Devotionary

In Acts 7:17-29, we have Stephen continuing his history lesson on the Jewish people and, his audience, made up of Jewish religious leaders, had to be scratching their heads as to what his point was in this little exercise. He wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know. Or was he? Upon closer inspection, we see that Stephen was retelling the story of Israel’s past, but in a way that highlighted some glaring flaws in their corporate character as a people. While the high priest and the members of the Jewish council would have bragged about their love for Moses and the law, Stephen was subtly exposing that they were just like their ancestors, who had been stubbornly resistant to the very one God had sent to deliver them. They had rejected Moses’ original offer to help free them from the oppression of the Egyptians, forcing him to flee to the Midian wilderness, where he would stay for 40 long years. Moses was God’s choice to be the deliverer of the people of Israel. God had arranged for him to be rescue