NOTES for Act 7:1-59

In his impassioned speech, Stephen recalls the entire history of the bitter and difficult relationship between God and His chosen people. Its conclusion, from a human point of view, is deplorable: stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts persecuted and killed the prophets, and in the end betrayed and killed the Righteous One who was to crown the glorious sacred history of the people of Israel and of the whole world. The human perspective is always pessimistic. One wants to weep when reading the history of Christian civilizations, Christian schisms, Christian crusades, Christian monarchies and democracies, and so on. But there is another perspective: facing death, Stephen is filled with the Spirit and sees the true crown of sacred history and of the history of the Christian Church—the Son of Man in the glory of God the Father.