I have thought this from the first that I heard of the assassination, but I was wondering why no one else seemed to see it; now I know I’m not alone in my recognizing Kirk as the modern day Stephen, and the reaction (the faithful bury him with great lamentation, and the opposition ramps up its violence against the people of faith).
St. Stephen immediately came to my mind as well. I came across a few YouTube videos too setting our current cultural context in the Book of Acts...
Before every revival, there was a riot. It’s a pattern.
My pastor did a sermon on Stephen on Sunday.
Let’s pray Christianity spreads as a result of Kirks assassination.
I’m not looking at these events in support of any doctrines, but the name Charlie itself certainly is interesting in its time, worth the thread I posed about that.
But as for Stephen, a distinct correlation is that the members of the “court” had already decided what they thought of him. They already knew from whomever, or by whatever settled dogma he didn’t follow.
His speech fell on deaf ears, that is until they picked up that he was talking about them.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned in the commentaries (maybe it’s out there, but I haven’t run across it), is this perspective for *why* he was saying some really odd stuff, such as 75 souls went into Egypt, versus 70, or that Abraham’s purchase was in Shechem (place of Joseph’s tomb), when it’s in Hebron, sold to him by Ephron the Hittite.
Lots of stuff from the skepics though re this passage, about how the NT is obviously full of lies, as in what more evidence do you need type of thing. What brazen falsehoods, easily debunked.
If the court were paying the least bit of attention, somebody would have stopped him in his tracks, you think? Wut?! This guy’s a raving lunatic. ‘Nuf said..
Yet?
Seems to me like when a mother, say, wants to check that little Johnny is paying attention to her instructions about putting the casserole in the oven before she can get home from work...
“At 4 o’clock, set the oven to 350 degrees, then make sure to put the salad bowl in there when the oven is preheated, and set the timer for 6 hours.”