PARALLELS (PART 2)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

“Now you have betrayed and murdered Him—you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

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.

Acts 6:15, 7:52-58

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Yesterday, you’ll remember how we looked at parallels between Jesus’ ministry and the ministry of His apostles after His ascension. It was obvious through how the apostles were treated collectively and it was true on a very personal level, especially in the case of Stephen, one of the seven men elected by the people to assist the apostles in addressing the social needs of others.

In part one of this four part series, we saw how Stephen found disagreement with a group of Jews called the Synagogue of the Freedmen who, unable to bring any legitimate charge against him, instead fabricated lies which got him hauled before the Sanhedrin for trial. Of course, we can go back to Jesus and see the Jewish religious establishment did the same thing to Him.

Well, as we move to the second message in this series, you’ll notice there is a bit of a hole in the scripture passage as we jump from the final verse of Acts 6 to the fifty-fourth verse of chapter 7. There is a lot of historical context presented by Stephen in between as he testifies before the Sanhedrin which we’ll be looking at as soon as this series on parallels concludes but for now, we want to refocus our attention on the way Stephen was handled by the Sanhedrin and how it modeled Jesus’ treatment.

After declaring his historical manifesto, we see Stephen, whose face was like an angel per the scriptures, declaring the truth that none of the Sanhedrin was willing to accept, that they had been responsible for first betraying and then murdering Jesus, the very Messiah the prophets had told about since the days of old. Through his words, Stephen surgically exposed the sins of the Jewish religious leaders who routinely disobeyed the parts of the law they urged others to maintain. Such was the hypocritical nature of their ministry work and Stephen, like Jesus before him, was calling them out for it.

Parallels.

Need another?

We go back to Jesus’ time before the Sanhedrin when He said this:

“But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Matthew 26:64

Which led the high priest to tear his clothes and hurl the following questions at those present, those who formed the jury of what were unjust proceedings:

“He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”

“He is worthy of death,” they answered. Matthew 26:65-66

Now, let’s fast forward to Stephen who concluded his survey of Jewish history by saying:

"Now you have betrayed and murdered Him—you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

And in response, an angered Sanhedrin council gnashed their teeth at Stephen only to see him look up to heaven, see the glory of God as well as Jesus standing at His right hand, and then say the following by the power of the Holy Spirit:

“I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

It was all too much for an already furious group of Jewish religious leader. We read where they covered their ears, yelled at Stephen at the top of their lungs, and then proceeded to drag him out of the city to commence stoning him.

Like Jesus, the Sanhedrin was unwilling to listen to the truth and their only solution for silencing those who failed to agree with them and their ways was to murder the opposition. It was truly a biblical cancel culture of the worst order, self-admitting godly men committing or instigating unholy murder and violating one of God’s most fundamental commandments by doing so.

Did I mention there were many parallels between Jesus life and His followers in the first seven chapters of Acts?

Tomorrow, we’ll look at yet one more similarity. I hope you’ll return for that message then.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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