And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
And the high priest said, “Are these things so?” And Stephen said:
“Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran.
Comment: You may remember from yesterday that there was a double accusation against Stephen. He was supposed to have spoken agains Moses and the Law as revealed through him and secondly that Jesus had a mission to destroy the Jewish temple. Stephen’s face was like that of an angel. The Old Testament and particularly the New Testament book of the Revelation of Jesus to John give several descriptions of angels. I think that here it probably means guiltless, guileless and innocent. And possibly one should add the adjective ‘fearless’. In the Old Testament the history is told to highlight certain changes in the God-man relationship. Stephen, having been charged with being anti-Moses goes back a few steps earlier and begins his presentation with Abraham, and God’s call to Abraham to ‘up and away’ and start a new nation in a different area. As we will see in the next couple of days he argues his case very logically.
Prayer: Help me to learn well the lessons of history and not to repeat the mistakes unnecessarily.
As I read it! 