The Bible According to Gregory: The Stoning of Stephen

Welcome Dear Readers to this Sunday’s edition of The Bible According to Gregory. 

Let’s listen in and see what Gregory learned in Sunday School this morning shall we?  

The Stoning of Stephen

In Biblical days, if you were a widow who went to church, you had it made.  You got to eat your meals for free in the church restaurant and got to be waited on by the important men of the church.  Plus tips hadn’t even been invented yet!

One of these servers was named Stephen.  Stephen was the first Christian Martyr because he always worked late at the Widow Restaurant and was always telling the other servers to go home early, and not to worry about him, he’d stay late and clean up everything by himself like he always did even though his eczema was acting up something awful.

One day the apostles were looking for somebody to do the bookkeeping.  So they asked Stephen if he wouldn’t mind taking over that responsibility.

Apostle:  Steve come here for a minute, I’ve got something I want to run by you.

Stephen:  Yeah?

Apostle:  You’re like the best server we have, and we thought we would promote you to bookkeeper.

Stephen:  What’s the pay?

Apostle:  The same as what you’re getting now.

Stephen:  I’m not getting anything now.

Apostle:  Yeah, it would be the same as that.

This promotion must have done wonders for Stephen’s self-esteem because after that he became a mini-biblical-superstar performing miracles, preaching and waiting on widows like nobody’s business.

Unfortunately in biblical days if you had good self-esteem, and went around performing miracles, you were bound to make lots of men mad.

In two shakes of a lambs tail,* Stephen found himself explaining his actions to The Council of Evil Men Who Hated Jesus.  Stephen told them the whole story of the Jewish people starting with the birth of Abraham and tediously working his way up the timeline.

“Once upon a time there was woman who gave birth to a baby boy whom she named Abraham. She was thinking about naming him Todd, but that was her husband’s name and it would have been too confusing.   Anyway, her labor started at about 8 a.m. in the morning . . . no wait . . . it might have been 8:15 . . . no . . .  I think I was right the first time. Oy!  Well, anyway, like I was saying . . .

While Stephen was talking, The Council of Evil Men Who Hated Jesus put their hands over their ears because Stephen was speaking the Truth.  And if there is one thing The Council of Evil Men Who Hated Jesus couldn’t handle it was the truth.

They also weren’t crazy about the fact that while Stephen was talking his face was like that of an angel. Gosh how The Council of Evil Men Who Hated Jesus hated it when that happened!

After that things got really out of hand.  Everybody picked up a stone** and broke Stephen’s backbone as well as many other bones of Stephen’s.

“Gosh if I would have known this was going to be so tiring, I would have brought an energy bar.”

After awhile everyone who was throwing stones started getting sweaty, so they took off their cloaks and handed them to Saul who put them on the bed in his cave until they were done stoning.

Stephen said, “Lord Jesus receive my spirit.” and “Lord do not hold this sin against them.” And then he died.***

*Biblical Scholars estimate two shakes of a lambs tail to be approximately two seconds in today’s time measurement.

**In biblical days there were always enough stones laying around in any given spot for impromptu stonings.

***This murder was approved by Saul who later changed his name to Paul but it’s too complicated to go into in a footnote.

And that wraps up this week’s installment of The Bible According to Gregory, Dear Readers!

Until next time  . . . I love you