We continue MLK week here at the ArchAngel Institute.  That brave man was hounded by the FBI and persecuted for his Christian ideology. Even killed for it.   Had they the ability, they surely would have handed him over to the same process to which I was subjected.  Psychologists and psychiatrists are the “clergy” of the postmodern state.  Just as the Pilgrims had their witch trials for heretics, the postmodern state has its “extremists” trials.  I was subjected to one and my legal career burned at the stake under the stern gaze of a cadre of Indiana’s high priests and priestesses of political correctness, — JLAP’s Tim Sudrovech and Terri Harrell.

Because I am openly Christian in my expression and because I refused to recant from my pro-life convictions they had me tied to the stake — all the while refusing (numerous requests) to even meet with me or look me in the eye.  (It is easier to dehumanize the intended sacrifice that way.)

It pretty much began with Dr. Stephen Ross’ report, which went so far as to offer the authorities a “rewrite” if it did not include all necessary to “process me” as they wished.   Ross bound me to the stake with the following, which was subsequently rejected as shallow and unsupportable by all of the subsequent psychologists and psychiatrists to whom I went –  even the two government affiliated professionals:

44.    [The Ross] report identified Plaintiff as a pro-life person with a traditional Christian worldview and constitutional, conservative political perspective who intended to advance the pro-life and Christian cause through the ArchAngel Institute. 

45,   In that April 23 report Dr. Ross concluded that Plaintiff “appears to have moral integrity.”

(more…)

We pause this weekend to celebrate a milestone in peaceful, Christian civil disobedience.  That milestone is the life and work of MLK.  Lest anyone accuse me of being an opportunist, realize that I shared much of this at my June 1 hearing before the Board of Law Examiners, and previously on this site here and also in one of my most creative writing exercises – the one that communicated my one and only discussion with the Kansas AG who fired me as deputy attorney general and consumer chief, June, 2007 and then again on that same blog, here.  I also made use  of MLK in my own jailhouse letter to Judge Patrick Kelly (in 1991) that the Indiana authorities have recently used to deny me licensure based upon my religiously-based political ideals.  Here.

Thus I am not just trotting MLK out at this time to make some points against the Indiana Supreme Court and its minions. 

Speaking of that collection of postmodern jurists, this is from my December 8-filed federal petition:

153.  Dr. Bowman informed Plaintiff that he placed his values and morals higher than legal obligations and by so doing shared much in common with early church, including being at odds with the state.  That Plaintiff’s conservative political and Roman Catholic views were the primary focus of Dr. Bowman’s interviews are evident throughout Dr. Bowman’s final report and are used to support her conclusion that Plaintiff suffered from Personality Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified.

154,  Dr. Bowman’s report stated that:

“Like many people of faith of past millennia, he firmly believes he is obligated as a Christian to put obedience to God’s laws above human laws.”  Id.;  “He considers his [former protest activities] an integral part of his Roman Catholic Christian faith and considers his actions morally right.”  Bowman report at p.4;

155.  Upon information and belief this report influenced the final Board of Law Examiner’s final report stating that:

“He testified [as] to his obligation to disobey laws that contradicted his religious beliefs under certain circumstances. [He further] indicated that he would not obey certain court orders and judgments  that he believed to be unjust.  [It is the policy of the  Indiana court]  that a member of the Indiana bar must obey Indiana law and federal law, even when doing so violates an attorney’s conscience, and that an avowed willingness not to do so is disqualifying.”  Board report at pp.29-30.

** end of excerpts from federal complaint

It is clear from Dr. Elizabeth Bowman’s report that she strongly disliked me — as do most pro-abortion and anti-Catholic ideologues.    Still, she did seem to understand that my views were as old as Western Civilization itself and for that reason had some historic justification.  What is far more difficult to understand — and even frightening — is how three of the allegedly “top tier” attorneys in the State of Indiana  (to be named in subsequent posts), as well as seven others on the Board, as well as Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard could NOT realize that the above paragraph flies directly in the face of the following excerpts from America’s best known jailhouse missive:

(more…)

It was a very well financed and powerful industry that trafficked in human suffering.  It had become deeply wed to the government and sneered at the Church and Christian chivalry as it preyed upon family structures.  It was the embodiment of the Culture of Death, a profit making entity that increased its power and influence by rendering human beings mere instruments of commerce.

