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În biserica Străjerul, predicile din cadrul slujbei de duminică au rolul de a întregi tabloul unei experienţe liturgice specifice zilei de duminică, ziua Domnului.

Predicile se realizează structurat, pe cărţi ale Scripturii. Alegerea carţilor se face în funcţie de dinamica şi de nevoile comunităţii.

Prezentăm aici câte un sumar al predicilor din duminicile anterioare, în ideea că vor fi folositoare pentru cei care le citesc, dar şi ca o expresie a viziunii şi specificului comunităţii noastre. See archive.

 

Book „Acts of the Apostles” (chap. 6:8 - 7:59)

Stephen – the first Christian martyr

Among the seven chosen ones in the service of deaconry, Stephen (gr. stephanos - crown) stood out, man „full of faith and power” (Acts, 6:5). The ardor of his preaching caused the resistance of the Grecians, but the Gospel says that „they hey were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke „ (Acts, 6:10).

The accusation of Stephen is among the events following the fifty days after Easter, in the series of the confrontation among the first Christians and the people and authorities of Jerusalem, reticence in accepting the new faith. But the important difference between this event and those previously occurred shows the evolution of the Christian community and its impact upon the city. Thus, Stephen is no longer accused of spreading the Jesus' preaching but of blasphemous words against Moses and against God, facts which are incomparably more serious. The accusers changed, this time not being the Temple priests, who were in on a kind of secondary background, but the Grecians who „stirred up the people, and the elders and the scribes". At the same time, „the trial” if one could call it like this, was a setup using false witnesses and resulting in predictable death. All these new elements show us that the Gospel spreading was sensed by the fundamental Hebrews as a stronger and stronger danger, situation which they had to face by all means, including by sentencing to death the most important representative of the Christians.

The Stephen's speech has notable particularities as well. The kerugmatik character of Peter's speeches is replaced by a rather apostolic-historic and didactic speech. Stephen selects from the history of the Hebrew people essential moments and presents them to the audience as proves of failure, of the human weakness in following the path of God. All the four sequences (History of Abraham, the era of Joseph and Moses and the building of the Temple) contain this idea which focuses on man's weakness to redeem himself on his own. Stephen shows the cause of such failure and namely the resistance, rousing before the law of God. The man not obeying the divine will wanders and ends by being denied. The Jewish people from the desert, who has not listened to the voice of God, was blasphemous and sealed his own fate as God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven” (Acts, 7:42). By not obeying his brother Joseph was sold by them and those coming from Egypt rose against Moses and prayed to idols „ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts, 7:51) says Stephen, showing that those who today accuse him are in the same logic of disobedience and resistance as their ancestors. His speech is not only accusing but prophetic as well, as he announces that along with the coming of Christ, the Temple and the mosaic law ended their role, and the elders, the scribes and the Sanhedrim completed their mission. In the world then coming to life, God Himself came to dwell in man, in a vivid temple and not „in temples made with hands” (Acts 7:48).

The martyr Stephen has important consequences for the apostolic community and the Gospel spreading. The event marks the end of an era, of preaching inside Jerusalem; the Christians scattered and took refuge in the cities around (Acts 8:1). The Church's activity enlarges, the attention transfers from the Hebrews in Jerusalem to the Hebrews abroad and subsequently to the pagans. Then, it is possible that the Stephen's stoning may have prepared the way towards Paul's conversion. And finally, we believe that this sacrifice, the greatest a man can achieve, had an opposite effect to that expected by the accusers. It encouraged the Christians instead of dishearten them, strengthened the faith even more instead of destroying it, it universalized the Christ message instead of limiting it. In the Christian history, the martyr Stephen remains, doubtlessly one of the fundamental milestones.

Iassy, 11 March 2006

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