Pastor Exposes the Man Standing at the Edge of the Crowd at the Stoning of Stephen -- And Why Every Christian Has Been Missing the Most Important Detail

The man holding the coats

His name was Saul.

He was not one of the men throwing stones. He was standing at the edge of the crowd, watching. The men who were throwing the stones had taken off their outer robes so they could throw more freely, and they had laid those robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

He was holding their coats.

That is the detail most Christians have never been told about the stoning of Stephen.

The first Christian martyr was killed while a young Pharisee named Saul stood at the edge of the crowd, holding the coats of the men who were murdering him.

Most Christians know the name Stephen. They know he was the first martyr. They know he was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem. What most Christians have never been told is what was happening on the other side of that crowd -- and what it meant for the next thirty years of Christian history.

What the text actually says

My name is Pastor Jonathan. I have led Bible studies for 18 years.

I thought I knew the story of the stoning of Stephen. I had preached it. I had taught it. I had read it aloud more times than I can count.

Then one evening I was preparing for a Wednesday night study and I looked up every name and detail in Acts 7 and 8 for the first time.

Acts 7:58: "And they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul."

Acts 8:1: "And Saul approved of his execution."

I sat at my desk for a long time after that.

He approved of it. He was not a bystander. He was not an accidental witness. He was there in an official capacity, as a representative of the Sanhedrin, supervising the execution. The witnesses -- the men who threw the first stones under Jewish law -- laid their robes at his feet. He was in charge.

And he watched every stone land.

The man holding the coats would become the Apostle Paul

Here is what I did not understand for fifteen years of preaching this text.

The man holding the coats was going to become the Apostle Paul.

The man who wrote Romans. The man who wrote Corinthians. The man who wrote Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. The man who planted churches from Jerusalem to Rome. The man who, by most estimates, wrote more of the New Testament than any other author.

That man was standing at the edge of the crowd, holding coats, watching Stephen die.

And Stephen, as the stones were landing, looked up and said: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

I want you to sit with that for a moment.

Stephen was being killed. He was dying. And his last recorded prayer was not for himself. It was for the people killing him.

Who was in that crowd? Saul was in that crowd.

Stephen's dying prayer was, almost certainly, directed at the man who would become Paul.

[Get the Context That Changes Everything]

What happened when my congregation finally understood

I brought this to my Bible study group that Wednesday. Twelve people who had been Christians for an average of 25 years.

I asked them: who was the most important person at the stoning of Stephen?

Every one of them said Stephen.

I told them what the text actually said. I showed them Acts 7:58. I showed them Acts 8:1. I showed them Paul's own testimony in Acts 22, where he says: "When the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him."

He remembered the garments.

He remembered standing there. He remembered holding the coats. He remembered watching Stephen die. He remembered the face of the man who was being killed for believing in Jesus.

And he remembered the prayer.

One woman looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

"I have read the stoning of Stephen my entire life. And tonight is the first time I understood that the most important person in that story was the man holding the coats. That Stephen's dying prayer may have been the seed of Paul's entire ministry."

A man across the table said quietly: "The greatest missionary in history was first the man who supervised the murder of the first martyr. That is not a footnote. That is the whole story."

Another woman said: "I always thought Stephen was the hero of that story. He is. But Saul is the reason the story matters for the next two thousand years."

What you have been missing every time you read this story

Did you know that Paul, in Acts 22, specifically mentions the garments? That he remembered, years later, standing there holding the coats? That the detail the Holy Spirit preserved in the text is not the stones or the crowd but the coats of the men who threw them?

Did you know that Stephen's dying prayer -- "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" -- is almost word for word the same as Jesus's prayer from the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"? That the first martyr died praying the same prayer as the one he was dying for?

Did you know that two chapters after the stoning of Stephen, the church was scattered across the known world -- and that the scattering was the mechanism God used to spread the gospel to every nation? That what looked like the destruction of the church was actually the beginning of the mission?

Context changes everything. Every single time.

The resource that gives you this context for every book of the Bible

Since that Wednesday night, hundreds of people have told me the same thing: "This is the first time I have ever understood what I was reading."

Not because I am some brilliant teacher. But because I finally gave them what they actually needed. Context.

Who wrote each book. When. Why. What was happening in the world at the time. The main themes God intended to deliver.

And once you have that context, the Bible you thought you knew becomes something you have never actually encountered before.

The stoning of Stephen is just one moment. There are thousands more like it waiting for you in the pages you have already read.

The Bible Study Guide has 66 pages. One for every book of the Bible. Each page gives you what you need before you read: who wrote it, when, why, what was happening in the world at the time, the key themes God was communicating, and practical steps to bring what you read into your actual life today.

Written in plain language. No seminary terms. No complicated theology. Just the context that makes everything you have already read suddenly land with the full weight God intended.

Because here is what I know after 18 years of teaching Scripture: The Bible is not confusing because it is unclear. It is confusing because we are reading it without the foundation that made it clear to the people it was first written for.

They knew who Saul was. They knew what it meant that he was holding the coats. They heard the prayer and understood exactly who it was directed at.

We read the story and miss the man at the edge of the crowd entirely.

This guide gives you that foundation back.

The window that is closing

Every week you read your Bible without this context is a week you are reading it the way I read the stoning of Stephen for fifteen years -- missing the most important person in the story.

Every Sunday the story gets read again in churches across the world. And most of the people hearing it still have no idea that the man holding the coats became the Apostle Paul.

God did not put Saul at the edge of that crowd by accident. He never does.

If you have ever read the account of Stephen's death and sensed there was a weight to it you could not fully feel -- if you have ever heard that dying prayer and known there was something more underneath it than you were reaching -- this is what you have been looking for.

Do not let a lack of context be the thing that keeps you from understanding what God was doing in the crowd that day.

[Get the Bible Study Guide -- Limited Copies Available]

The context is real. The difference it makes is real. The only question is whether you will keep reading the same stories the same way.

[Unlock the Context Now]

Pastor Jonathan
18-year Bible Study Leader
Finally giving people what they actually need

[Check Availability -- Get Yours Today]

What Believers Are Saying: