Moses and Rejection

Acts 6:8-14

And seeing one of [his brothers] being wronged, [Moses] defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, “Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?” But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?”

This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, “Who made you a ruler and a judge?”—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Stephen has been accused of going soft of Moses and his law; very well, he will go bak to the story of Moses and see what it says. He tells the story of Moses so as to highlight three things in particular.

First, Moses was raised up by God, and trained in such a way that, though a strange providence, he became exactly the right leader for God’s people.

Second, Moses become the rejected ruler. . . . [H]ere was this man, sent by God to deliver the people (albeit not yet ready to do so properly), being rejected by the very people he was supposed to be rescuing. “Who made you ruler or a judge over us?” asked the Hebrew man whom Moses had been rebuking.

But, third, Moses was the one to whom, and through whom, “the God of glory,” the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, revealed himself in a fresh way (113-4).

Aaron Orendorff

Much like Joseph in the first half of Stephen’s narrative, Moses is portrayed in very particular light. He is presented—not as Israel’s great redeemer and law-giver—but instead as a rejected ruler. Moses (to borrow from John 1) came to his own, but his own did not receive him. Of course, later in Moses’ story (after forty years in the desert and God’s personal and immediate commission), the people of Israel did respond to Moses’ redemptive invitation; but, as we know from Numbers, even after their initial response, Moses’ leadership was continually challenged and attacked.

Stephen is establishing a pattern: those whom God elects as “ruler and redeemer” share in one central trait—rejection. Stephen himself is (as the story unfolds) about to share in that same pattern. Paul will as well; as will James the just and many, many others. Such is the pattern that when we find ourselves on the receiving end of rejection, we ought not be surprised nor discouraged but rather feel ourselves in the company of very good men.