No, I (Bryan) am not talking the abortion industry or Planned Parenthood.

We are talking the slave trade.

Anne and I just watched Amazing Grace last night — the story of William Wilberforce’s lifelong quest to end the slave trade and advance Christian chivalry in his day.

It was inspiring.  If you have not yet watched it, Anne and I suggest that you do so soon.  Click here for more details.

Let Wilberforce be remembered and celebrated as one who spoke  Truth to power to the glory of his Risen King.

That is the question in Honduras in this hour, and the Obama Admininstration seems bent on lining up with Friedrich Nietzsche instead of Thomas Jefferson, with Hugo Chavez instead of Simon Bolivar.

Click here for a fine analysis of that ongoing struggle between the Left and the rule of law. 

The Institute directs your attention to this crucial statement:  “Catholic Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga has condemned Mr. Zelaya’s violent tactics and says that Honduras does not want to emulate Venezuela.”

Earlier the Cardinal (pictured above), who is considered a possible future pope,  had this to say:  ”[The former president] doesn’t have any authority, moral or legal,” Rodriguez told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. “The legal authority he lost because he broke laws and the moral authority he lost with a discourse full of lies. The most patriotic thing he could do is stay away. Anything else is just trying to impose Hugo Chavez’s project at all costs.”

Source

Today is a special day on the Catholic calendar, for it is a day that honors a great leader in the Church, a great man who paid the ultimate price to follow his conscience.

That man is Thomas More, former Chancellor of England.

If you know little of him then do yourself a fine favor and rent this movie.  You really owe it to yourself to exchange heroes like Arnuld and The Rock and all of that rot for men of character like Sir Thomas More.

We have posted on Sir Thomas in the past.  Those posts are at the end of today’s reflection for any who want to read more on this great example.

Since I (Bryan) first learned of Thomas More (during the Rescue days) I have looked up to him. I watched A Man for All Seasons the night that I was received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  He has often inspired me.  I am no Sir Thomas More.

Allow me to say it again:  I am no Saint Thomas More.

That said, there are a few parallels that come to mind, especially as I spend much time writing in my basement after my legal career in government ended.  He spent much time writing in the Tower of London after his final run-in with the authorities over conscience issues.  I am spending much time writing in my basement.   His career at the law then ended abruptly.  I am hoping that, with his aid, mine might yet be viable.

Here is a fine website for Saint of the Day information.  I am using it in red today, with blue comments, to make my point and to honor a very honorable Christian, Saint Thomas More.

St. Thomas More, Martyr (Patron of Lawyers) St. Thomas More was born at London in 1478. After a thorough grounding in religion and the classics, he entered Oxford to study law.

**My grounding was in Baptist Sunday School as a youth (thank you, Anna Jury, RIP) and then two Bible Colleges and then the dominant religion of the age (cultural relativism) at Indiana University and then the study of law at Regent — think of it as Oxford on the Chesapeake.**

Upon leaving the university he embarked on a legal career which took him to Parliament.

*** Mine took me to the Deputy Attorney General’s desk in Kansas, after having argued successfully before the Second, Third, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, Illinois and Kansas Supreme Courts, and many lesser courts***

 In 1505, he married his beloved Jane Colt who bore him four children, and when she died at a young age, he married a widow, Alice Middleton, to be a mother for his young children.

***The loss of a wife who it the mother of your children is sad, very sad, this must have placed a tremendous burden upon Sir More ***

A wit and a reformer, this learned man numbered Bishops and scholars among his friends, and by 1516 wrote his world-famous book “Utopia”.

