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St. Stephen
00:30:52
Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber delve into Sacred Scripture's account of St. Stephen's leadership and final death. Watch Catholic Saints on FORMED. Sign Up for FORMED. Support this podcast and the Augustine Institute on the Mission Circle.
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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. Welcome to Form Live. I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augusta Institute, and with me is Dr. Michael Barber, a professor of Biblical studies here at the Augusta Institute. Our joy to be with you. And this week we're going to hear a lot in the readings, the daily readings from Acts of the apostles about St. Stephen. And we hear his trial and then his martyrdom. And so we're going to talk and dedicate this as a kind of Bible study on St. Stephen and his trial and martyrdom, because Stephen becomes one of the first martyrs in the early Christian movement, and he's also one of the early key teachers, and he does a lot that really sets the. The groundwork for the mission work of the church. And of course, when we talk about St. Stephen, one of the beautiful things about the Easter season is that the church always goes back to its beginnings, to the beginning of the church, to that moment of fervor and fire that followed after Jesus resurrection from the dead. And so what we do is we go back and we read Acts of the Apostles, and it follows through in the readings of the Mass for Eastertide. And every Easter time, we do this every time after Easter. And it's such a joyful proclamation as we hear about Peter and John proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus. And of course, there's going to be tensions and there's going to be confrontation with the authorities, and then Stephen's full of the Holy Spirit and he's going to be a great witness, and yet we're going to have his martyrdom. And all of a sudden you're like, wait, martyrdom? That doesn't fit the Easter season. The Easter season is a season of joy. And yet for the early Christians, they celebrated the martyrdom of Stephen as a great victory. And so we're going to place this within how it fits within the Easter season, how it fits within this joyful season of seeing Stephen's great witness and victory. But I want to just set the stage briefly here. We read already in liturgy chapter six of the. Of the. Of Acts of the Apostles. And in chapter six, what we hear about is the apostles, the movements growing, so many conversions happening. And so the apostles are getting weighed down by their pastoral ministries. They need help, and they create the diaconate, and they lay hands and discern upon seven men. And of these seven men, Stephen is going to become one who's chosen. So already we see Stephen is one of the leaders in the early church that after the 12 apostles, you have the 12 choosing seven key leaders. And in that you get Stephen. And out of the seven, we're going to see Stephen as the standout. He's the one who is especially going to be filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom. And he is going to become the leading apologist for the Christian movement. You know, he is the one who can argue from the Scriptures. He's got an education and an articulation that's just convincing and compelling. And we're told that nobody can stand up to him. Right, Michael? Nobody can stand up to his eloquence and his argumentation. And he's just known for debating and winning.
- [03:18]
B
Right? And so in the Book of Acts, we discover that what ends up happening is the people in the synagogue try to withstand the wisdom that he speaks, and they can't, they can't defeat him, they can't refute his arguments. And of course, at that point, they bring him to the Sanhedrin, they bring him to the council. And any reader of Acts immediately feels uncomfortable, right? Because the last time you read about a man who was arrested and for untried and put on trial before the Sanhedrin, it didn't go too well, right? What happens with Jesus? Right. So we know Stephen is now going to be in the place of Christ. And in more than one way, Christ shows us what it means to be like Christ. So, yes, Stephen is full of the Holy Spirit. That's language that's used for Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. So he's full of the Spirit like Christ. He's a great teacher like Christ, he's full of wisdom like Christ that he's brought before the Sanhedrin like Christ. And as he's standing before them, he says, I have a vision. I see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Father. Of course, that reminds us what Jesus says in his trial before the Sanhedrin. He says, you will see the Son of Man at the right hand.
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A
You're getting ahead of us here because I want to get to his martyrdom. But let's go back to what you said about the trial. And you know, there are these parallels with Jesus trial.
- [04:44]
B
Yes.
