Stephen's History Lesson Continues

Tom: This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, and we are in the Book of Acts:7:24And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian:
See All.... But, Dave, from time to time, I think it’s good that we encourage our listeners and exhort them, really, to read the Scriptures for themselves. It’s our privilege to be able to go through this and people listen to us. We want them to check us out, to “search the Scriptures daily” to see if our understanding is true to what the Holy Spirit is teaching them, but they have to read the Word of God.

Dave: Well, you have to be born again to have a taste for it. You can’t get into the kingdom of God - you can’t get into heaven itself - unless you are born again. Jesus said that. When we came into this earth, we became a child of our earthly parents. To be children of God, we have to become children of God through faith in Christ by being born again of the Holy Spirit. And Peter says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby.” You don’t have to teach a newborn babe to desire its mother’s milk, and that’s whether it’s a human or whether it’s some kind of an animal; it comes naturally. And so the Scripture indicates that if you’re really born again - we’re talking about “examine yourself; are you in the faith?” - do you really have a taste for the Word of God? And so we encourage people - but if you really know the Lord, you should have a hunger and thirst after this.

Tom: And, Dave, we get letters all the time from people that came to know the Lord through reading the Scriptures.

Dave: Amen, yes.

Tom: As we’ve mentioned, I grew up Roman Catholic, and we were never encouraged to read the Word of God. But we’ve gotten letters from Catholics (I mean, I have saved many of them) in which they - I know it was either through the prayers of others or just the conviction of the Holy Spirit, they sat down and began to read the Word of God, and came to know the Lord. And once you do, then your deeper understanding - that’s the only way you can truly understand the Word of God with any depth at all.

Dave: Amen.

Tom: So we’re in Acts:7:24And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian:
See All.... “And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian.”

Dave: It’s talking about Moses.

Tom: Right. Forty years in the household of Pharaoh, not living with his Hebrew relatives…

Dave: But he knew he was one of them, and now he finally decides, “well, let’s get out. I want to see what’s going on out there.” 

Tom, it would be an interesting question…You would think that Pharaoh would know. I mean, his daughter, who picked this baby up out of the Nile River certainly knew, because she gave it back to one of the Hebrew women to nurse. And I don’t remember, I don’t think the Scripture tells us exactly in years how long he was with his mother, but she weaned him, and then he is brought up in Pharaoh’s household. It seems kind of hard to imagine that Pharaoh really knew this was a Jewish boy. Maybe he did! I don’t know, but probably by this time it would be pretty much forgotten. I mean, Moses must have very Egyptianized. He was learned in all the ways of the Egyptians, he was schooled - maybe Pharaoh even thought this would be the next Pharaoh; I don’t know! We don’t get those details, but it’s interesting because Stephen is reciting all of this. 

You know, sometimes people get the idea that the Israelites - I mean these people back in the days of the prophets, and so forth, days of Daniel, etc. - didn’t really have the Bible, or copies of the Scriptures. And yet Daniel is quoting from them, he’s talking about them, and Daniel, in fact, tells us specifically that he had been reading in the Book of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah had been written not long before Daniel became a captive. And some of Jeremiah had even been finished after Daniel became a captive. And yet he already had a copy of it. 

So I think these books of Scripture had a wider distribution than we sometimes think. You didn’t just have to go into the temple. Perhaps - I don’t know - but where did Stephen get this knowledge? How does he know? He’s reciting all the details of the history of the Jewish people and the rabbis are not correcting him; they’re not complaining. So apparently this was a common knowledge. Maybe it was taught in school. The Jewish children knew very well, but Stephen was certainly well-schooled in this. 

Tom: Well, Dave, that brings up an interesting point about the history of the Israelites, the Jewish people: unlike societies around them, they were literate. Their fathers were to teach not just the sons, but the children to understand the Word of God. The Word of God came to the Israelites as the Word, the written Word, and they had to be able to read it. So their society, whether they be captive in Egypt or wherever they might be, that was part of their teaching and the way they were brought up. The Egyptians, although they had great knowledge, that was at a higher class at a certain level, not down to the common folk, as it were.

Dave: Tom, since you brought that up, why don’t we just go back and read just a little bit in Deuteronomy 6 to see what God says. In Exodus 12, God says - well, He gave them the Passover, “And when your children ask, ‘Why do we do this every year?’ you will tell them, ‘This is the Lord’s Passover,’ and you will explain the story.” And they brought that down as a heritage. And in fact, Scripture makes it very clear (Genesis 15) that the seed of Abraham who would inherit the land - because Abraham had eight sons as far as we know; Ishmael was the first born and then Isaac was the second born - but through Sarah, Abraham’s wife, the seed who would inherit the land, they were going to be slaves for 400 years in a foreign land, then they would be brought into the land. Didn’t happen to the Arabs; didn’t happen to the ancestors of those people who call themselves “Palestinians” today, it happened to the Jews, happened to the Israelites, and who keeps the Passover? The Jews. And so they were to keep this Passover and it was proof, absolute proof, that their ancestors had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years and were delivered.

Tom: Because you don’t do something that’s based on a myth. There had to be a point in history in which it started.

Dave: Exactly. You couldn’t just make this up and start it. People say, “Well, we didn’t do it last year.” 

And so every time that their children would ask, “Well, why do we do this?” they were to say, “Oh, this is the Lord’s Passover.” And they would explain it to them, and so forth. 

But it went even deeper than that, and, Tom, what you were saying triggered this thought in my mind. This is Deuteronomy:6:4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
See All...: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all they might.” The Commandments are being given to Israel, and it goes on; it says, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shalt be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” So these people were well-schooled.

Tom: Dave, this a literate society. I mean, the Scripture lays it out very plainly.

Dave: Well, I’m sorry, Tom, I interrupted, but anyway, Stephen is recounting history that they should have all known. And of course the rabbis at least had the Scriptures and apparently many others did, as well.

Tom: There’s an interesting question here. How does Moses say, “….his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them”? I mean, here he is, 40 years among the royal Egyptian hierarchy, as it were, yet he knows he’s going to be the deliverer, and they should know. Where did they get that?  

Dave: Well, God has certainly been speaking to him. Moses is in touch with God, although, you know, it’s like Samuel. “Was that the Lord’s voice?” 

“Well, go back and listen.” It’s not easy for him to begin to discern, and he does the wrong thing. He’s 40 years out in the wilderness learning a bit more. But he, I suppose, presumes, “Well, everybody else understands this, too. You’re not going to be slaves forever.” Maybe he knew the book of Genesis. Maybe his mother had taught him this as a little boy, and maybe this story had been passed down before it was put in writing that God had told Abraham that His people would be slaves for 400 years. That must have been passed down. Abraham must have told Isaac. Isaac must have told Jacob. It must have been passed down. And apparently, Moses - it’s revealed to him; he’s the one. But he must know that this at the time. The time is about now.