**** I have not quite yet finished my book, but I have put far more copy out than Sir Thomas left behind!  And I do have some smart friends, and maybe even a Bishop or two!*** 

He attracted the attention of Henry VIII who appointed him to a succession of high posts and missions, and finally made him Lord Chancellor in 1529.

*** I attracted the attention of Phill Kline, who appointed me as a Deputy AG, heading up the Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division in the Kansas Office of Attorney General.  When Planned Parenthood screamed about me being appointed  it was that I had become “one of the most powerful attorneys in Kansas” a mere eleven years after they and George Tiller had engineered my incarceration in Kansas for civil contempt.  (I was later exonerated.)   

While I did enjoy the benefit of pretty much carte blanchesubpoena power while in that position, I was never found to have abused it.  Thomas More’s fine example guided me (“I would give even the Devil the benefit of the law.” Click for that scene from the movie) More would not have misused it either.**

However, he resigned in 1532, at the height of his career and reputation, when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions regarding marriage and the supremacy of the Pope.

***Sir Thomas lost everything for principle.  He stood when others cowered.  What a great and godly example to us all!  I did not resign, I was terminated from state employ.  That story and my face to face interview with the man who terminated me — and where he went from there — is more dramatic than much of Shakespeare.  But I cannot digress into that today.  I have not resigned from the pursuit of an Indiana law license, even though many have advised me to do just that, for I, too, stand on principle.  I will, like Saint Thomas and St. Paul, use all legal appeals open to me to fulfill what I interpret to be God’s Will.***

The rest of his life was spent in writing mostly in defense of the Church.

***This site?  I am an Evangelical Roman Catholic writing to defend Christendom and document my own struggles as a Christian Activist.  (And ArchAngel shares the space, so other Christian Activists are free to submit copy.  We have never turned anyone down.)***

In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher, he refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of England and was confined to the Tower.

*** With the Left having pretty much rendered me too controversial to hire, I have been confined to house arrest.  It is hard to buy and sell in America without the mark of allegiance to the dominant cultural paradigms, and I have refused that mark.  This refusal has caused me to be isolated from America’s middle and at great odds with its Left.***

Fifteen months later, and nine days after St. John Fisher’s execution, he was tried and convicted of treason.

**** That was the charge of treason against an order that was in the process of committing treason against its own history.  Treason against an order that cared not one whit about treason against principle, but was ready to behead for treason against politics. Treason, the allegation that the dissident does not care enough for the laws of his oppressors, is the favorite charge of oppressive regimes.***

He told the court that he could not go against his conscience and wished his judges that “we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to everlasting salvation.”

*** And this is why he is a Saint!  What a magnificent stand!***

And on the scaffold, he told the crowd of spectators that he was dying as “the King’s good servant-but God’s first.”

***  Some of the best last words ever spoken.  All authority arises from God, is delegated through the State and Family.  It is so harmful when the State refuses to fall into line and goes about trying those loyal first to God for treason and such.***

Saint Thomas More was beheaded on July 6, 1535. His feast day is June 22nd

More from the Institute on More:  http://www.archangelinstitute.org/a-time-for-prayer-all-else-is-vanity/

Love, Sweet Love?  So it was sang back in 1965, just as the Free Love society, the generation that gave us Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr. and our present cultural cul de sac, was being formed.

That became the “me generation” — the most narcistic lot since ancient Babylon.

We need no more such self-love.  What the world needs now is creative extremists who are willing to put themes greater than mammon and their “sexual liberation” first.

Not ideologue anarchists like the murderous assassins who cut down George Tiller and some innocent security guard this month!  That is not creative, it is demonic.  Those two are one in the same. Anyone who cannot see that should spend much time in prayer and ask God to enlighten them, for they are being seduced into the spirituality of Cain, which is pure wickedness.

We need creative extremists in this dire hour.  But instead look for Hates Crime legislation to soon be rushed through Congress that will render creative extremism illegal, in the name of Homeland Security.

