Acts 7:47

Acts 7:47. But Solomon built Him an house. The argument of Stephen here may be paraphrased thus: ‘The Temple, against which you accuse me of having spoken blasphemous words, because I pointed out [as did my Master] that it was a building which would not endure for ever, was first built, not by David, the man after God's own heart, but by Solomon, and replaced an older sanctuary, and one that possessed far holier associations than the Temple, seeing it was designed upon a model which Moses received from the Most Highest. That sacred Tabernacle even was not meant to endure for ever. Is it then blasphemy for me to teach that the Temple which succeeded it was also of a transitory nature? Tabernacle and Temple are alike things belonging to time, and are by no means the necessary or only places in which God could be acceptably worshipped.' It was also in Stephen's mind, no doubt, that in the Temple then standing there was none of the holy furniture of the Tabernacle. The ark and all had been lost; but this fact, though it would have strengthened his argument urging the transitory nature of the sanctuary they so superstitiously loved, would have been an ungenerous one for a true Jew: the bitter humiliation of Israel was not a topic Stephen was likely to have brought forward in his appeal.