shable by death under the Law ofMoses—I speak of Leviticus 24:16. Thus, I call your attention, a little distortion can be deadly, don't forget it. You will remember the Sadducees were the ones who brought the charges before. They made no attempt to prove or disprove anything the apostles said. They simply said: don't you teach in this name anymore! They implied, because WE said so. You will recall Gamaliel was a Pharisee, his speech appealed to logic. The friction between the Sadducees and the Pharisees before has actually been in the apostles favor, although there had been no public show of their disagreements in court.
Now, I trust you caught on, Stephen stirred up the Pharisees, not the Sadducees, this time. You can see, the Pharisees use different techniques that the Sadducees. Remember, the Pharisees pride themselves on knowing the law. They are more sly than the Sadducees. They have stealthy tactics. It is interesting also to notice, they narrowed the charge down to one man, Stephen, so as to deal with him independently. The apostles were teaching the same thing Stephen was teaching. But you see, the masses of the Jews, respected the Christians. So you see, they can deal with one man without running as must risk of upsetting the masses. The quotation in v. 11, as I said before, is the false actual words. But, I don't think one would have to be a detective to see, Stephen was teaching the Law ofMoses was replaced by Christ's Law. That is, God gave the Law ofMoses, the 10 Commandment Law, to the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai as their law or schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. Christ's law replaced or superseded the Law given through Moses. We have been through this argument before in this study. However, I think it is only fair to make you aware that this problem is still with us today. Some who claim to be following Christ today are still trying to keep the 10 Commandment Law. Some say they are keeping both, Christ's law and the 10 Commandment Law. That's really impossible, but that's what they say. Do you remember the quotation from Moses, that Peter used on Solomon's porch, Acts 3:22 - 23? If you don't, I suggest you re-read it. Do you remember in Matthew 5, toward the end of the chapter, Jesus, in the sermon on the mount, 6 times after quoting or paraphrasing one of the 10 Commandments said,
But I say unto you.
Then he gave the law that superseded that 10 Commandment Law. Paul expressed it in this way in Galatians 3: 24-25,
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are not longer under the schoolmaster.
Can it be said plainer than that? The New Testament is filled with statements of this kind. For example, only five verses before the quotation, I just read, Paul said, (I quote from Galatians 3:19)
Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, TILL the seed should come.
Verse 16, three verses above that, defines the 'seed' as Christ. Some people today get about as upset as those Jews in the synagogue of the Libertines did, when they discover this. Of course, most people are not that way, there are a lot of good and honest hearts in this old world today, all they want is to know is the facts, v. 12, we have already read. They stirred up the people, especially the ones on the council and brought Stephen before the council. OK for the 3rd time we find another of Christ's followers before the Jewish council, standing in that same spot where Jesus stood when the chief priests and elders took counsel to put Jesus to death. Now, see if you can get this association in perspective. This was a Grecian synagogue, located in or around Jerusalem. Those synagogue leaders could not,resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake, (v. 10)
So they suborned men to give false testimony and stirred up the scribes and the elders and brought Stephen before the council. This litigation consumes the remainder of Chapter 6 and all of Chapter 7. This is the 3rd time in our study we have observed the council in sessio