Here is an excerpt on the best known work on creative extremism.  It explains much of what we are seeing as those who are seduced by the spirit of Cain “go pop” on the evening news.  It explains that a heavier governmental hand will likely only bring upon more violence and less of what America truly needs in this hour:

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: “Get rid of your discontent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime–the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html  (emphasis added)

This is quite fitting, as that Justin Martyr is my (Bryan’s) confirmation saint. 

Prayer warriors update at end …

The following is from this website

In the time of the lawless partisans of idolatry, wicked decrees were passed against the godly Christiansin town and country, to force them to offer libations to vain idols; and accordingly the holy men, having been apprehended, were brought before the prefect of Rome, Rusticus by name. And when they had been brought before his judgment-seat, said to Justin, “Obey the gods at once, and submit to the kings.”^[1]Justin said, “To obey the commandments of our Saviour Jesus Christ is worthy neither of blame nor of condemnation.” Rusticus the prefect said, “What kind of doctrines do you profess?” Justin said, “I have endeavoured to learn all doctrines; but I have acquiesced at last in the true doctrines, those namely of the Christians, even though they do not please those who hold false opinions.”Rusticus the prefect said, “Are those the doctrines that please you, you utterly wretched man?” Justin said, “Yes, since I adhere to them with right dogma.”^[2]Rusticus the prefect said, “What is the dogma?” Justin said, “That according to which we worship the God of the Christians, whom we reckon to be one from the beginning, the maker and fashioner of the whole creation, visible and invisible; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who had also been preached beforehand by the prophets as about to be present with the race of men, the herald of salvation and teacher of good disciples. And I, being a man, think that what I can say is insignificant in comparison with His boundless divinity, acknowledging a certain prophetic power,^[3] since it was prophesied concerning Him of whom now I say that He is the Son of God. For I know that of old the prophets foretold His appearance among men.”

The prefect says to Justin, “Hearken, you who are called learned, and think that you know true doctrines; if you are scourged and beheaded, do you believe you will ascend into heaven?” Justin said, “I hope that, if I endure these things, I shall have His gifts.^[1]For I know that, to all who have thus lived, there abides the divine favour until the completion of the whole world.” Rusticus the prefect said, “Do you suppose, then, that you will ascend into heaven to receive some recompense?” Justin said, “I do not suppose it, but I know and am fully persuaded of it.”Rusticus the prefect said, “Let us, then, now come to the matter in hand, and which presses. Having come together, offer sacrifice with one accord to the gods.” Justin said, “No right-thinking person falls away from piety to impiety.”Rusticus the prefect said, “Unless ye obey, ye shall be mercilessly punished.” Justin said, “Through prayer we can be saved on account of our Lord Jesus Christ, even when we have been punished,^[2] because this shall become to us salvation and confidence at the more fearful and universal judgment-seat of our Lord and Saviour.” Thus also said the other martyrs: “Do what you will, for we are Christians, and do not sacrifice to idols.”

Rusticus the prefect pronounced sentence, saying, “Let those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods and to yield to the command of the emperor be scourged,^[1] and led away to suffer the punishment of decapitation, according to the laws.” The holy martyrs having glorified God, and having gone forth to the accustomed place, were beheaded, and perfected their testimony in the confession of the Saviour. .

Today was not quite that bad … but it is not over yet.  Please keep the prayers going for us, especially for Anne.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12 

Saint Thomas More is but one of those witnesses.  He surely must have penned the following prayer while awaiting execution in the Tower.  Execution for the crime of standing on God’s law rather than man’s, execution due to the testimony of his enemies, execution for being political incorrect, execution for standing on tradition and with the Church rather than adopting the values and creeds of a New Age. 

Here is a painting showing Sir Thomas More confronting an apostate Bishop.

Saint Thomas More, pray for me as I prepare for one of the most important hearings in my life.

