March 29
(Acts 7:51-58
NIV) ""You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears!
You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! {52} Was
there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who
predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and
murdered him-- {53} you who have received the law that was put into effect
through angels but have not obeyed it." {54} When they heard this, they
were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. {55} But Stephen, full of the Holy
Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God. {56} "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and
the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." {57} At this they
covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at
him, {58} dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the
witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.""
(Matthew
23:25-39 NIV) ""Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full
of greed and self-indulgence. {26} Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of
the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. {27} "Woe to
you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like
whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are
full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. {28} In the same way, on the
outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of
hypocrisy and wickedness. {29} "Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the
graves of the righteous. {30} And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our
forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of
the prophets.' {31} So you testify against yourselves that you are the
descendants of those who murdered the prophets. {32} Fill up, then, the measure
of the sin of your forefathers! {33} "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How
will you escape being condemned to hell? {34} Therefore I am sending you
prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify;
others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. {35} And
so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from
the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you
murdered between the temple and the altar. {36} I tell you the truth, all this
will come upon this generation. {37} "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill
the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather
your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you
were not willing. {38} Look, your house is left to you desolate. {39} For I
tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in
the name of the Lord.'""
Sometimes the truth hurts.
Sometimes it can even get you killed. Ask Stephen. Ask the millions of
Christians who have been martyred since Christ walked this Earth. After
Stephen’s brief history lesson, he unloaded on the Sanhedrin. They and their
ilk had persecuted and killed many a prophet down through the years. Now they
had murdered the Son of God. They had been entrusted with God’s Law, but they
did not obey it. Stephen held nothing back. Full of God’s Spirit, he looked to
heaven and declared that Jesus was alive and standing at the right hand of God.
He was saying that Jesus is Lord -- Jesus is God. The Sanhedrin went ballistic.
They struck back -- not with arguments, but with violence. They stoned Stephen
to death and Christianity had its first martyr. Sometimes the truth hurts. It
can hurt those who hear it, and it can hurt those who speak it. Speak it
anyway. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day
