7:30-32
Stephen continues to summarise the story of Moses. Stephen says an angel appeared to Moses and God spoke. Exodus says the angle of the Lord was there. The angel of the Lord and the Lord Himself are more or less synonymous in the Old Testament. Ie if the angle of the Lord is present or speaks, then God is present and speaks. The Lord spoke to Moses declaring that He was the “God of your Fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”. Why is Stephen relating this? Perhaps he is implying that just as Moses responded with fear and trembling, so the Jews should have responded with comparable awe to the appearance of Jesus.
7:33,34
Moses was instructed to take off his sandals for he was on holy ground. The correct response to Jesus was to recognise that God was present and we are on “holy ground”. Moses was under God.The Jewish leaders had put themselves in the position of judgement, instead of being in the position of submission to the Lord. The Lord knows far more than we do, it His plans and purpose that are to be fulfilled, and in the way that He chooses. It is very easy for us to start off following Him, but then assume that we know enough and we can decide what is godly and what is not. This is what the Jewish leaders had done. Today we can do that with doctrine, reckoning that we know enough. Or we can do it thinking we are filled with the Spirit, so we can decide all things. We need to be very careful. Doctrine is vitally important, as is being filled with the Spirit. But we need to do all things as children of God, and servants of Christ. If we start “lording it over others” then we are in trouble.
God called Moses to go and set the Israelites free because of their groaning. The religious leaders may have been happy with the status quo, but the ordinary people in Israel were suffering.
No comments:
Post a Comment