Not hearing it
This week's Bible study is on Acts 7:54-58:
These verses were written by Luke about the early days of Christianity. They take place after Stephen got done rebuking the Sanhedrin on how they were missing God's plan for their lives, and how they and their people had done some horrible things. Stephen was a highly gifted minister with miracle working powers. The Sanhedrin were a sort of religious police and religious court put together, kind of like the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in some Muslim countries today.
Stephen laid out how the Jews at the time had not only missed the prophesies foretelling Jesus, but had even killed the prophets who had foretold Jesus' coming and even killed Jesus himself. They didn't know the scriptures they were tasked with enforcing, and didn't know God. Instead of examining themselves, they got angry at Stephen. And when he suggested he was hearing from God, they plugged their ears and yelled and rushed to kill him.
People do that. In any debate about things which cannot be proved with certainty, like global warming, political issues, etc, people will pick a side and just ignore any evidence that contradicts what they already believe. That's why we have so many different political opinions. People don't want to debate. They want to win. They want to be right without having to be wrong first. In the case of the Sanhedrin, they wanted so badly to believe that they were the good guys, the white-hat-wearing sheriffs of the town, picked by God himself to enforce his law. They were the defenders of God's righteousness, the sole voice of God's will for mankind.
When Stephen pointed out that they'd missed the boat, they couldn't deal with it. Their whole world was being shaken. "But we're the righteous ones! We're the good guys!" They couldn't refute the facts, so they went nuts. They plugged their ears and went "nananananna we're not listening!" And then they killed poor righteous Stephen.
Incidentally, this is what happens when people turn evil. Do you think Adolf Hitler, as a small boy, dreamed of being a mass murdering genocidal maniac? Do you think little Stalin or baby Mao had dreams of killing so many innocent people? Do you think Bill Clinton, on his wedding day to Hillary, thought to himself "I'm going to cheat on this woman over and over and over again, in front of the whole nation?" When the Enron guys or the Goldman Sachs guys or any of the other people involved in the mortgage scandals were in college, do you think they thought to themselves "I can't wait to graduate and build a career so that I can rob old people of their retirement money, crippled people of their life's savings, and babies of their college funds?" Nobody thinks like that. They just gradually end up that way, the same way as the Sanhedrin found themselves facing Stephen with rocks in their hands.
The Sanhedrin didn't stop to examine themselves. They didn't meditate on the facts Stephen was throwing at them. None of them stopped and thought "My God, look at what we've become! He's right! We've gone way off course! We're the bad guys, not him!" They just believed the legend they'd created for themselves, that they were crusaders of righteousness, men without blemish, defenders of God's kingdom. Anything that contradicted that story needed to be snuffed out, even if it was a beloved servant of God like Stephen. They weren't hearing it.
Sometimes people do examine themselves though. There are a bunch of stories in the Old Testament about kings discovering the Bible or being preached to by prophets, where they realize that they are the evil man, not the people they're at war with, and they tear their clothes in grief over it. Nineveh, one of the most evil cities ever, changed when Jonah finally delivered the message. So it does happen. But usually what we see is a case like the Sanhedrin. You get the Iranian protesters being run down by thugs on motorbikes, shot by snipers, Christians getting tortured and killed, dissidents getting sent to labor camps, etc.
The interesting add-on is the remark about Saul, who later repented and became Paul of Tarsus. Someone at the time might have read that and thought "Why is Luke bad-mouthing Paul of Tarsus? Why couldn't he have just let the past be the past and reinvented him as a glowy-faced crusader of justice, and left all that inconvenient genocidal stuff out?" I wonder if maybe Paul insisted that Luke include those verses, as a confession that he was the evil guy once. If you read Paul's writings, you'll see that he doesn't shy away from mentioning it. Had God not struck him blind, he might have continued to be the evil man. He got a chance to stop, to realize what he'd become, and change his ways.
The fruit of being the Sanhedrin is death. There was no humility, no acknowledgment that they could be wrong, no self-inspection, no asking "Have I become evil?" They were a stubborn bulldozer with self-righteousness at the controls. The description Luke writes makes them look ridiculous. They were ridiculous.
The note about Saul is a refreshing contrast. It's a note of hope. Saul was just as evil as those Sanhedrin, maybe even more so for encouraging them, but he was redeemed in the end. He was willing to see how evil he had become, even if God had to strike him blind first, even if it was too late for a lot of people like Stephen. He was able to come back from evil, like Jesus returned from the grave, and say "See what this produces?"
Evil is almost always a gradual process. Why do the young protest injustice while their elders just close their eyes or turn their heads? Why do people have such zeal as young Christians and such complacency as old ones? The sun gradually sets until you can't see your hand in front of your face because of the darkness. If someone offers us a light, do we put it out or do we head towards it? The Sanhedrin loved their darkness more than they liked the painful light being shined in their faces. Which do you choose?
