17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had
granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt 18 until there
arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. 19 He dealt shrewdly
with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they
would not be kept alive. 20 At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful
in God's sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house,
21 and when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up
as her own son. 22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,
and he was mighty in his words and deeds.” (Acts 7:17-22 (ESV)
Stephen will move on to Moses and spend a good deal of time
on Moses as another type for Jesus who was rejected by Israel, at least he was
rejected by Israel at first. In the first century A.D. Moses was honored, but
when you read the five books of Moses, you find quite a different story. It is
actually a bit hard to think of a prophet that was despised more during his
life time. At every turn Moses was met with opposition even as the people
followed him. I suppose any Christian can relate to that though, in relation to
how well we follow Jesus in this world carrying our crosses. How often do we
find ourselves ignoring him when it is convenient, and grumbling against him
when we can’t ignore? Our sinful nature has a tendency to do this despite our
faith.
Stephen begins in Egypt with Moses being born at a time when
children would be left for exposure. This was a common way of killing children
in ancient times. Just leave them to die, and be eaten by wild animals. This
was practiced even in first century Rome. But whereas the Egyptians didn’t mind
having an excess of Hebrew females around, in Rome it would often be the
females that were exposed and the males that were preserved. The Early Church
made a habit of adopting these children, and if they couldn’t save them from
death after the exposure, they would at least baptize them. This had to have
endeared many a mother to the church, often slave girls who were given no
choice in the matter.
It wasn’t the church that saved Moses, quite the opposite.
It was Pharaoh’s daughter. As Stephen announces here, this exposed Moses to all
the learning of the Egyptians, all their wisdom, which helped to make him
mighty in words and deeds. Or he was mighty in words and deeds because he had
been instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. This is more than a “know
your enemy” sort of thing, though there is certainly that. But as slaves the
Hebrews would have been kept as ignorant as possible about learning, and not
given the education that would be needed in order to lead effectively. I think
we do well to ponder that Moses, and the Israelites did not spurn education
even if it came from pagan sources, but sought to learn. This would also be
true of Christians in the early church, and men like Paul who we will be coming
to shortly.
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