from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 (Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Contents

 

Lesson 35

Topical and Doctrinal Notes

Leading Thought: Prayers of the Persecuted

The Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to pray for forgiveness, and at the same time He teaches "if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. " Again He teaches, "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you."

He Himself did all that He asked others to do. When He hung on the cross, suffering from all that had been done to Him before and at the crucifixion, He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

His disciples remembered His teachings and His example, and we see this in the story of Stephen.

Acts 6 and 7 tell the interesting story of how the Apostolic Christian church was organized: there were the apostles who "gave themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word." And they appointed others, seven men, among them Stephen, whose business it was to care more especially for the widows and the poor. (We call them "deacons" from the Greek word which means to minister or serve.) But these deacons did not confine themselves to this. We read of Stephen that he also did "great wonders and miracles" and "spoke with wisdom and power," which brought on him the hatred of the men of the synagogue. He was falsely accused, and stoned to death; yet he did not revile those who stoned him, nor did he hate them in turn, but while he was being stoned he cried with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Thus he did, while being stoned, what the Lord did when He was crucified, and obeyed what the Lord had told His disciples to do to their enemies. So Stephen "loved" his enemies and "prayed" for those who "despitefully used" him.

So must we do also, if we would be truly followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. When people persecute us and hate us, we may be apt to feel that we should like to hate them back, and "pay them back" and hurt them in one way or another. We must hate the evil in them, but we must wish that they themselves may become good. In this way we love them. And then we pray to the Lord to lead them to do good. Sometimes people do what is wrong, without knowing that it is wrong. If you will recall, Peter, in his speech to the people who ran to see him in the temple, in Solomon's porch, told them that he knew that they had "through ignorance" killed the Prince of life. Peter here repeated what the Lord had said on the cross in His prayer to the Father: "They know not what they do."

We must remember this, and when people do things to us which we know are wrong, we must stop to think that perhaps they do not know how mean and wrong they are. Then we shall be more likely to make allowance for them, and to feel like forgiving them.

Stephen was the first "martyr." The martyrs were those who passed through trials and afflictions on account of their belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who were faithful unto death; and we may know from the book of Revelation that they were given "the crown of life." (Revelation 2:10; 3:11) The word "martyr" means a "witness." They were witnesses to the Divinity of the Lord's human nature, for they testified that Jesus whom the Jews had "hung on a tree" had risen from the dead. They remained true witnesses even though they were tortured and slain. Swedenborg tells us that after death crowns were given them, but that, because they were afraid that they might claim honor to themselves in consequence, they took their crowns off their heads.

While reading the Acts of the Apostles, bear in mind that this book does not belong to "the Word of the Lord." It is a very important and good book, and the Lord has preserved it because He wishes us to know about the early Christian Church, how good and simple-hearted the early Christians were, and how the Lord's Holy Spirit influenced them in their preaching and their works. But, although it is an excellent and very important book, the Acts does not contain a spiritual sense. It was not written by the Lord through a man, like the Gospels and the Revelation. These books, like all the other books of the. Word, began in the Lord. He spoke, and the truth He spoke passed through all the heavens in order until they reached the man who wrote the book on earth. His truth was clothed in every heaven, and finally by a clothing taken from the mind of the man who wrote the book on earth. These successive "clothings" in the heavens are the inner senses of the Word, while the last is the literal sense.

It is true, and very interesting, that the Acts contains some correspondences, and tells of some incidents which were representative of spiritual states, like the Lord's going up to heaven and being received by a cloud. But the Acts does not contain an internal sense which continues unbroken from beginning to end, such as the books of the Word contain.

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