Rewards of the Truth

Acts 7:51-53

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Vol. 1)

One of the points that Stephen makes as he retells the story emerges slowly at first, then faster and faster, and then explosively. That point is the repeated sin of the people. When Stephen begins the story, at first there is no mention of Israel’s evil. Then the wickedness of Joseph’s brothers is briefly mentioned (7:9). Corporate wickedness re-surfaces in Moses’ day (7:25-27, 35). Now the pace quickens. The people refused to obey Moses “and in their hearts turned back to Egypt” (7:39). The golden calf episode is brought up, and likened to idolatry in the time of Amos (7:42-43). We skip ahead to David and Solomon, and the insistence that God cannot be domesticated by a building. Finally there is the explosive condemnation not only of past generations of Israelites who rejected God and his revelation, but also of all their contemporary Spirit-resisting descendants (7:51-53) (July 20).

Aaron Orendorff,

One thing is very clear from both the story Stephen tells as well as the way his own story ends: being God’s servant is dangerous, unpopular work. Not only does telling the truth often get a person in trouble, sometimes it gets you killed.

How very different are my own person expectations. What I expect the truth to produces (as long as it’s presented with charisma and irenic warmth), is respect and popularity. I expect to be congratulated for the truth and (for the most part at least) loved and rewarded for it. Yet this is not the patter established in Scripture. Nor is it the pattern established by Jesus. To bear witness to the truth mean being despised, and this often by the very people who would identify themselves as God’s own.