When Sacred Things Become Walls — Acts 7 Devotional

There is a particular kind of emptiness that knows all the right words. It can recite the order of service from memory. It knows which chair it has sat in for years, which prayers come next, which hymns belong to which season. And yet, somewhere along the way, the form stayed and the warmth left. The motions continue, but they no longer seem to reach anyone. If that hollow ache is familiar to you, you are not alone, and you are not faithless. You may simply be standing at the edge of an old and important question.

Stephen is about to stand before the most religiously credentialed people in his world. Men whose entire lives are organized around the house of God. And he is about to suggest that their certainty about the building may be the very thing keeping them from the God who never agreed to stay inside it.

Take a moment to read Acts 7:44-56. Read it on Bible Gateway if you'd like.