The Stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:54-60)

When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 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. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 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. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Massacre of the Holy Innocents (Matthew 2:13-18)
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."[a]  When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
"A voice is heard in Ramah,
      weeping and great mourning,
   Rachel weeping for her children
      and refusing to be comforted,
   because they are no more."[b]

These are two passages here that set down the classic dilemma for Christian thinking. Why does God allow suffering to take place? If God were omnipotent (all powerful), he would have the power to stop evil and suffering. If God were omniscient (all knowing) he would know how to stop suffering. If he were omni-benevolent (all loving and good) he would not allow suffering. It puts us in an impossible quandary – the way we are taught to understand God is what makes it so hard for us to believe in him. It is our belief in an all knowing, all loving, all powerful God that creates in us a sense of outrage at unnecessary suffering and evil, but then it is our outrage that makes belief so difficult.

Both stories leave us asking the same question – how do we respond to suffering and evil in the world?

St Stephen

St Stephen first appears in an early ‘early church’ argument. The numbers of believers were increasing and tension flared up between the new (Greek-speaking Christians) and the old guard (Hebraic Jews). The new Christian community held their property in common ownership, the well-to-do sharing what they owned with the poor. The new guard thought that they, particularly the widows among them, were being discriminated against at the public tables. The Apostles were informed of these complaints, but they were too busy to deal with the problem. The solution was to appoint seven good men and true to administer and supervise the tables – chief among these was Stephen.

Stephen’s character and abilities are spelt out in Acts

• The Church had, by selecting him for a deacon, publicly acknowledged him as a man "of good reputation, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom" (Acts 6:3).

• He was a man full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost (Acts 6:5)
• full of grace and power and did great wonders and signs (Acts 6:8). Spoke with wisdom and the spirit (Acts 6:10)

The trouble was that the initial resentment was never dealt with and the unease between the two groups flared up again. There were a number of Jewish priests had been converted to the new Christian faith, but who still held to the old traditions and rules as laid down in Mosaic Law. They did not take kindly to Stephen repeatedly quoting Jesus and the prophets to emphasize that the old law had been superseded and that the ancient holy rites of the Temple were now of less importance than the spirit. Stephen was heard as saying that even the Temple might be destroyed, as it had been in the past, without damage to the true and eternal religion.

Stephen was arrested and dragged before the Sanhedrin. The accusations made against him left him unperturbed and "all that sat in the council...saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel" (Acts 6:15). Stephen's answer to their accusations was to give a catalogue of God’s mercy and love towards the Israelites along with the evidence of their corresponding ingratitude and lack of faith (Acts 7). They did not like what they heard, particularly the idea that they had betrayed and murdered the Son of God whose coming the Prophets had foretold.

When Stephen "looking up steadfastly to heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God", and said: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (vii, 55), they ran violently upon him (vii, 56) and cast him out of the city to stone him to death. It was most likely while these preparations were going on that, "falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice, saying: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:59).

Massacre of the Innocents

Jesus’ birth is not the happy occasion we might want it to be. Matthew (Matthew 2:16-18) records the tale infanticide that happened as a result; Herod the Great was the Pol Pot of his generation. He ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, to protect himself against the newborn child, described by the Magi, as the "King of the Jews." Mary, Joseph and Jesus then fled into Egypt to stop the same thing happening to them.

Suffering

God has got a preset plan

Some will say that God has a plan for our lives set in place before we are born. This is suggested in the words used by God to Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew [a] you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)

People who believe this will use words like “God’s timing”, “God’s plan for my life”

God has got an unfolding plan

God does not preordain what is going to happen but he picks up on the consequences of people’s behaviour – he works with what we have got. This is suggested in Romans: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, [a] who[b] have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

This understanding is illustrated in the story of Stephen’s stoning. The witnesses needed to convict Stephen lay down their garments at the feet of Saul before beginning their stoning (Acts 7:57). Stephen was heard to utter this supreme prayer: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7: 58). If Stephen’s faith became a part of Saul’s later conversion then his blood was the first seed of a harvest that would cover the world?

People who hold this understanding of God use words like ‘everything happens for a purpose’

God leaves things to run their own course.

This is the bleakest of the three options. The psalmists rail against the fact that the wicked seem to prosper. Jeremiah, the prophet is so distraught by all that happens to him that he curses the day he was born (Jeremiah 20:14).

People who hold this understanding of God use words like ‘everything happens for a purpose’

There is a story of a man who is dreaming. In his dream he sees Jesus walking besides three praying figures. Jesus hugs the first man tightly; he barely touches the second man; he ignores the third man. The man who is dreaming assumes that Jesus truly loved the first man but the third man had done something wrong and that had made Jesus ignore him. Jesus tells him that the first man is the weakest and so needs his help the most and that is why he hugged him tightly. The third man was strongest in his faith and that is why he walked by him. If you take this story then it might be at the times you feel on your own that you are strongest in your walk with God. You can take strength from this idea every time you feel that you are struggling with something that appears difficult, wrong or evil.