- [04:45]
A
And of course, and what you get in chapter six, in verse 12, they gather together and they bring witnesses. And in verse 13, you get false witnesses, which is exactly what we get in the trial of Jesus, that at the Sanhedrin they've already prepared false witnesses to falsely accuse. Now the False witnesses here make a twofold accusation against Stephen. First, they say that he is preaching against God, or as it becomes more clarified in verse 13, against the temple. So he never ceases to speak against the temple, and then he speaks against the law or Moses. Now, it's interesting because one of the major false accusations against Jesus that we hear of in the trial of Jesus is he speaking against the temple. And, you know, destroy this temple in three days, I will rise it up. And then they use that and as if he's, you know, plotting or scheming against the temple rather than prophetically foretelling its doom. And of course, now they're talking about Stephen never ceasing to speak against the temple. What do you think? Let's just take that charge first, and then we'll move to the second charge with Moses. What do you think upsets them about Stephen's teaching that he's speaking against the temple?
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B
Right. Well, it does seem that in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus already identifies himself with the cornerstone, the stone that the builders rejected. And as many have pointed out, that seems to be a temple image. Of course, what's remarkable about that image is that Jesus is the cornerstone. That means he's not the entirety of the temple, Right? And first Peter is going to fill this out and explain that the church is the temple, Right? So it seems that there's something in Stephen's preaching where I think he's identifying Christ as, as he says in the Gospel, something greater than the temple. He's referring to Jesus teaching, maybe where Jesus identifies himself and the church in the place of the temple. And this is corrupted, this is turned against Stephen to make it sound as if he wants to bring down the temple itself. And of course, there's an agenda here. The agenda is they want to defeat Stephen. They're tired of this nuisance of this young man who's able to preach. And this is a novelty, right? Because up until this point, the major disciples of Jesus were fishermen, right? In the Gospel of John, the Jewish high priests and the leaders begin to question Jesus and they send the guards to go arrest Jesus. And they come back and they haven't arrested him. And they say, no one has ever taught like this man. They tell the leaders and. And the leaders say, what are you talking about? None of us, none of the Pharisees believe in Jesus, right? So an easy charge against Christianity is, well, Jesus is only someone that the reprobate, the stupid people, would follow. Now, you've got the educated class, the uneducated, right?
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Now you have somebody who's educated Stephen, who's articulating a compelling case.
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B
That's right.
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That the Messiah should suffer and die. And that's in the Scriptures.
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B
That's right.
- [07:51]
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And that the resurrection is foretold. And so he's making this case. And they're having a hard time proving that Jesus can't be the Messiah because he suffered and died. Because this apologetic is coming up.
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B
That's right.
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A
That the scriptures do foretell a suffering Messiah. David was a king who was righteous and suffered. And so a new David suffering unrighteous. That starts to become a compelling argument. Now. It could be as well. Do you think that. Because the early Christians, we're told in Acts, are going to the temple for teaching, but they're not participating in the sacrifices of the temple. And it could be that this idea that the sacrifices of the temple, maybe Stephen and the early Christians are saying you don't need to sacrifice anymore because of the sacrifice of Christ and they see that as an attack on the temple. Could that be part of the perceived Christian attack on the temple?
- [08:40]
B
Yeah, I think the idea that Jesus is the one who atones for sin is incredibly shocking. Right. Why does this person's death atone for sin? We already have the sacrifices of the temple. We already have sin offerings, guilt offerings. Why are you now talking as if Jesus is a sacrifice for sin? Now the early Christians are going to go to Isaiah 52, 53 and they're going to show this is foretold in the Scriptures. The temple is more than just a place of sacrifice in Jesus day.
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Right.
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B
It's the center of Jewish life. It's the bank, it's the place of public prayer. Of course, we know Peter and John go up at 3 o'. Clock. They go up at the time the Tamit offering is made in the temple. So the early Christians are still very much in the orbit of the temple and involved in the temple. But this idea that Jesus death brings about forgiveness of sins may have led to this charge that he was speaking against the temple. But one thing we know for sure, Jesus predicted that the temple would be destroyed. That's not a popular thing to go around announcing.
