Passing of the
In this portion of scripture Stephen is being taken out to be stoned...mind you Stephen is accredited as "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit". Now I've read this a few times before but today as I was reading I noticed the portion that reads "Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul." I've always known that Saul(Paul) was there for the stoning but this part has always slipped by me. It sparked a wonderment within me just now...Was this a type of "passing of the Mantle"??? Why did the witnesses there place their clothes at the feet of Saul? Was this a normal happening while a man was being stoned or was it a kind of foreshadowing of what was about to take place in Saul's life...his conversion, his calling? He was witnessing the "taking out" of Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and man the was obviously a warrior of God and a man whose task was now to be laid at the feet of Saul, his persecutor....Just a thought and something that stirred my soul this morning. 9/8/09
Alright, well after reading the footnotes and references I see that I may have taken a wrong turn :) But I still read later in Acts 8 how Saul, after witnessing (and possibly ordering) the execution of Stephen went on a "hunt" of Christians. An uprising of sorts had broken out and Saul began murdering Christians. Well this made the wheels start spinning again :) I started thinking about how after some people have heard the message of the Gospel they truly start to spin out of control. It's like their lives truly become unraveled to the point where they come to the place where God makes his encounter with them. The devil senses a call of God on their lives and begins to try and take his prey. I know I know...I'm really stretching here but hey...I'm trying to spark some interest :)
~side note~ it isn't truly known why the witnesses would have placed their clothes at the feet of Saul...
Alright, well after reading the footnotes and references I see that I may have taken a wrong turn :) But I still read later in Acts 8 how Saul, after witnessing (and possibly ordering) the execution of Stephen went on a "hunt" of Christians. An uprising of sorts had broken out and Saul began murdering Christians. Well this made the wheels start spinning again :) I started thinking about how after some people have heard the message of the Gospel they truly start to spin out of control. It's like their lives truly become unraveled to the point where they come to the place where God makes his encounter with them. The devil senses a call of God on their lives and begins to try and take his prey. I know I know...I'm really stretching here but hey...I'm trying to spark some interest :)
~side note~ it isn't truly known why the witnesses would have placed their clothes at the feet of Saul...
