Not death...Life.

"Stephen, miss Emunah doesn't have anymore food left...you have to do something."

Stephen responded with patience, "Mireya, I won't forget a single widow. You know that I won't forsake my responsibilities and beliefs. I've already sent our son to her with a basket full of food."

Mireya smiled broadly. "I love you very much Stephen."

"And I you my love."

Her smile faded as she thought about the news he'd shared with her the night before. "Stephen, why did you argue with the teachers at the Synagogue? You know that they hate you for it."

Choosing his words carefully, Stephen replied, "My love, do you remember when I healed Ilse? Do you remember the time that I spoke to Roman guard in his own language? Do you remember all the miracles that Timon and I performed in Cilicia?"

"Of course I do! I couldn't believe my eyes...."

"Then you also remember why I was able to do those things. Or should I say...you remember 'who' helped me to do those things. I can't standby as members of the Freedmen lead others from the 'Way'. Peter himself laid hands on me when I was chosen. He prayed that day that my faith would lead others to our Messiah...he prayed that I would not deny the Christ as he had once done. He shared so much about our lord Jesus with me, Mireya. I have to be faithful, no matter what the cost. You know that."

He watched as tears started falling from her face.

He was about to walk to her side and comfort her, but then she spoke, "Why can't I have faith like yours? Why is it so difficult...after everything I've seen...after everything I've heard..."

"Hush Mir. You do have faith like mine, you just don't know it yet. When time comes you'll be an even greater witness to the lost than I've ever been." He walked over and gently rested her tear streamed face on his shoulder. Then he prayed over her, and with her...singing hymns until finally he knew she'd fallen asleep in her exhaustion. Though it was barely morning, he knew she hadn't been sleeping well lately.

"I haven't told her yet Lord, though I think she knows."

There was no response.

"The brothers tell me that tomorrow the Freedman plan to have me brought before the Sanhedrin. Why Lord? I've been faithful. I haven't blasphemed against Moses...and I could never blaspheme against you. What if they find me guilty? What about Mireya? This isn't the life that I planned for us. Levi told us that you said that you'd be with me always..."

I have been with you always.

"Then why doesn't it seem like you're..."

Almost as clear and audible as if the voice was in the room with him, he heard the words of a prayer prayed not so long ago, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

"That's what you prayed in the garden wasn't it? I think I remember the brothers sharing that as well. But surely, I'm not able to stand before them and declare your truth lord. You know my innermost being...you see the fears and doubts that I've lived with."

I was the sacrifice Stephen. Trust Me. No matter what follows...Trust Me.

"I do Lord. But what if..."

In the midst of his conversation, a banging on the door began.

Stephen hastened to the door in order to prevent the banging from waking Mireya from her sleep. As he opened it, he realized that a crowd of elders, religious leaders, and zealots were filling up the street. The Pharisee, standing closest to him, spoke, "Stephen of Aron, you have been accused of blasphemy against the Lord Most High, and those who serve Him. You will come with us to stand trial before the Sanhedrin."

Before Stephen could respond he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. He turned to face the a girl, a woman, that shone with beauty and warmth, his wife. He started to speak, "I have to. If I don't then..." She put her finger up to his lips, and as tears once again filled her eyes, and said, "Hush Stephen. I understand, I just don't know it yet." He felt his heart breaking and overflowing at the same time with his love for her. "Mir, whatever happens, I'll see you soon. He is the Way." Her eyes shone and she gave him a brave smile, "I know. I love you."

He was barely able to kiss her sweet face before he was dragged out into the street. He was treated quite rough and then suddenly felt something hit the back of his head as he blacked out.

After coming to, Stephen was brought before the Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin.


Stephen listened as lying witnesses spoke of his blaspheming against the temple and against Moses. Misunderstanding, misquoting and even fabricating all that they could to seal his fate.


"Jesus, I need your strength right now. If you don't fill me with your presence...I know that I won't be what you're asking me to be."

Give me full control Stephen, as you've done before.

"Will you save me Lord?"

I already have my love. I already have.

It was in that moment that the Council, the crowd, and all that he gazed upon were now visible in a light that he'd never even imagined before this moment. He didn't understand why all faces were upon him at this same moment, as if they could see the same light and radiance that he could, but he knew now exactly what God wanted him to say. The Truth would set them free.