A Prayer by St. Thomas More

Give me the grace, Good Lord:
To set the world at naught.
To set the mind firmly on You and not to hang upon the words of men’s mouths.
To be content to be solitary.
Not to long for worldly pleasures. Little by little utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of all its business. Not to long to hear of earthly things, but that the hearing of worldly fancies may be displeasing to me. Gladly to be thinking of God, piteously to call for His help.
To lean into the comfort of God. Busily to labor to love Him.
To know my own vileness and wretchedness.
To humble myself under the mighty hand of God.
To bewail my sins and, for the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity. Gladly to bear my purgatory here.
To be joyful in tribulations.
To walk the narrow way that leads to life.
To have the last thing in remembrance.
To have ever before my eyes my death that is ever at hand.
To make death no stranger to me.
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of Hell.
To pray for pardon before the judge comes.
To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me. For His benefits unceasingly to give Him thanks.
To buy the time again that I have lost.
To abstain from vain conversations.
To shun foolish mirth and gladness.
To cut off unnecessary recreations. Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at naught, for the winning of Christ.
To think my worst enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favor as they did him with their malice and hatred. These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasures of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all in one heap.

Amen.

More on More here and here 

Information on the picture in this post from this fine website: 

Thomas More Defending the Liberty of the House of Commons, Painting by Vivian Forbes, 1927, St Stephen’s Hall, English Parliament, London. © The Palace of Westminster.

More’s defense of the liberty of the House of Commons, which also took place in 1523, is commemorated by a life-size mural in England’s Parliament. (See painting above.) This painting is one of eight in the “Building of Britain” series in St. Stephen’s Hall, and it depicts a famous incident that occurred in 1523 when, as Speaker of the House of Commons, More ingeniously and courageously resisted Lord Chancellor and Cardinal Wolsey’s attempt to violate the Commons’ tradition of free deliberation

This post concludes the background on the legal infanticide of the Baby Doe case.  This post is, like the others that came before it in this past week, taken directly from our series on civil disobedience last summer.  See the June – August archives for more on this necessary topic.

Baby Doe was born on April 9, 1982.  April 9 is also Passover this year and Maundy Thursday  — a rare and unusual paring of religious dates.  Such significance!  Our Lord and Saviour celebrated Passover on Maundy Thursday and was crucified as the Lamb of God, the fulfilment of the Passover, on the next day.

On April 9, 2009 this site will present an interview with the Indiana judge who signed the papers and established the “due process” that paved the way for that baby’s painfilled demise.   We will present this interview devotionally.

For more on the Passover/Easter connection see our posts from Lent 2008.

We have been working with the Baby Doe event from two decades past as our example of good government gone bad. Numerous other examples could be sited, and will be in the posts to come. I am building on the Baby Doe order because it helped me in my formation as a Christian Activist.

Others have been inspired to consider the same by the example of Franz Jagerstatter, who refused to serve in the nazi army and was executed for his faith-filled answer of “Nein!” to the Uberstate. Click here for more on this man of great courage.

The Christian Church was not born to serve as a bastion of banality for lukewarm status quo social orders. In its worst years it has been pressed into such service, but that is not the intent of the Church’s Head, Jesus the Christ. He calls His Church to engage on social issues, for social issues are issues of Faith.

The Church is to preserve what is best in any social order, which is to say that which is in keeping with Natural Law, and to confront that which is raised up against Natural Law and the Revealed Will of the Creator.

Examples are not difficult to come by, although they are, at times, difficult to agree upon. If the Church was left behind without leaders with true authority then the plan was a recipe for disharmony and disunity.

Thankfully the Church has been graced with offices and leadership.

So has the government. But what happens when leadership fails to follow the Natural Law or the Revealed Will of God?

What is the Christian to do when ordered to assist in wrongdoing?

Like any and all Christian nurses and doctors ordered to ignore the cries of Baby Doe.

Here is the ancient and accepted teaching of the Christian Church:

Those early Roman Christians had to right to conscientious objection, said the Apostles. No such right, said the Empire. The Empire won in the coliseum but lost in history. Although the great grandchildren of those who triumphed over Roman paganism look to be rethinking all of the issues and look to be resurrecting the gory glory that was Rome.

