teeth at him” (Acts 7:54). Their (false) religious certainties have been challenged, and they react with outraged anger: Stephen must die. The hot, angry religious zeal of Saul of Tarsus arises directly out of this same event (Acts 8:1–3). This kind of zeal is inseparable from a self-righteous anger at those who challenge the shared certainties of religious people (cf. Phil. 3:6, “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church”). Further, they offend those who are convinced they are in the right, for Paul
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