- [09:47]
A
Right, right, right. So the prediction, just like with Jesus trial, this prophetic prediction of the temple's doom is then simply taken as an attack on the Temple that you disregard the temple. Yes. And I think that gets to the point where perhaps in Stephen's speech in Chapter 8 of Acts, Stephen talks about the temple, doesn't he? And he quotes Isaiah and he says, look, you know, God can't simply dwell. He can't contain God in the temple. It seems that this idea that Stephen's relativizing the significance of the temple, whereas the Jewish high priesthood, the Pharisees, they tended to absolutize the importance of the temple. I mean, that was. That was. That was the center of Judaism, was the Temple, because that's where God was present. And the idea that God is present in Jesus relativizes the need for a temple. Right. If you have Jesus, who is the presence of God, and the new temple, and you have that he has died and risen and Jesus is raised, well, then the true temple is now in heaven, and it's not really here. And so this temple is a great place to teach, but it's not the locus of God's presence like it was before. So the locus of God's presence is moved to Jesus.
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And.
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And could that be part of why they think he's attacking the Temple?
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B
Right. I think so. And in fact, Stephen, in his speech will say a number of things to clearly relativize the Temple, right? Where he wants to emphasize that when Solomon built the temple, it was clear God can't be contained in this house. And then he has this remarkable line. He says, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands. Mess up the Greek word there. But the word in Greek means made by hands. And it's a word that's used in other, for example, the Scriptures of Israel to describe idols. Now, this is a shocking statement to say the temple is made by hands, because earlier in the same speech, he talks about how the golden calf was made by hands. What's Stephen saying?
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They've made the temple into an idol?
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I think that's the idea. Right. The temple is important, but it shouldn't be absolutized. And of course, in Acts, Stephen is going to mark a kind of segue where, because Stephen ends up dying. And we'll talk about this in a minute. There's a persecution that breaks out. That persecution impels the church out to the Gentiles. And one of the points that the Book of Acts wants to make is God is present with the Gentiles. God is not just present in Jerusalem, but he's present all over. And this is in some ways a radical claim for many Jews in Jesus day.
- [12:24]
A
And then this would lead to the second charge, that Stephen's speaking against the Torah, Right. The law, or against Moses. And so Moses is a towering figure for Judaism of the first century. Right. I mean, if you look at first century Judaism and especially the Pharisaic movement. It's a return to the law they want. They feel like we got into Babylonian captivity and dispersed into exile because our ancestors didn't follow the law. And so as they're trying to renew Israel, they double down on the law. And the idea is for the Pharisees, let's fulfill the law and then God will have to send us the Messiah and redeem us and vindicate us against our enemies. And so any failure or shortcoming in terms of adherence to the law puts off the renewal of Israel that much further. That's why they're so zealous and, and so now they're accusing Stephen of not following Moses in the law. And Stephen's going to turn that on its head, isn't he?
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B
Yes, he does.
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A
How does he do that in his speech?
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One of the main ways he does is he highlights the way God's people in the Scriptures have frequently persecuted God's chosen anointed one. Right. So whether that be Joseph in the Old Testament or Moses, the people don't always acknowledge the one God has raised up. But then he uses a phrase that's really significant. He says, you stiff necked people, uncircumcised in heart. You see, at the end of the Torah, Moses announced that one day God will circumcise the heart of his people. And this is what will enable his people to be righteous. Right? You can't be righteous on your own. You can't be righteous by just mustering up the desire, the will to follow the Torah. No, it's got to be a gift. It's got to be because God is, as Jeremiah will explain, will write it on the hearts. And earlier in Acts 2, when Peter preaches to the crowd about the resurrection of Jesus, we read that the crowd heard him and they were cut to the heart there. We have that idea that God circumcises their heart. So already in the Torah you have this idea that here are the laws and you are to keep them, but you can't keep them until God circumcises your heart. Right? And so Stephen, I think in using this phrase, you're, you're uncircumcised in heart is pointing out that the law has never been enough. Right? It's not just enough to keep all the commandments. You need the Lord to do something for you. And this is what is going to happen in Christ Jesus.
