Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Acts of the Apostles 7:8-16 (October 21, 2025)

October 21, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Acts 7:8-16

Good morning my dear friends. 

An urgent matter for prayer today is to keep our parish administrator Debbie, and her husband Jeff in your prayers.  Jeff is about to have a second surgery as he has developed complications from his first surgery.  Please keep them both in your prayers.  Also pray for Becky healing from weakness, and future testing to determine its cause.  Also continue to pray for Teri who is working to regain her mobility after major hip surgery.  She will have several more weeks in rehab before heading home.  Pray for Larry who is having a special throat cancer procedure to give him a better quality of life, and for another Larry who continues at home to heal after many complications with back surgery.  Kandice continues in hospice care and will soon join God's triumphant saints.  Lisa, her wife, and their good friend Alexis continue to need our prayers too.

If you are ever looking for a primer on the story of the Hebrew and Jewish people in the Old Testament, and its follow-up with the birth of Christ, His mission and ministry, and His suffering, death, and resurrection, you have it here in the book of the Acts of the Apostles as told by Stephen as he stands trial before the Sanhedrin.  I am certain that this undertaking by Stephen is not what the members of the ruling class in Jerusalem were expecting.  He takes us from the beginning of the Hebrew people with Abraham, and on to Joseph and his jealous brothers who sell him off to a camel train, the result of which is Joseph eventually ascending in power to become second only to the Pharaoh. But here, for Stephen, what is most important was how Joseph responded to his brothers when they came back to Egypt with his father Abraham.  In Genesis 50:20 Joseph speaks these words to his brothers who feared the potential of Joseph's revenge after Abraham's death.  "As for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it for good."  These words of Joseph certainly fit Stephen's circumstance before the Sanhedrin, and what's more, Stephen sums up Joseph's character in the following ways:

1. The word grace is a lovely word.  It reveals beauty, outward physical beauty, but more than that it addresses the beauty of Joseph's soul, his heart and head.  This is exactly who we see in Stephen as well.

2. Joseph held wisdom in his very being. This means being able to take the long view of what is happening, and even to have a sense of how it is the work of God whose direction is so often beyond comprehension.  Joseph lived his life with the long view and direction of God in his heart. 

It seems to have already begun here, as Stephen tries to make it clear that the Sanhedrin does not operate as Joseph did.  In next Monday's texts, Stephen will continue to cover the history of his people, revealing the truth of how he found himself in difficult circumstances before the Sanhedrin.

With prayers for your happiness and joy in this life with which God has blessed you. I will be back next Monday to share more of Stephen’s self-defense.

With love in Christ for you and all people, Pastor Kim