Stephen’s Gospel 
It was a founding moment for all future evangelism, a chance to really make the gospel message clear for all generations to come. One of the earliest followers of Jesus, even before the Apostle Paul, was about to give witness to Jesus before the leaders of his community, and Luke the Physician, who also wrote a gospel himself, is going to give us a summary of what was said. Stephen, Luke tells us, was a man “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5) who was brought before the leaders of the Israelite community on the charges that he had spoken “blasphemous words against Moses and against God.” (Acts 6:11).  One witness, whom Luke declares to be false, accuses Stephen of speaking incessantly against the Temple and against the Law. “We have heard him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and alter the customs which Moses handed down to us.” Acts 6:14.
Many of us might guess that what was being construed as “blasphemy against Moses” might be the idea that in Jesus we are not under the Law but under grace. We might imagine that the “spirit of religion” in the leaders of Israel was reacting against this idea that Jesus might lead us out of ritual washings, food laws, and legalism and into a free grace where there are no longer any requirements except to “have faith”. We might expect Stephen to tell everyone about how they no longer needed to try to climb their way into heaven or earn God’s favor, they just had to believe in God’s Son, Jesus, and trust in His grace. But Stephen disappoints us. When the Pharisees ask him to answer the charges that are leveled against him, Stephen launches into a monologue of an Old Testament survey, finally ending in some slightly alarming and seemingly antagonistic final statements that lead to his execution (Acts 7:51-53). We might be tempted to believe that Stephen truly blew a golden opportunity and we might scratch our heads as to why Luke, who chooses what he writes very carefully, bothers to tell us Stephen’s words on this less than triumphant day. But we would be wrong to be led away by this temptation.
First of all, Jesus, according to Luke, was not at all disappointed with Stephen. Stephen declares as they are stoning him that he saw Jesus “standing at the right hand of God”, in his honor. Of course, Stephen might have been full of it, but that certainly does not seem to be Luke’s opinion. But the main point is this: none of what Stephen did or shared on that fateful day was a mistake or misguided according to Luke. Luke is carefully constructing his story and he does not simply share general information without a purpose. Luke is the one who told us that Stephen was a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. The real shocker here which should give us pause and cause us to reevaluate things is the fact that, had we been in Stephen’s shoes, we would have said virtually nothing of what he said. If Stephen said what was appropriate for that moment, we would have had no idea of what to say.
One of the main reasons for this is that we have long forgotten that the Gospel message is a Jewish message. The Gospel comes from Israel and goes out into all the world, but it remains a Jewish message all the days of eternity. Until we re-learn to wrap our minds around the Jewish Gospel of Jesus the Messiah, we will continually come short in evangelism and discipleship. To preach the Gospel accurately, we must understand the Gospel to be the Jewish Gospel that Stephen presented on that day. This means, for one, that all Christians who have such an opportunity must get reacquainted with wha...