- [14:50]
A
That's such a beautiful thing that Stephen does by evoking the scriptures of Israel and evoking, you know, the very end of Deuteronomy where this promise of circumcised hearts, right? And he turns it to them and says, you have uncircumcised hearts. And then he says, look, you know, basically they're accusing Stephen and the early Christians of abandoning Moses. And he flips the tables on them. He says, you are the ones who are stiff necked. You're the ones disobeying Moses, just like your ancestors disobeyed Moses. And so he recounts this little story of salvation history, which is heavy on Moses. And he says, look, when Moses as God's representative and mediator to the covenant comes, they keep the people kept rebelling against Moses. And, and now that Jesus comes as the new Moses, what we see is the fulfillment of the same story. It's the same plot, same story replayed, recycled. Because Moses experiences the rejection and rebellion of the people, he is called to serve Israel. And now Jesus comes, Stephen suggesting as the new Moses, a prophet like me. He even quotes that from Deuteronomy 18:15, where Moses says, God will raise up for you a prophet like me. Listen to him is the admonition that Moses gives. And Stephen saying, you didn't listen to him, you disobeyed Moses. We're the ones obeying Moses by listening to the prophet that he foretold would come up after him, who would give us a new Torah and usher in a new covenant, we're obeying him and you actually aren't. And so Stephen is saying, you're the ones disobeying Moses. We're the ones obeying him. And they're enraged by the end of that speech. And if you understand how much he's turning their accusation against them, you can see why there's a bit of rage and anger, right?
- [16:40]
B
Definitely. And one of the key ideas is all throughout the history, the one God has raised up has been rejected by his own people. So guess what? This has happened again and it's happened in Jesus Christ. And they really don't have solid response for Stephen. Right. They can't say, oh no, it's not true, our fathers always obeyed Moses, we know better. Right?
- [17:02]
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They can't say that's such a powerful apologetic because, you know, not only did they disobey Moses, then they rebelled against David.
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Right.
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And they rebelled against every prophet.
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Right.
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And so you have this biblical apologetic that everyone whom God calls ends up facing rejection and insubordination. And, and the fact that Jesus is suffering this validates rather than invalidates him being in the.
- [17:25]
B
In some ways, this goes all the way back to Abraham. Abraham, who's righteous, had to leave his own people. So this is what God does, is he. He constantly chooses people to raise up, and then their own people turn against them. So if you want to set your children of Abraham and then say, well, of course you can't be right because all the people agree with us, then you're not really reading the stories of Scripture faithfully. And I think that's a really powerful move by Stephen. Can we talk about what Stephen says next? Then Stephen, then we see they turn on him and the false witnesses who have already testified against him. Then it says they laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul, and they take him out, cast him outside the city and. And they stone him to death. And here, Stephen once again looks like Christ, right? So before he was like Christ and being brought to the Sanhedrin, before he was like Christ and being full of the Holy Spirit and teaching in powerful ways and working signs and wonders, now he's like Christ in suffering. And it's remarkable when you read the words that are attributed to Stephen at the end of his life, right before he dies, it sounds just like what Jesus does in the Gospel of Luke. What happens is Stephen. Stephen says, lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Of course, in Luke's Passion narrative, the last words of Christ on the cross are, into your hands, I commend my spirit. Now, this is remarkable because Stephen is putting Jesus in the place where the Father is, right? So here Stephen seems to be recognizing the divinity of Christ, which is really a remarkable thing and would seem to underscore why there's such division and angst against Stephen, because he's speaking about Jesus and so such elevated ways. And then he has this amazing prayer. Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Of course, that's what Jesus prays on the cross, Father, do not hold this sin against them. Right? So the same thing. Jesus prays on the cross, Stephen. So Stephen isn't just saved in the sense of being forgiven, of sin. Stephen becomes like Christ. And so he's a model of what it means to be a martyr in Greek, a witness. He's a witness to Christ by becoming like Christ. And of course, this prayer has tremendous significance in the narrative of the Book of Acts.
