The Art of Stephen's Knees

In this essay, we are exploring the literary artistry of the Bible by looking at the art of the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. Let’s begin by reading the last few verses of the chapter:

Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Refusing the Word and Falling to Pray

After Stephen gives a long speech walking through Scripture, the council does not respond point by point. They don’t address the text as Stephen did. Instead, they grind their teeth with their mouths shut, flatly refusing to hear God’s word.

This is characteristic rebellion against God: when you stop hearing God and simply try to shut him out. You stop reading Scripture; you stop going to church. When the word comes, you just shut it down.

But what does Stephen do? Here we get the only physical action of Stephen recorded in the story: falling to his knees.

In this posture, Stephen mirrors his master, Jesus, who is the only other person who prays on his knees in Luke-Acts. Stephen transforms the stoning of his legs into the liturgical action of prayer. In a striking sense, Stephen’s killers actually help him to pray. And this first physical action in the scene is also his last. He expires in prayer—a prayer specifically for his killers.

Conformed to Christ

You see, Stephen has been so formed by the life of Christ that he can love not just the unkind or the ungrateful, and not just love after time has eventually healed wounds, but while the wounding is actively happening. This is the level of love that we should pray in earnest for.

Stephen possessed this because he, as Luke tells us multiple times, was filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will allow you to love in darkness while the darkness is consuming you.

Stephen’s whole life has mirrored Jesus. Both do signs and wonders. Both are falsely accused. Both are brought before the Sanhedrin. Both are killed. Both commit their spirits to God, and both pray for their enemies in their very last moments. Stephen’s life has been completely conformed to Christ.

How the Kingdom Expands

Yet there is one other similarity between them. For both Jesus and Stephen, their deaths are not the end. For both, their deaths catalyze the expansion of God’s kingdom.

Look at how this works. For Jesus, he is resurrected, ascends to heaven, and sends the Holy Spirit, and the kingdom explodes. For Stephen, notice what happens when they stone him. Luke, our narrator, says: “they cast him out of the city and stoned him.”

They cast him out of the city. This is the first movement outside of Jerusalem that we have seen in the entire book of Acts. And remember, Jesus said that they would be his witnesses from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Eight chapters in, and we have only been in Jerusalem. Who would have thought that the way the kingdom expands is by finding a place to execute a Christian?

In the first verse of the very next chapter, Luke tells us that there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. So what is the missionary strategy in Acts? How do you get the gospel to the next town? Run away from rocks.

So far from extinguishing or stopping the Spirit, they are helping it expand. If the worst possible thing that an individual or a government can do to you—death itself—does not stop life, what can?

And that, my friends, is why the Bible is art.

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