Acts 7:30-43
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. 31 When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’ s
35 “This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.
37 “This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’ y 38 He was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living words to pass on to us.
39 “But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’ e 41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made. 42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets:
“ ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
43 You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek
and the star of your god Rephan,
the idols you made to worship.
Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. [1]
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What strikes me in this passage, this section of Stephen’s speech, is that Stephen had no difficulty coming up with examples of how the people of Israel had fallen away. It is rather remarkable that in many ways, the Old Testament is a chronicle of the fallibility of the people of God. From the Garden of Eden to the Golden Calf to the exile, time and again the people of God turned away.
At the same time, the Old Testament is a chronicle of the grace and forbearance of God, who continually spoke not just Law but also Gospel, who not only challenged his people, but continually invited them, who had given them their covenant identity, and despite their failure to live up to that identity, repeatedly forgave them and would not let go of them.
Paul wrote in Romans 15:4 “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” We are to learn from their example, not just about them, or about God, but about ourselves.
In hearing Stephen’s speech, my normal tendency is to identify with Stephen. (After all he’s preaching!) I want to identify with the righteous and point out the failures of the church in the past and the present. But the word today is leading me to identify with the fallible people of God.
Where have I failed? Where am I failing? What are the golden calves that I’m bringing my offerings to? I am fooling myself if I don’t take seriously that I have the same sinful nature, and am just as prone to fall as the people to whom Stephen spoke. But just as I am the same, so is God the same. His convicting Word gives way to his forgiving Word, and His strengthening Word.
My prayer today is that I may be led by God’s spirit to turn away from all idolatry, no matter how subtle. I pray that God lead me to see the Golden Calves my heart is inclined to build, and to cast them away, that I may worship Him alone.
What is the Word leading you to pray about today?
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[1] The New International Version. 2011 (Ac 7:30–43). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
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