A Life Invested

Day 162: Acts 7:51-60, 8:1-13

“Then 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.” - Acts‬ ‭7:58‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Stephen laid down the hammer on these experts. His language was so offensive (uncircumcised would have really set them off) that these men covered their ears and screamed so as not to hear him any longer.

Many among us today are the same way. Hearing the truth is unappealing. The truth will never pamper us. Instead, it confronts us and shows who we’ve really become.

I can’t help but think there could have been a better way for Stephen to communicate, but there was no way to improve. He said what needed to be heard at that moment.

So many things happened as a result of his death. Christianity spread beyond the confines of Jerusalem. The young man named Saul in this scene will, in chapter nine, have his own vision of Jesus and go on to write half of the New Testament. What a strong and authentic witness for the gospel to all who saw this take place.

In this scene, we have the first Christian martyr. His life was not wasted but invested, to see many more come to faith in Jesus.

"The man who was to become the apostle to the Gentiles thoroughly agreed with the execution of Stephen. But, as St Augustine said, ‘The Church owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen.’ However hard he tried, Saul could never forget the way in which Stephen had died. Even at this early point, the blood of the martyrs had begun to be the seed of the Church."
- Barclay, W. (2003). The Acts of the Apostles (3rd ed. fully rev. and updated., p. 71)