they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke.
Stephen was given at that moment what he was to say. It was not him speaking, but the Spirit of his Father speaking through him. The actual content of Stephen's discourse, which was omitted from today's reading from Acts, was long and dense, and doubtlessly drew upon his own knowledge and understanding. Yet we should still understand this discourse to have been guided by the Spirit.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
The Spirit guided Stephen to speak of the common ground he had with his persecutors. He tried to show that God had always desired to reveal himself and be present to his people, with the implication that Jesus himself was in fact the fullness of this revelation and presence.
So far so good. It makes sense to us that the Spirit would speak gently about common ground and build from there. But the Spirit also guided Stephen to call his accusers a stiff-necked people whose fathers persecuted the prophets and who themselves betrayed and murdered the Righteous One.
Wait. Is this aggressive shift in tone and message really what the Spirit would really call Stephen to speak? To add more fuel to our doubt, it didn't seem to work. Their hearts only seemed more hardened by it, and in response they doubled down on their attack on Stephen.
When they heard this, they were infuriated,
and they ground their teeth at him.
Stephen was not beginning in the Spirit and ending in the flesh as we might be tempted to think. The Spirit called him to speak not only the easy words that would result in agreement by all who heard, but also the difficult words, words which could only be accepted if his hearers would open their hearts to the voice speaking, not harden them, and repent. But without those hard words they would not have had the option to repent. They would have still been trapped in their sins.
Should it matter to our interpretation that Stephen's discourse didn't seem to have any effect on those who heard them, that it in fact seemed to further harden their hearts? We should realize that all we know for sure is that it didn't have the effect of conversion immediately. We don't know how it impacted his accusers from there. God does sometimes harden hearts (or allow them to become hardened) precisely so they can more completely experience their depravity without him, the utter need we all have for him, which nothing else can fill.
For a case in point, let us look at Saul who was a witness of this stoning. How directly did this experience allow him to understand later when Jesus explained, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (see Acts 9:5). Was Saul's heart hardened for a moment by the hearing of difficult words? Probably. But could God have still used that hardening for the greater good of making him his chosen instrument to bear witness to all nations, and to prepare him to suffer much for God (see Acts 9:15-9:16)? Of course.
There are several takeaways for us from the martyrdom of Stephen. One is seeing how the guidance of the Holy Spirit can work with what we know, with the study we've done, but often calls us to use it in ways that we would not expect. We see that we might be called to speak hard words that do not seem to produce good results immediately, and may in fact do the opposite. But we also see that God can work all of this for the good of those who love him (see Romans 8:28).
We see in Stephen that even speaking hard words doesn't need to make us bitter or cynical people. When we are guided by the Holy Spirit we remain kind and Christlike. Stephen prayed for the forgiveness for his killers and handed his spirit over to Jesus, just as Jesus forgave us and handed his Spirit over to the Father.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
If we will let ourselves be guided by the Spirit our faces, like Stephen's will be like those of angels, even when the things we say our difficult. Our whole lives will give proof to the sincerity and even the supernatural origin of the words we speak.
Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your kindness.
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