Do pharmacists, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, judges, policemen, social workers and other professionals enjoy the right to object to participating in acts contrary to Church teaching in our current social situation? How about parents? Do they enjoy such rights? Yes, but not for long if the political correctness movement continues to push its “diversity of morality” platforms on a post-Christian social order.

Rampant Christian persecution could fall upon us all much faster than many realize.

Readers might want to bookmark the above Church teaching. It could come in quite handy in the years set before us.

December 26 is the Feast Day of St. Stephen. Like many saints, Stephen earned the title by dying for his testimony. He was killed by agents of the government while preaching the Good News about His Lord and Saviour, so that well recommends Stephen as a dissident. He was calling for a revolutionary change in the governance of God’s people and violating an injunction to so speak, and so that recommends him for our category on civil disobedience.

Thus we fulfill our mission statements in the ArchAngel Gabriel, Michael and Raphael Division by posting this 1950 year old sermon — Stephen’s last:

The attack on the new deacon, Stephen

6:8-15 – Stephen, full of grace and spiritual power, continued to perform miracles and remarkable signs among the people. However, members of a Jewish synagogue known as the Libertines, together with some from the synagogues of Cyrene and Alexandria, as well as some men from Cilicia and Asia, tried debating with Stephen, but found themselves quite unable to stand up against either his practical wisdom or the spiritual force with which he spoke. In desperation they bribed men to allege, “We have heard this man making blasphemous statements against Moses and against God.” At the same time they worked upon the feelings of the people, the elders and the scribes. Then they suddenly confronted Stephen, seized him and marched him off before the Sanhedrin. There they brought forward false witnesses to say, “This man’s speeches are one long attack against this holy place and the Law. We have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses handed down to us.” All who sat there in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and as they looked his face appeared to them like the face of an angel.

CHAPTER 7

Stephen makes his defence from Israel’s history:

i. THE TIME OF ABRAHAM

7:1a -Then the High Priest said, “Is this statement true?”

7:1b-3 – And Stephen answered, “My brothers and my fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our forefather Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia before he ever came to live in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’

7:4-8a – That was how he came to leave the land of the Chaldeans and settle in Haran. And it was from there after his father’s death that God moved him into this very land where you are living today. Yet God gave him no part of it as an inheritance, not a foot that he could call his own, and yet promised that it should eventually belong to him and his descendants – even though at the time he had no descendant at all. And this is the way in which God spoke to him: he told him that his descendants should live as strangers in a foreign land where they would become slaves and be ill-treated for four hundred years, ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God: ‘and after that they shall come out and serve me in this place.’ “Further, he gave him the agreement of circumcision, so that when Abraham became the father of Isaac he circumcised him on the eighth day.

Stephen’s defence:

ii. THE PATRIARCHS

7:8b-10 – “Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of the twelve patriarchs. Then the patriarchs in their jealousy of Joseph sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him and saved him from all his troubles and gave him favour and wisdom in the eyes of Pharaoh the king of Egypt. Pharaoh made him governor of Egypt and put him in charge of his own entire household.

7:11-16 – “Then came the famine over all the land of Egypt and Canaan which caused great suffering, and our forefathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt he sent our forefathers out of their own country for the first time. It was on their second visit that Joseph was recognised by his brothers, and his ancestry became plain to Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent and invited to come and live with him his father and all his kinsmen, seventy-five people in all. So Jacob came down to Egypt and both he and our fathers ended their days there. After their deaths they were carried back into Shechem and laid in the tomb which Abraham had bought with silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

7:17-19 – “But as the time drew near for the fulfilment of the promise which God had made to Abraham, our people grew more and more numerous in Egypt. Finally another king came to the Egyptian throne who knew nothing of Joseph. This man cleverly victimised our race. He treated our forefathers abominably, forcing them to expose our infant children so that the race should die out.

Stephen’s defence:

iii. GOD’S PROVIDENCE AND MOSES

7:20-22 – “It was at this very time that Moses was born. He was a child of remarkable beauty, and for three months he was brought up in his father’s house, and then when the time came for him to be abandoned Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. So Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and became not only an excellent speaker but a man of action as well.

