The Problem of Narrowing
Limiting God
Acts 7
Summary: Stephen’s defense is a counter-history in which every example falls outside the geographic and architectural constraints his opponents had fixed as the boundaries of God’s activity: God appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia, was with Joseph in Egypt, called Moses at a bush on Midianite wilderness holy ground, and through Isaiah declared that the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands. When the argument could not be refuted, his opponents stopped their ears and rushed him — the only available action toward a disconfirming voice for a community that has decided its constraints are complete. Acts 7 distinguishes constraints that enable life under God’s authority from constraints that empower a community to live on its own terms.
Acts 7 shows a community whose devotion has created blind spots they are both unable and unwilling to see. Stephen’s opponents are limited in what they can hear because they are more committed to the constraints that make their life work than to seeing what God is doing in the world. Stephen’s speech is a sustained attempt to broaden what has been narrowed. While his opponents accuse Stephen of speaking against “Moses and God” (Acts 6:11), Stephen defends himself by highlighting the moments in Israel’s story that those accusing him seem to have bracketed out. Their understanding of God is too narrow. Self-imposed constraints keep them from living under God’s authority when they should be enabling them to do so.
Instead of reinforcing their limited perspective about God’s activity in Israel and the temple, Stephen reminds his opponents of all the times God worked outside the boundaries of the land and the temple. God appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia before he reached the land (7:2). God is with Joseph in Egypt. Moses received the call from Yahweh at a bush on the “holy ground” of the Midianite wilderness (7:33; Exod 3:5). The tabernacle moved. Solomon built the temple, yet “the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands” (7:48). These aspects of Israel’s experience with God demand that Stephen’s opponents expand their field of vision even though they don’t.
Stephen’s opponents “always resist the Holy Spirit.” They are “stiff-necked” and “uncircumcised in heart and ears” (7:51). These descriptions frame the community as unwilling to change perspectives or devote their senses to looking and listening to all God is doing in the world. They, like their fathers, are unwilling to be redirected (7:52). Though they have received the law, they refuse to obey it, opting instead to continue living on their own terms.
The final contrast between Stephen and his opponents underscores the effects of overly narrowed constraints. Whereas Stephen looks up and sees “the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (7:55), his opponents “stopped their ears and rushed together at him” (7:57). Their unwillingness to set aside the constraints they’ve adopted—the narrative they believe to be more complete than it actually is—prompts them to cover their ears. Stephen’s openness to what God is doing allows him access to see “the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (7:56).
If asked, his opponents might say that stoning Stephen was a defense of orthodoxy. It stamps out an aberrant teaching. However, the narrative in Acts suggests that stoning Stephen was reinforcing their narrowing. It is violence intended to preserve their self-imposed constraints. Faced with overwhelming arguments that cannot be refuted, the only available action toward a disconfirming voice is elimination.
Acts 7 isn’t suggesting that constraints are always a problem. Constraints often limit us to enable us. They allow us to have a community that lives under God’s authority and is recognizable across time. The problem the narrative addresses is the adoption of a set of narrow constraints that empower a community to live on their own terms instead of remaining responsive to God and his self-disclosure. Faithfulness requires a disciplined negotiation. It requires us to recognize that Christian constraints are not infinitely flexible, negligible, or subject to the whims of the community or the world. It also requires us to acknowledge that our finite understandings should not be used to make God fit in a box of our own making. Just as Stephen looks back to the Old Testament and the various ways God interacted with his people, we need to ensure that our understandings of the world remain responsive to God’s word and to seeing what God is doing in the world. The posture this requires is not suspicion of constraint but openness, curiosity, and a willingness to see the goodness, truth, and beauty God is accomplishing in places our settled categories did not expect to find him.
For Further Study
Discussion Questions
- 01
Stephen’s opponents could no longer hear what God was doing outside the boundaries they had inherited. Where in your own theological understanding might familiar boundaries be keeping you from recognizing God’s activity?
- 02
The passage distinguishes between constraints that enable life under God’s authority and constraints that empower a community to live on its own terms. Which of your current theological constraints belong in which category, and how can you tell the difference?
- 03
When Stephen’s opponents could not refute him, they covered their ears and resorted to violence. What disconfirming voices in Scripture or among other Christians are you currently inclined to dismiss rather than engage?
- 04
What practices help you stay open to “the goodness, truth, and beauty God is accomplishing in places our settled categories did not expect to find him”?
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