Realizing that the high priest had just asked him if the accusations were true, he let the Spirit lead him.

“Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’ So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live.

“But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land. God did promise, however, that eventually the whole land would belong to Abraham and his descendants—even though he had no children yet. God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign land, where they would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. ‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and in the end they will come out and worship me here in this place.’

“God also gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision at that time. So when Abraham became the father of Isaac, he circumcised him on the eighth day. And the practice was continued when Isaac became the father of Jacob, and when Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs of the Israelite nation.

“These patriarchs were jealous of their brother Joseph, and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. And God gave him favor before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. God also gave Joseph unusual wisdom, so that Pharaoh appointed him governor over all of Egypt and put him in charge of the palace.

“But a famine came upon Egypt and Canaan. There was great misery, and our ancestors ran out of food. Jacob heard that there was still grain in Egypt, so he sent his sons—our ancestors—to buy some. The second time they went, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, and they were introduced to Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and all his relatives to come to Egypt, seventy-five persons in all. So Jacob went to Egypt. He died there, as did our ancestors. Their bodies were taken to Shechem and buried in the tomb Abraham had bought for a certain price from Hamor’s sons in Shechem.

“As the time drew near when God would fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. But then a new king came to the throne of Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph. This king exploited our people and oppressed them, forcing parents to abandon their newborn babies so they would die.

“At that time Moses was born—a beautiful child in God’s eyes. His parents cared for him at home for three months. When they had to abandon him, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and raised him as her own son. Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action.

“One day when Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his relatives, the people of Israel. He saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite. So Moses came to the man’s defense and avenged him, killing the Egyptian. Moses assumed his fellow Israelites would realize that God had sent him to rescue them, but they didn’t.

“The next day he visited them again and saw two men of Israel fighting. He tried to be a peacemaker. ‘Men,’ he said, ‘you are brothers. Why are you fighting each other?’

“But the man in the wrong pushed Moses aside. ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’ When Moses heard that, he fled the country and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian. There his two sons were born.

“Forty years later, in the desert near Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to Moses in the flame of a burning bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he went to take a closer look, the voice of the Lord called out to him, ‘I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with terror and did not dare to look.

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groans and have come down to rescue them. Now go, for I am sending you back to Egypt.'

“So God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected when they demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, God sent Moses to be their ruler and savior. And by means of many wonders and miraculous signs, he led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness for forty years.

“Moses himself told the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people.’ Moses was with our ancestors, the assembly of God’s people in the wilderness, when the angel spoke to him at Mount Sinai. And there Moses received life-giving words to pass on to us.

“But our ancestors refused to listen to Moses. They rejected him and wanted to return to Egypt. They told Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t know what has become of this Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.’ So they made an idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed to it and celebrated over this thing they had made. Then God turned away from them and abandoned them to serve the stars of heaven as their gods! In the book of the prophets it is written,

‘Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings
during those forty years in the wilderness, Israel?
No, you carried your pagan gods—
the shrine of Molech,
the star of your god Rephan,
and the images you made to worship them.
So I will send you into exile
as far away as Babylon.’

“Our ancestors carried the Tabernacle with them through the wilderness. It was constructed according to the plan God had shown to Moses. Years later, when Joshua led our ancestors in battle against the nations that God drove out of this land, the Tabernacle was taken with them into their new territory. And it stayed there until the time of King David.

“David found favor with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who actually built it. However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. As the prophet says,

‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Could you build me a temple as good as that?’
asks the Lord.
‘Could you build me such a resting place?
Didn’t my hands make both heaven and earth?’

“You stubborn people! You are heathens at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels.”

The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. He knew what he had to tell them, for he was looking right at it, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”

Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city, grabbing their stones. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

"Lord, they don't understand. They didn't believe."

You've planted my seed in their hearts Stephen, that's all I asked you to do, I'll do the rest.

"Is this the end Lord?"

No beloved, this is the beginning. It's time to come home my love. It's time to come home.

He saw the crowd raising the stones, but through their hate he saw something deeper in their hearts. They were just like him, they just needed to meet his savior. Now he understood why Jesus, why God Himself, could and did forgive those that crucified Him. Because they were loved, lost, but loved. He realized that he loved them too.

"I understand now Lord. I'm ready my King. I'm ready."

And as they stoned him, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, forgive them for they don't know what they do!” And with those words, he died.

Not death beloved...life.