- [19:47]
A
It sure does. Yes, indeed. You know, and of course, just to stand back and look at this at the human level, here's this young man, Stephen, zealous, educated. He is proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he gets thrown and hauled in front of the Sanhedrin. Probably his dream is that, you know, here's this guy who's studied the Torah and he's so well educated and zealous, and now he's in front of all the Jewish leadership, and then he's being falsely accused of denying the Torah and Moses and rejecting the temple. And then he has to counter and he's going to show that the temple can't contain God's presence, but Jesus can, and that the Moses is not what he's disregarding. He's actually obeying Moses because Moses said there would be a prophet like me and listen to him, and I'm listening to him, and you're not, you know, and so you get, you know, Stephen having this moment of glory which he's put on trial. And of course, this fulfills what Jesus spoke to the disciples. You find it in Mark 13 and other places where Jesus said, you will be hauled in front of councils and put on trial for my namesake. You know, so the fact that Stephen's being put on trial in front of the whole Sanhedrin is fulfilling the very prophecies and word of Jesus, right? It's validating Jesus word that you will be put on trial before kings and leaders in the Sanhedrin. And so that happens. And then Stephen gives incredible witness. I mean, the courage, because he is not afraid of disappointing the leadership of Israel that he loves, right? Because he wants to be faithful to Jesus Christ. And he stands up for Christ, stands up for the truth, gives witness. And I love that you mentioned that word in Greek for witness is martyria. That's the word for witness. And of course, his public witness on this trial is going to lead to his literal martyrdom, his literal witnessing his life. And that witness of life becomes the most powerful apologetic. You know, Stephen, he knew the Scriptures backward and forward, and that was an incredible apologetic. And he could argue from the Torah, he could argue from the Scriptures, and that is effective and powerful. But ultimately, the most powerful way for us to witness is with our life. If we really believe that Jesus is the Son of God, risen at the right hand and ascended, we will live differently. We will live a different kind of life. We will relativize the things of earth and absolutize the things of heaven. If we really believe that Jesus has won the victory and he's at the right hand of the Father, our following of Jesus, and this is what we see with Stephen, he relativizes the risk of being persecuted, imprisoned or dying. He relativizes making an unfavorable impression in front of the Sanhedrin, because the Sanhedrin doesn't matter. What matters is with Jesus. Jesus becomes the audience. You know, if you fear God, you will not fear anything else. If you don't fear God, you will fear everything else. And Stephen doesn't fear the powers and authorities of this world because he only fears God and what I love here, as Michael was mentioning, by praying for those who are persecuting him like Jesus did, and asking Jesus to forgive those who are executing him. Well, we know who is going to be basically deputized as the leader of this group. We're told that there's a young man named Saul, right? So if we look at the very end of chapter seven, that is verse 58, they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul, which means Saul seems to be authorizing this execution.
- [23:31]
B
And Acts, chapter 8, verse 1. And Saul approved of his execution. So Saul plays, it seems, a very important role here at Stephen's martyrdom. And. And Augustine, our namesake here at the Augustine Institute, has this blazing insight. He says that had Stephen not prayed these words, right? Had he not prayed these words, lord, do not hold this sin against them, the church would not have received the gift of St. Paul. And, you know, this always makes me a little emotional to think about Stephen. You know, he was being a witness for Christ in the synagogue. He was proclaiming the gospel. He was doing everything to be faithful to the Lord, and he ends up dying. And you think to yourself, wow, this guy would have been really valuable to have, you know, before Stephen. Who are the primary witnesses? You know, primarily fishermen, right, who are probably not that educated. They're probably not that quick on their feet. They're probably not that rhetorically impressive. Stephen would have been an amazing witness, and he's lost. And yet what Augustine wants us to see is the shape of Acts is helping us to recognize that Stephen's suffering and his death is ultimately what triggers the grace of the conversion of St. Paul. So Stephen's greatest legacy, well, 13 letters of St. Paul in the New Testament, right? I mean, St. Paul goes on to become the great missionary. But what is the reason, what is the mystical reason behind this incredible grace that's poured out on St. Paul? It's the mystery of suffering. Stephen isn't just effective as a witness. He's effective in terms of offering up his suffering in a redemptive way. In particular.
- [25:31]
A
It'S amazing. And of course, you know, we're going to see when we do our Bible study on the conversion of Paul, Stephen plays the key role. In a sense, you could say that Stephen's the spiritual father of the Apostle Paul, winning the grace of his conversion and showing the way for him. I think there's going to be a lot of ways in which what we hear in Stephen's speech gets echoed in Paul's theology and thinking.
