Acts 7:17-22 (NIV)
“As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
“At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.”
Mistreatment of God’s chosen people was nothing new. From the very beginning the rulers and authorities mistreated and persecuted them. This was true in Egypt, where the authority was Pharaoh, a new Pharaoh who did not know who Joseph was, or how God had saved all Egypt through him. All he could see was the threat to his power and authority posed by this large and growing population who followed and answered to a higher authority.
His solution was not to investigate to see if these people had something that he didn’t. (They did!) He simply resorted to persecution in an effort to stamp them out, trying to ensure his own security and political authority.
But God was in the midst of His people, protecting them despite the mistreatment that they were enduring. And when the great deliverer, Moses, was born, God saved him from the power of that ruler. In fact, He went even further, bringing Moses right into the household of Pharaoh himself, and enabling him to be educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, including reading and writing.
The main point of this section of Stephens’s speech was to draw the similarity between the oppression and persecution of God’s people, Israel, in the days of Moses, and the oppression and persecution of God’s people, the Christians, in Stephen’s time. The parallels are amazing for those with eyes to see.
The people of the kingdom were now being persecuted by those in authority, the Sanhedrin, when the authorities should have been investigating to see if the Christians had something that was missing in their own lives. (They did!) All they could see was a threat to their own power and authority posed by this large and growing population who answered to a higher authority and seemed impervious to threats and punishment.
And God was still in the midst of His people, the Church, protecting them despite the mistreatment they were enduing. But instead of seeing what was actually going on, instead of allowing the God that they claimed to serve to speak to their hearts and show them the truth, the members of the Sanhedrin stubbornly clung to the idea that they were God’s chosen people simply based on genetics, and that they had an obligation to ruthlessly stamp out these followers of the Way.
Father, it is amazing to see these parallels painted so clearly, and to see how clinging to our own image of power and authority can blind and deafen us to what is actually going on. Help me, Lord, to keep my eyes and ears open at all times, so that I can see what You are doing right now where I am, so that I can follow You, and can do everything under Your guidance, and not in my own wisdom. Amen.
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