Acts 7:9-19 Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.“ Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit. On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all. Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died. Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money. “As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. ’He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
In Stephen’s defense of himself, as he faces his accusers, he delves into the life of Joseph, recounting Joseph’s relationship to the plan of God in saving the Israelites from certain death in Canaan. The patriarch, Jacob, had twelve sons. However, one son, Joseph, had the hand of God on his life from his very beginning. Joseph dreamt that he would rule over his brothers and even his parents. These dreams from God troubled his brothers and his dad, for who was Joseph, but a brother and son of Jacob. For his brothers, he was just flesh and blood as they were out of the loins of Jacob. And forJacob, the father, why should Joseph rule over his parents who brought him into the world? But Joseph had the hand and purpose of God on his life from conception. He was conceived from a barren womb, just as Isaac before him and John the Baptist after him. God had a purpose for his life that was hidden exclusively in the heart of God from the beginning of time. This mysterious plan of God was the salvation plan for a sick and dying humanity. By using Joseph, as a savior of his family, he became an allegory of Jesus Christ saving the human family. The land of Canaan, the home of Jacob, was experiencing a severe famine, so harsh and deadly that Jacob feared that they would all die from starvation. Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. Joseph because of the nefarious act of his brothers, selling him to traders who were going to Egypt, found himself as a slave in Egypt. In the role of a slave, he would be the first of the household of Jacob to enter the wicked land of Egypt. In this position of despair, God’s hand is manifested in his life, for Joseph is lifted up in Egypt, prospering mightily. He becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand-man, chief administrator of all that goes on in Egypt. Joseph dictates were as powerful as Pharaoh’s commands. Stephen reminds his adversaries that God was in control of Joseph’s life. God never left or abandoned Joseph no matter what trials Joseph experienced. God was going to fulfill his mysterious plan of salvation regardless of the obstacles men put in front of Joseph. But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. Stephen implies to his foes that Jesus whom they crucified is as Joseph, who had experienced many trials in Egypt. However, Jesus is not serving a Pharaoh, who Egyptians claimed to be God, but He was serving his Father, the only God, the Creator of all that exists. Jesus was sent to earth to be the gate to eternal life, THE WAY to be right with God and to inherit eternity as a child of God. The resurrected Jesus is firstborn of all who believe in his redemptive work on the cross.
Jacob and the family of God or the chosen people entered Egypt as only 75 individuals, but they would leave Egypt numbered in the thousands after years of bondage. God implements his plan of salvation for the Israelites from Egypt through a Jewish man, Moses. Moses grew up living in the splendor of Pharaoh’s palace. He was the adopted son of the daughter of Pharaoh, but still an Israelite at heart. As with Joseph, God’s hand was on him from birth. However, because of killing an abusive Egyptian who was mistreating an Israelite man, he had to flee to the land of the Midianites. In Midian he lived as a lonely shepherd until God called him from a burning bush back to Egypt. He was called to Egypt so that he could implement God’s plan of deliverance of the Israelites from the hand of a wicked Pharaoh. Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. (7:1-4) Now thousands of Israelites would be led by Moses, escaping the hand of Satan: Pharaoh. As Joseph spoke for Pharaoh, Moses would speak for the Supreme Authority: God. in Moses' hands as with Joseph, the Israelites would prosper; Canaan would be won for them. Now a nation, they would take possession of all of Canaan. They would fulfill God’s promise to Abraham of owning Canaan. As with the patriarchs, with Joseph and Moses, God’s hand was intimately involved with their lives, fulfilling his mysterious plan of salvation. Now Stephen is championing this same Idea about Jesus. He is not just part of God’s plan of salvation; HE IS THE PLAN of redeeming man to right standing with God. But Stephen’s adversaries who claimed the efficacy of circumcision were ready to break one of the Ten Commandments: murdering an innocent man. As Jeremiah said, they were uncircumcised in their hearts. “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.” (Jeremiah 9:25-26) The plan of God meant nothing to them, for their eyes could not see and their ears were stopped. The garden of sin flourished in their hearts, yielding nothing of substance in their lives but blindness and deafness. You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them. (Matthew 13:14-15) They could not perceive of Jesus being the Messiah, the Son of God, even though He had done more wonders and miracles than any man who ever lived. These wonders and miracles testified that Jesus was sent from God and that his mission was to save men from their sins and concomitant eternal death. These religious men who wanted Stephen dead were living unprofitable lives; they were devoured by sinful deeds and thoughts in their hearts. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. (Matthew 15:8-9) As Stephen faces them down with his words of truth about the history of the Jews, their hearts stirred with rage towards him. As with Pharaoh their hearts had been hardened by their disobedience to God’s call on their lives.
Stephen’s words touched the inner selves of those who were facing him with murder in their hearts. They hear him recount how God was with Joseph and how God delivered him out of the hands of those who hated him. They knew Joseph was part of their history, and they knew God had planted him in the Israelites’ existence for the benefit of every Jew, but they did not want to accept Jesus as THE INTEGRAL part of God’s rescue plan for their eternal existence. The Jewish people were so against this plan of God that they would stone Stephen to death. They had championed the death of Jesus, forcing Pilate’s hand to crucify him. They locked up the disciples and had them flogged; they rejoiced over James’ beheading and chased down Paul in the Temple in Jerusalem, yelling kill him, kill him! God's chosen, who should have had more light that any other people in the world, were leaders in rejecting Jesus as the Messiah. But people cannot lay this hatred toward Jesus at the Jews’ feet only, for all of mankind was marshaled against the salvation plan of God. All have gone their own way; no, not one is righteous or completely good in actions and thoughts. The world from the fall has been violent and sinful. The Gentiles were just as involved as the Jews in rejecting God’s plan of salvation. A wicked spirit is one that is against the Jews, for God’s hand has been intimately involved with the Jews from the beginning, through Abraham the father of the Israelites. He has blessed all nations. But this animosity of the Israelites toward the Good News led Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles. The Gentiles lived in complete darkness to God’s plan of salvation. They lived under their own imaginations, making idols to serve no-gods, that were nothing more than their own creations. The Jews had the light of the law: God’s goodness and holiness were reflected through the law and its regulations. But their rejection of God’s mercy and grace led them to darkness in their souls. John the Baptist told them to repent of their lifestyle, for they are emulating the Gentiles in the way they were living and thinking. Paul points out clearly that believers should separate themselves from darkness and live unto Christ who is the LIGHT of the world. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. (Ephesians 4:17-19) Stephen in his defense tells his foes that their uncircumcised hearts have led them to hatred and revenge. Joseph forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery. He displayed the grace and mercy of God. Even though mistreated by them, he loved them so much that he could not control his emotions. Stephen knew Jesus loved these people who stood around him with stones in their hands to kill him. They were likened to the priest and Levite who passed on the other side of the road when a fellow Jew lay almost dead from the hands of robbers. These two people supposed men of faith lived a lie; their words of dedication to God were but empty words. But the Good Samaritan's life was full of love and grace. He would not pass by and leave this Jew to die by the road. He would love even those who despised him. Jesus, the despised Savior, stopped by a dying world, bleeding and naked, paid the full price for the recovery of this deathly sick world. Stephen would now pay the full price of the death of his own life for stopping by to help a sick and dying world. Stephan, as Christ who forgave the people for they were acting in total ignorance, would leave this world with words on his lips of forgiveness and grace: Lord, do not hold this sin against them. May the Lord find such words of grace on our lips when we face angry men or death.
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