Daily Lesson for June 28, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 7 verses 51 through 60:

51 ‘You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are for ever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. 52Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. 53You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.’

54 When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.* 55But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ 57But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. 58Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ 60Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’

We are coming up on the July 4 holiday, which this year happens to fall on a Sunday. In preparation for what I will try to say Sunday, I'm thinking of William Sloane Coffin's statement that there are three kinds of patriots in the world, two bad and one good. The bad, he said, are the "uncritical lovers" and the "loveless critics". The good, however, are those who carry on "a lover's quarrel" with their country."

Stephen was a patriot, but not uncritically so. He had read his history. He knew its blemishes. He was not afraid to tell the truth about its sins.

We are in a major debate now as a country over what is to be told and taught about America. Let us be neither uncritical lovers nor unloving critics; but let us dare to love this country enough to tell the truth about its history for the sake of its future.

Truth, Justice, and the American-Way. These are our ideals. So let us be idealistic, without being chauvinist; and let us dare to learn and tell the truth, and do so in love.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.