Acts 7

Stephen's death by stoning is a poignant reminder that faithful proclamation will not always be received with joyful acclamation and acceptance. he is speaking to the synagogue of the freedmen. These are diaspora Jews, more likely non-ethnic Jews. And they were strict adherents to the law. Since they were visiting Jerusalem temple for customary reasons, its not a surprise that Stephen's anti-temple message resonates so sharply. Stephe essentially says that from the time of Abraham, Israel has been a refugee people, an enslaved people, and homeless population in the world. Their God, a refugee God on the road with them to rescue them and deliver them from the evil one. And yet, they always sought the status of other nations---settlement, property, kingly rule, temples, buildings, institutions. And these things are corruptible.
So Stephen uses the temple as an example of their rejection of the God who has been revealed in Jesus the Christ. Temple is not God's dwelling place. God is in Jesus and is found in the spiritual lives of His followers. For a Chirstian every place is sacred, evrey act is holy simply because Christ is present in and through the Holy Spirit who is active in the hearts of people who trust in Jesus as God's Word.
So Stepehen is killed for calling the temple an idol.
What about church has become an idol? The building? The governing structures? The instiutional hierarchy? The office of ministry? The budget? The congregation itself? A liturgy? Being religious can be a form of idolatry when it becomes that to which one is devoted. Christians are not devoted to a worship service or a building or a pastor or a budget. Christians are devoted to the gospel the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.
So, how do Christians get stoned today? (I have some friends who might think that's funny..Christians getting stoned.) Who throws rocks at us? The more I get connected to the way of Jesus, the weirder my life becomes. I want to play video games with the Clark's and visit inmates in prison and find out where homeless people are so that I might hang out with them. I want to seek the one's whom Jesus loves and the one's in whose face Jesus reveals himself. It is not me. in the other, I will see my Lord. As for Stephen, he did see the Lord in the eyes of the one's stoning him, as he looks up he declares that he seess the son of man and the Father in heaven. As he looks up he prays that his executioners might be forgiven. It was in their faces that he saw Jesus. That's love.