Acts 7:1-19 | You Are Part of a Bigger StorySample

If you watch great jazz musicians, dancers, or speakers, they’re not just doing things haphazardly. They’ve drilled scales over and over again. They’ve built a repertoire of dance techniques they’ve come to master that they can draw upon. They’ve worked their material over again and again so when the time comes to speak, they can draw on a field of knowledge and phrases they know.

Stephen is not making things up as he goes along. He knew the Lord and was filled with wisdom. He knew God’s story of salvation. He rooted himself in it. So when he finds himself in front of the Sanhedrin, he draws on the shared aspects of that story that he and the Sanhedrin would relate to. He even calls them “brothers and fathers.” He goes back to the main players in God’s story. These are the people we can all agree God had been working through to bring us to this time and place. This is the story we’re both a part of.

Abraham. The Promised Land. Isaac and Jacob. Egypt and Joseph. From top to bottom, these are the people God worked through to bring about the world’s rescue. This is our shared history. Our shared tradition. Our shared story of salvation.

Whether you’re a Jew or Gentile, you share in that story. And one of the best ways to know how to live your own story is to look to the story you’re a part of. Don’t ask how God can be a part of your story. Ask how you are a part of his.