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.
These verses were written by Luke about the early days of Christianity. They take place after Stephen got done rebuking the Sanhedrin on how they were missing God's plan for their lives, and how they and their people had done some horrible things. Stephen was a highly gifted minister with miracle working powers. The Sanhedrin were a sort of religious police and religious court put together, kind of like the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in some Muslim countries today.
Stephen laid out how the Jews at the time had not only missed the prophesies foretelling Jesus, but had even killed the prophets who had foretold Jesus' coming and even killed Jesus himself. They didn't know the scriptures they were tasked with enforcing, and didn't know God. Instead of examining themselves, they got angry at Stephen. And when he suggested he was hearing from God, they plugged their ears and yelled and rushed to kill him.
People do that. In any debate about things which cannot be proved with certainty, like global warming, political issues, etc, people will pick a side and just ignore any evidence that contradicts what they already believe. That's why we have so many different political opinions. People don't want to debate. They want to win. They want to be right without having to be wrong first. In the case of the Sanhedrin, they wanted so badly to believe that they were the good guys, the white-hat-wearing sheriffs of the town, picked by God himself to enforce his law. They were the defenders of God's righteousness, the sole voice of God's will for mankind.
When Stephen pointed out that they'd missed the boat, they couldn't deal with it. Their whole world was being shaken. "But we're the righteous ones! We're the good guys!" They couldn't refute the facts, so they went nuts. They plugged their ears and went "nananananna we're not listening!" And then they killed poor righteous Stephen.
Incidentally, this is what happens when people turn evil. Do you think Adolf Hitler, as a small boy, dreamed of being a mass murdering genocidal maniac? Do you think little Stalin or baby Mao had dreams of killing so many innocent people? Do you think Bill Clinton, on his wedding day to Hillary, thought to himself "I'm going to cheat on this woman over and over and over again, in front of the whole nation?" When the Enron guys or the Goldman Sachs guys or any of the other people involved in the mortgage scandals were in college, do you think they thought to themselves "I can't wait to graduate and build a career so that I can rob old people of their retirement money, crippled people of their life's savings, and babies of their college funds?" Nobody thinks like that. They just gradually end up that way, the same way as the Sanhedrin found themselves facing Stephen with rocks in their hands.
The Sanhedrin didn't stop to examine themselves. They didn't meditate on the facts Stephen was throwing at them. None of them stopped and thought "My God, look at what we've become! He's right! We've gone way off course! We're the bad guys, not him!" They just believed the legend they'd created for themselves, that they were crusaders of righteousness, men without blemish, defenders of God's kingdom. Anything that contradicted that story needed to be snuffed out, even if it was a beloved servant of God like Stephen. They weren't hearing it.
Sometimes people do examine themselves though. There are a bunch of stories in the Old Testament about kings discovering the Bible or being preached to by prophets, where they realize that they are the evil man, not the people they're at war with, and they tear their clothes in grief over it. Nineveh, one of the most evil cities ever, changed when Jonah finally delivered the message. So it does happen. But usually what we see is a case like the Sanhedrin. You get the Iranian protesters being run down by thugs on motorbikes, shot by snipers, Christians getting tortured and killed, dissidents getting sent to labor camps, etc.
The interesting add-on is the remark about Saul, who later repented and became Paul of Tarsus. Someone at the time might have read that and thought "Why is Luke bad-mouthing Paul of Tarsus? Why couldn't he have just let the past be the past and reinvented him as a glowy-faced crusader of justice, and left all that inconvenient genocidal stuff out?" I wonder if maybe Paul insisted that Luke include those verses, as a confession that he was the evil guy once. If you read Paul's writings, you'll see that he doesn't shy away from mentioning it. Had God not struck him blind, he might have continued to be the evil man. He got a chance to stop, to realize what he'd become, and change his ways.
The fruit of being the Sanhedrin is death. There was no humility, no acknowledgment that they could be wrong, no self-inspection, no asking "Have I become evil?" They were a stubborn bulldozer with self-righteousness at the controls. The description Luke writes makes them look ridiculous. They were ridiculous.
The note about Saul is a refreshing contrast. It's a note of hope. Saul was just as evil as those Sanhedrin, maybe even more so for encouraging them, but he was redeemed in the end. He was willing to see how evil he had become, even if God had to strike him blind first, even if it was too late for a lot of people like Stephen. He was able to come back from evil, like Jesus returned from the grave, and say "See what this produces?"
Evil is almost always a gradual process. Why do the young protest injustice while their elders just close their eyes or turn their heads? Why do people have such zeal as young Christians and such complacency as old ones? The sun gradually sets until you can't see your hand in front of your face because of the darkness. If someone offers us a light, do we put it out or do we head towards it? The Sanhedrin loved their darkness more than they liked the painful light being shined in their faces. Which do you choose?
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