In A.D. 31 in the city of Jerusalem, a bustling city located in the Middle Eastern area known Biblically as the Holy Land, there lived a small group of Judahite zealots who had managed to raise the religious and political ire of their fellow Judahites by claiming that their long-awaited Messiah had come and gone without them even knowing it. These zealots were spreading the word that the Messiah the ancient prophets had promised would free them from their enemies had in fact arrived, done His holy work and died without them recognizing Who He was. The masses, the zealots were saying, had not merely rejected their Savior, but had in fact murdered Him. Many generations later these Judahites would be nicknamed “Jews” by the Trappist monks whom King James of England would assign the task of translating the writings of their prophets and apostles into English. Those called “Jews” were in fact Israelites who had remained loyal to the monarchy of King David following the breakup of the twelve-tribed kingdom over a tax issue. These Judahites–the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi–lived in the southern part of the Holy Land in the area known as Judea.

It was to these people that Jesus of Nazareth came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. A problem had arisen when this man, who claimed to be God’s Messenger–the One for whom the Jewish people had been waiting for hundreds of years–had failed to meet their expectations. Everything about Him was wrong. He was born within the wrong social class and in the wrong place. He had presented Himself in the wrong way, had done the wrong things for the wrong people and had spoken the wrong words. This lowly carpenter could not possibly be the One they were looking for, even though their prophets had described Him and His ministry in detail. Further proof that this man was an imposter was the fact that their leaders, called Pharisees, had rejected Him. No further proof was needed. Their rejection and murder of Him was justified.

As if the Man from Nazareth had not caused enough problems, He had infuriated the Jews by calling Himself the Son of God, thereby making Himself equal with God. Adding to this problem was the fact that the Jews lived under the control of the Roman Empire–the mightiest nation on earth–which  had its own god–Ceasar–whom they claimed was the world’s only god. The carpenter’s claim of deity and His followers’ refusal to recognize and worship the Roman god had brought the Jew-Roman situation to the boiling point. As a result, both the Jews and the Romans set out to destroy the fledgling religion before it could cause any more problems. They would begin by killing the sect’s most visible spokesman, a young waiter of tables named Stephen who was not only exalting the dead imposter, but was performing miracles in His name while claiming to be operating under His power. After placing Stephen on trial and hearing him remind them of what their prophets had written about their Messiah, the Jews stoned him to death. Christianity had its first martyr. The man who had instigated the stoning was another zealous Judahite named Saul of Tarsus who, himself a Benjamite, was determined to bring the movement to a bloody end before it could take root. As the Book of Acts would later tell us, Saul went about his business with vigor. L.J.