- [25:53]
B
Right.
- [25:54]
A
And you would think if Paul realizes that he's responsible for persecuting the Christians, he's going to think back to the Christian that they executed, Stephen, and he's going to think Stephen was right.
- [26:05]
B
Right.
- [26:06]
A
And now he's going to want to remember what Stephen's speech was before the Sanhedrin, because certainly Saul was there and heard Acts, Chapter seven. Right, Right. There's no doubt, Stephen, Paul is there. Saul is there for the execution at the end of that trial. So he had to be there. And he heard Stephen's speech and that would have been replayed. And Saul's mind, and you could see why he couldn't eat for a few days after that Road to Damascus event. He had a lot to process, didn't he?
- [26:33]
B
And I think it was always in the back of his mind. You know, he never mentioned Stephen by name in his letters, and yet he sort of does. In First Corinthians 9, he talks about how we are to run, to win the race and to win the wreath or the crown, and that becomes the prize. Right. Is the crown that. Well, for Paul, he's talking about how athletes would compete and then, you know, they'd receive this little crown that they'd wear some celery. Right, Exactly. It's not that impressive. Right. But you make all these sacrifices. Paul explains. You discipline your body so that you can win this perishable wreath. How much more should we discipline ourselves to win the real prize? But what's interesting is the Greek word there for crown. You is where we get the name Stephen. Right. So Stephen becomes the image of those who seek to pursue the prize, the crown. In a sense, Stephen is the crown in the book of Acts, he wins the crown in giving his life to Christ. And I just can't help but wonder.
- [27:37]
A
As he was writing about that, I agree with you 100%. I think that, you know, when you think of Paul writing, you know, in his letters to Timothy towards the end of his life and he says, I've run the good race, when he writes second Timothy and he's ready to receive the crown. So he is pressing forward to where he saw Stephen win the crown by being faithful to the end. And that's what he hoped to get to so that he could be faithful to the end like Stephen and receive a crown.
- [28:04]
B
That's right. And so many of the arguments that you see in the New Testament as they develop, actually do find sort of origin in some ways in Stephen's speech. So, you know, some scholars think that the speech of Stephen, of course, would have been well known to Luke before he sat down and wrote, you know, the Book of Acts. Before the early Christians were, you know, reading the Book of Acts, they already knew the story of St. Stephen. It very well could be. We read Stephen was debating in the synagogue of the Freedmen, who were those. Who were those Jews that were in that synagogue. Some people suggest St. Paul was among those in the synagogue.
- [28:41]
A
Yeah, I'm one of those people who thinks that, you know, and I think he was influenced by. By Stephen's teaching as an apologist. And then Paul takes on Stephen's mantle of being the lead apologist, especially to Israel. Right. Especially to the Jews. Paul is going to become the one articulating this. And we find this in Damascus immediately. Paul, after his conversion, is making compelling arguments that Jesus is the Messiah. Where do you think he learned some of those early arguments? I think he recycled them from Stephen knowing with a deeper conviction that having the inside track from heaven, Stephen was right. Right. And so Paul gives that. You know, this is such a joy for us to open up the word of God. And we want to do these Bible studies with you with form daily. And we're so glad you can join us. We hope that you can always feel free to grab your Bible whenever you see a form daily. We need to feed on the good news because the bad news can dispirit us and it can discourage us. It's so important for you to focus on the good news so that we have this Easter tide of joy and hope and support us. And I'm grateful to all of you who've written. So many of you have written thanks to us. Beautiful notes. It's really fired up the team here and the staff here to hear the correspondence, the comments on form from you. It really is an encouragement. So I thank all of you who are participating in our mission, thanking us with these letters and. And sending your comments. It means a lot to us. I hope the story of Stephen has inspired you. Now you too are to be a witness to the love of Jesus Christ to the world. God bless you. You can watch these interviews in video format by visiting formed.org formed is an online Catholic streaming service created by the Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press with award winning studies and parish programs, inspiring audio content, movies, ebooks, and family friendly kids programming to support the mission of the Augustine institute. Please visit missioncircle.org.