Moses’ first abortive attempt at rescue

7:23-29 – “Now when he was turned forty the thought came into his mind that he should go and visit his own brothers, the sons of Israel. He saw one of them being unjustly treated, went to the rescue and paid rough justice for the man who had been ill-treated by striking down the Egyptian. He fully imagined that his brothers would understand that God was using him to rescue them. But they did not understand. Indeed, on the very next day he came upon two of them who were quarrelling and urged them to make peace, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. What good can come from your injuring each other?’ But the man who was wronging his neighbour pushed Moses aside saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’ At that retort Moses fled and lived as an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

Moses hears the voice of God

7:30-34 – “It was forty years later in the desert of Mount Sinai that an angel appeared to him in the flames of a burning bush, and the sight filled Moses with wonder. As he approached to look at it more closely the voice of the Lord spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Then Moses trembled and was afraid to look any more. But the Lord spoke to him and said, ‘Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I have certainly seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’

But Israel rejects Moses

7:35-37 – “So this same Moses whom they had rejected in the words, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ God sent to be both ruler and deliverer with the help of the angel who had appeared to him in the bush. This is the man who showed wonders and signs in Egypt and in the Red Sea, the man who led them out of Egypt and was their leader in the desert for forty years. He was Moses, the man who said to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’

7:38-40 – In that church in the desert this was the man who was the mediator between the angel who used to talk with him on Mount Sinai and our fathers. This was the man who received words, living words, which were to be given to you; and this was the man to whom our forefathers turned a deaf ear! They disregarded him, and in their hearts hankered after Egypt. They said to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’

7:41-43 – In those days they even made a calf, and offered sacrifices to their idol. They rejoiced in the work of their own hands. So God turned away from them and left them to worship the Host of Heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? Yes, you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, images which you made to worship; and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’

God’s privileges to Israel

7:44-50 – “There in the desert our forefather possessed the Tabernacle of witness made according to the pattern which Moses saw when God instructed him to build it. This Tabernacle was handed down to our forefathers, and they brought it here when the Gentiles were defeated under Joshua, for God drove them out as our ancestors advanced. Here it stayed until the time of David. David won the approval of God and prayed that he might find a habitation for the God of Jacob, even though it was not he but Solomon who actually built a house for him. Yet of course the most high does not live in man-made houses. As the prophet says, ‘Heaven is my throne. and earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me? says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Has my hand not made all these things?’

Yet Israel is blind and disobedient

7:51-53 – “You obstinate people, heathen in your thinking, heathen in the way you are listening to me now! It is always the same – you never fail to resist the Holy Spirit! Just as your fathers did so are you doing now. Can you name a single prophet whom your fathers did not persecute? They killed the men who long ago foretold the coming of the just one, and now in our own day you have become betrayers and his murderers. You are the men who have received the Law of God miraculously, by the hand of angels, and you are the men who have disobeyed it!”

The truth arouses murderous fury

7:54-55 – These words stung them to fury and they ground their teeth at him in rage. Stephen, filled through all his being with the Holy Spirit, looked steadily up into Heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus himself standing at his right hand.

7:56 – “Look!” he exclaimed, “the heavens are opened and I can see the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand!”

7:57-58 – At this they put their fingers in their ears. Yelling with fury, as one man they made a rush at him and hustled him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses of the execution flung their clothes at the feet of a young man by the name of Saul.

7:59 – So they stoned Stephen while he called upon God, and said, “Jesus, Lord, receive my spirit!”

7:60 – Then, on his knees, he cried in ringing tones, “Lord, forgive them for this sin.” And with these words he fell into the sleep of death .….

Source: J.B. Phillips translation of the Book of Acts. Click here for more.

The above painting is:

PIETRO DA CORTONA
The Stoning of St Stephen
c. 1660
Oil on canvas, 260,5 x 149 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg