The Samaritan ~ The Great Pretender

Even if a persecution did not follow the death of Stephen, the Gospel would have had to break out of the haven at Jerusalem where it was nurtured by the Spirit of God since Pentecost. The Jewish religious authorities, in killing Stephen, had officially rejected Jesus as the Messiah and the Kingdom of God whereby the believer is the bearer of the Shekinah Presence of God and considered thereby to be the Third Temple of God built by the Messiah. Having rejected this, they set up the abomination that eventually made Jerusalem and its Temple a desolation.