C]

See, most scholars think that this is a real speech. Some think that this is a speech that was kind of dropped in there by Luke and inserted in order to kind of situate our theology for the

[B]

listeners and in the readers of this story really well.

[C]

But most scholars think this actually happened. And most scholars who think this actually happened think this story seems to be this speech seems to be a speech that was not planned and premeditated and

[B]

written ahead of time like this sermon was.

[C]

This seems to be a speech that's kind of like a great jazz player who's just improvising in the moment, or like a. Like a freestyle MC who's in the moment, in the flow, just

[B]

spitting it. This is spontaneous theology brought to you by Stephen the Apostle. And the reason that I think that's pretty remarkable, Friends, is because this is an excellent, incredible speech. And there's one reason why Stephen could give a speech like this, spit in a freestyle, like an emcee or an improvisational jazz performer. And the reason is, friends, and this is not a very good point for a progressive Christian post evangelical pastor like myself, but I can't not see this. Stephen just knew his Bible. See, the reason Stephen could give this

[C]

epically long speech that takes up 5%

[B]

of the book of Acts and do it in a stunningly biblically accurate way is because Stephen seemed to just know his Bible. Stephen had spent his life in the Scriptures and given his life to the Scriptures. And so he was able to break down a moment and see it through these scriptural lenses and root his reality through the story of the people of

[C]

God, because that is how he rooted his entire life.

[B]

He knew his Bible. And if you're new around here, if

[C]

this is your first Sunday at Bridge

[B]

City Church, first of all, I want to say welcome. Thank you for being here. Honestly, it's a privilege to have you here.

[C]

And we are a community who has kind of evolved and changed over time. And where we are now is what people would call more of a progressive Christian church. And I don't like labels. I don't like putting labels on ourselves, but that's just an easy way to

[B]

communicate it in many ways in many progressive Christian churches like us, even though not tons of them exist in progressive Christians like me or like some of us

[C]

kind of have this nuanced relationship with the Bible.

[B]

Do you know what I'm talking about?

[C]

Like, some of us are here in progressive Christianity because of our relationship with

[B]

the Bible, because of how we've been

[C]

taught the Bible and what we've been taught about the Bible. And it doesn't seem to square with us very well. And so we're in this new space where we see the Scriptures in a different way and we see God in a different way, and we see all the stuff in a different way. But the Scriptures are certainly one of them. And many within kind of our tribe seem to de. Emphasize the Bible, decentralize the Bible, right? And I get it, because we, many of us grew up in. In a tradition that did the opposite, that kind of worshiped the Bible, that idolized like. Like like the people who were opposing Stephen here were idolizing the temple. Our tradition in many ways that we grew up in, idolized the Bible. Really beautiful things, good things, gifts of God, but we turn them into God

[B]

and that becomes a bad thing.

[C]

So we've moved away from that and we kind of, in moving away from that way of looking at the Bible.

[B]

We move away from the Bible in general in many ways.

[C]

And we are certainly seen by the tradition, by the faith tradition we came out of is being heretical and not like having no foundation and would like,

[B]

certainly like we don't care about the Bible. And I think Stephen was probably seen as the exact same thing. This new thing, this movement that started with this person, Jesus, who was a

[C]

heretic to begin with.

[B]

They don't care about the scriptures, they

[C]

don't care about our traditions. They don't care about the things that they grew up in that they were taught. They don't care about the things that, that we believe in.

[B]

This is a non scriptural movement where these people are following this heretic named Jesus. And I want to say, I want to, I want to be challenged.

[C]

I want us as a church, I want me personally to be challenged by

[B]

how Stephen defended himself. See, Stephen took the very scriptures that he was accused of not knowing. I'll bet you any money that he was accused of walking away from that he was accused of not taking seriously. And he said, I'm going to use those same scriptures to show you Jesus. This is what God has been about from the very beginning. And he walks them through the scriptures because he knows them. And friends, I want to tell you, I can just speak for myself. I've landed in this new spirituality, this new theology. I see God as being more inclusive and loving, not in spite of the scriptures. Friends,

[C]

I changed what I think about something like even human sexuality. Not in spite of the scriptures, but because Galatians 5 exists. And it says, Paul says, if you want to know where the Spirit of God is, just look at the fruit that's being born is love. There is peace, there is self control, there is kindness there. All those things. And I want to tell you because of that scripture, I changed my mind about the queer community because I see

[B]

the spirit of God and the fruit

[C]

of the Spirit in spades in that community. I didn't change my mind in spite of the scriptures. I changed them because of the scriptures. I moved away from a judgmental, hypocritical form of Christianity, not because I want to ignore the scriptures, but because I see Jesus telling me to move away from a hypocritical, judgmental form of Christianity. I believe women can lead in the church not because I don't care about the scriptures, but because of all the woman I see leading the church in the Bible.

[B]

I see the scriptures in a different way, friends, in a more dynamic. What I feel like is a life

[C]

giving sort of way in a way that engages these stories and can wrestle with the scriptures and can even debate some of these things because I see this happening in the Bible. It's not that I or we want to be a church that believes these things and stands for these things in spite of the Bible because we don't care about the Bible. It's because of the Bible that we're

[B]

following Jesus into these new spaces. And I want to tell you, I hope you, friends, I hope we as a church know the Bible enough to see that. I hope you and I, if you've

[C]

gotten to a point where you're like,

[B]

I can't do the Bible right now, I can't do it. I was immersed in the Bible my whole life. I know it from front to back.

[C]

I've done all the sword drills and

[B]

all the awana things and I've got it memorized.

[C]

I've still got it, all of it in me. I just can't do it right now.

[B]

If that's where you are, I want

[C]

to tell you, don't hear this message

[B]

or what I'm saying right now is judgment or condemnation on you. I want to tell you, you got all the space in the world to be in that place.

[C]

Because sometimes we need to take a

[B]

break from the Bible like we've been given.

[C]

This is where as post evangelicals, we can dump on the evangelical church a lot. But this is where I think we've

[B]

been given a gift in our inheritance

[C]

from the evangelical church.

[B]

See, because I was raised in the

[C]

church, in the evangelical church that told me to know and love the Bible.

[B]

And guess what? I know and love the Bible.

[C]

Like I have so much Bible in

[B]

me because of my upbringing, because of the church, in the ministries that I was a part of and.