Pastor's Ponderings: Monday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 7:17-36 (October 27, 2025)

October 27, 2025:  Monday Bible Study on Acts 7:17-36

Blessings and Peace be with you this morning in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As I walk out the door on these cool and crisp mornings I give thanks to God for such beauty and comfort. I must admit that I think my teens don't get it. For them it seems to be just another day of commitments and schoolwork, so I comment every day to them about the wonderful quality of the morning and deep blue of the morning sky. Perhaps it will sink in one of these days. So, I will keep it up until they do get it. In prayers today: Melody and I both spoke with Kandice and Lisa last evening. We had a wonderful time, and Kandice was quite aware of her surroundings, her daily life, and the certainty of what is coming for her in a few days as she is now in hospice care at home. Like all of us, she said “I don't know what it is going to be like.”  I told her that since God is the one in charge of our journey through the gate of death, we can know in faith that it will all be OK and wonderful. That is all any of us can know. Please continue prayers for Teri as she is now at home healing and receiving therapy for the use of her new hip. I have a message out to Pastor Ron and Becky, but I have not heard back from them about how testing and progress is going for Becky as she battles periodic weakness. Pray also for Larry for his continuing recovery from his back surgery. He too is at home. There also seems to be a virus moving around with sore throat and congestion and cough. Josiah has been battling it for over a week now, and we received word yesterday of a church member family who now have it in their home. So far, no one else has picked it up from our Josiah.

Today we continue with Stephen's telling of Hebrew/Jewish history as he stands before the Sanhedrin. It is certainly a history that you and I know even though we are the children of the New Covenant with God through Jesus Christ. It is this story which Stephen is reciting which helps us to see the strength and courage of Stephen's faith. As this part of the Old Covenant story unfolds, Stephen brings us to Moses, and how God used him as a servant of setting his elect people free from their difficult work in Egypt, in bonds to the Pharoah to build the massive monuments at which we marvel even today.  Stephen is letting those who judge him know that he is an orthodox believer in the relationship between God and the Hebrew people, and that everyone in this trial Stephen is standing for should know how God intervenes on behalf of his beloved people. But Stephen also knows that when it comes time to tell the rest of this history of his people, that the reception will be anything but warm and understanding. However, that is not a part of what Stephen is doing at this time. The historian, Josephus, gives us more that we get from the Bible as he recounts the great beauty and brilliance of Moses compared to other children. In this historian's telling, Moses became a great Egyptian general, fought, and won a war in Ethiopia, taking a bride for himself after that victorious conflict. When he answered the LORD'S call to serve and bring the Hebrews out of Egypt to freedom in a promised land, Moses gave up an entire kingdom and the comfort of being a royal, perhaps even reigning in Egypt at some point, to become an enemy of the state, as he brought plagues upon the entire nation to force the Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free.  People do indeed give up important things to answer the call of God on their lives. We are told that Stephen was brilliant, energetic, a gifted speaker, and an advocate for fairness with his people. Martin Luther gave up a career as a lawyer when he capitulated to God's lightening intervention in his life. There is little doubt that Stephen knew in his head and heart what was coming for him, but he remained stalwart in his conviction and faith in Christ. Every one of us who accept Christ as our Lord and Savior has had, or will have, a call from God to witness from our hearts and lives, so that others may come to know the Christ who loves and treasures them too. We will find out that Stephen was a man of the same ilk.

You have the love of Christ, and mine too, Pastor Kim