This was partnered with the first review of the book "Warrior Grunt", but on reflection today, the posts have been divided. This is the first active review of the Bible reading that I do as part of my own discipline. It is blogged on as part of a personal discipline for at least the next 30 days of ongoing review and reflection of what I read.
At the beginning of the book of Numbers in the Scriptures, a survey of the Israelite fighting men, age 20 and over, count over 600,000 as they begin their march on the Promised Land. Wonder how they prepared for war? Now I have always had questions about Hebrew numerology. The really big numbers, like these, I tend to reduce it by a factor of ten. 60,000, not 600,000, GASP, Shall I Be Burned At The Stake For Questioning The Irrelevancy...er...Inerrancy of Scripture?
Ok.
Read the martyrdom of Stephen in Acts over on the other side. I am taking the reading of Acts and of Paul's letters from the point of view of Reza Aslan in Zealot, that Paul pressed for a Hellenist/Gentile church over the Jewish development of a Messianic community around Jesus' family.
So, in this story, Saul watches with approval as Stephen is killed. It begins the contrast that will ultimately lead to his conversion experience. Saul, a Pharisee, was arresting Jesus followers among the Jews (not yet are they called Christians) and Stephen was one of the Deacons, a Hellenist Jew included in the church as it begins to reach the Jewish community dispersed across the Roman Empire.
So, if we are going to take the story as a lifting of Saul/Paul at the expense of the Jerusalem church, I believe we are looking at the lead up to his conversion, laying out just how much Saul/Paul is to be converted from.
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