μάρτυς – martys – a witness

WE are simply spectators at a trial, not a familiar rerun of a fictional courtroom scene by Erle Stanley Gardner six decades ago, but an actual ancient trial of an accused defendant, Stephen, from two thousand years ago.

Like the legal dramas whose complex plots draw us in, we know that the defendant is innocent. His advocate, however, is supernatural and his jury includes dozens of Stephen’s accusing judges.

And the outcome? Preordained. (Think of it as ‘prerecorded’ by the Author of this great mystery.)

The KJV translates Strong’s G3144 in the following manner: witness (29x), martyr (3x), record (2x).

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Acts of Stephen – Witness for Christ’s Church

Contemporary summary of Stephen's defense thus far from Luke's transcript in Acts 7:

You men, brethren, and fathers of the council know the Law of Moses, by which you judge my words.

I, too, revere Moses and the Prophets, and present their testimony in my defense. WE the people of the Way of Jesus love the same LORD our God and Father, who appeared to Moses before we entered the land of God’s promise. The same Lord who appeared to David before his son brought the tabernacle of witness into the Temple of Solomon.

Acts 7: continued

49 ‘Heaven is My throne,
And the earth is the footstool of My feet;
What kind of house will you build for Me?’ says the Lord,
‘Or what place is there for My rest?
50 Was it not My hand that made all these things?’

Acts 7:49-50 NASB – Stephen quotes the Prophet Isaiah 66;1-2

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Witness to a “stiff-necked people!”

Here is a courtroom scene with the witness Stephen called to the stand in his own defense. And he seems to confess guilt. But as in most murder mysteries, this twist in the plot is not quite what it seems.

There’s nothing new under the sun, wrote King Solomon, builder of Jerusalem’s first Temple.

A thousand years later King Herod, who had sought to murder Judea’s Messiah, would build it back better through an alliance with Rome. The Empire already occupied Jerusalem and would soon burn down Herod’s temple in A.D. 70, less than two score years after a trial of thirty-year old Stephen in ~A.D. 33.

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Here's some background investigation from Luke's first century account of Stephen's trial. 
Many acts have taken place outside the courtroom of Jerusalem's one-hundred-twenty man council.

(This trial scene will play like a mid-sixty's [A.D. 60's] rerun to most of Luke's readers some thirty years later.) 

Some 21st century Christians may be unfamiliar with this current explosive climate of the Capitol City of Jerusalem (in ~A.D. 63), not to mention our ongoing political turmoil in Rome (our Babylon of this era).

Then the entire assembly of them set out and brought Him before Pilate.

And they began to bring charges against Him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.”

Gospel of Luke 23:1-2 NASB

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Returning now to our drama of Stephen on trial in ~A.D. 33:

Witness of the Author

μάρτυς – martys

• a witness
  • in a legal sense
  • an historical sense
    • one who is a spectator of anything, e.g. of a contest
  • in an ethical sense
    • those who after his example have proved the strength and genuineness of their faith in Christ by undergoing a violent death

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth.”

ACTS 1:9 – The instruction of Jesus to the Apostles
– 1:10 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

False Witnesses

And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, And set up false witnesses, which said,

This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:

Acts 6:12-13 KJV

Stephen’s Indictment of his Accusers

“You stubborn people!
You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth.
Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit?
That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!

Acts 7:51 NLT – Stephen’s closing argument!

Does the prophet speaking with the face of an angel, a shining face like that of Moses coming down from the Presence of the LORD on Sinai, not have to speak the TESTIMONY of God’s truth?

Is Stephen’s WITNESS FOR CHRIST, even in the face of inevitable execution not gospel truth to Law-breakers?

Of course. By the Power of the Holy Spirit this is exactly what Stephen does as conclusion to his testimony

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Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One,

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Herod certainly would have had full support of Jerusalem's High Council when he had beheaded John the Baptist, who was witness to the LORD anointing the ministry of Jesus in the Jordan.

you who received the Law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.”

Acts 7:52-53 – Stephen’s closing argument to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem

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Sentencing!

The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage.

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.

“Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

Acts 7:56b NASB – a final witness of Stephen before the Sanhedrin

57 Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

A Jewish Execution of the Law

24:14 הוֹצֵא אֶת־הַֽמְקַלֵּל אֶל־מִחוּץ לַֽמַּחֲנֶה וְסָמְכוּ כָֽל־הַשֹּׁמְעִים אֶת־יְדֵיהֶם עַל־רֹאשׁוֹ וְרָגְמוּ אֹתוֹ כָּל־הָעֵדָֽה׃

“Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp,
and have all who heard him lay their hands on his head;
then have all the congregation stone him.
Vayikra (Leviticus) 24 ::

False witnesses against Stephen would have been the first to cast stones against him! Not only were they without sin, but their stiff-necked opposition to the Son of God had brought them by their own testimony to the place of executing an angelic saint of Stephen.

Their own leaders had arranged false testimony to shield their own sins and covetous clinging to whitewashed leadership image of a PEOPLE already condemned.

(Of course THAT was twenty-one centuries ago; an opportune ACT that could never happen now... Would it?) 

Unresolved trials WE THE PEOPLE endure daily seem to never end - an unresolved eternity preoccupying this brief life. 

But Stephen’s case must convince us and convict US: true witness with eternal judgment will come to a conclusion WE must not ignore.

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Witness of a Martyr

I remind US once more of the definition above, also linked below.

μάρτυς – martys

ACTS 7:58 When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.

As they were stoning him, Stephen called out to God, “Lord Yeshua! Receive my spirit!”

Acts 7:59 Hebrew Names Version

Then he knelt down and began to pray crying out with a loud voice:

“Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”

Having said this, Stephen died.

Impressions from an injustice witnessed

The crowds of officials must have been gloating with gratification as the stone-battered body of Stephen lay lifeless in that pit – like Golgotha, a place of shame beyond the walls of THEIR CITY.

'WE can justify our ACTS by demonstrating OUR power (like this) over these PEOPLE we represent in their Temple; 
so WE can say anything and they will believe US, because WE rule this 'chosen' NATION under God.' 
'I think we can eliminate more of these religious opponents like this. Don't you?

(Okay, I confess my most contemporary take on their first century victories which filled crowds with anger, false witnesses and political cover without accountability. 
Who would believe such lies told by so many of every party and false witness HEADLINED in so many places? - RH)

The religious and political leaders and their constituancies all return to the comfort of Jerusalem’s walls, with lavish celebrations under watchful eyes of their Roman Centurion ‘friends,’ men like them who seem just a bit more apprehensive about religion and Judean political disagreements lately.

But some recognize the accusations as false and not all process back to Judea’s Capitol abuzz with tomorrow’s HEADLINES of their victory this day..

STEPHEN GUILTY! BLASPHEMER EXECUTED IMMEDIATELY!

JUSTICE DELIVERED IN OUR NATION’S CAPITOL!

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