“Speaking With” and “Praying To” in Acts 7:55-56

Speaking with someone and praying to someone are two different types of speech act. Actually speaking with Jesus, who is in heaven, puts communication on a different level. Where it is two-way audible communication, this does not happen in prayer.

Acts 7:55-56 in this unique context, where the heavens open and Stephen makes a request to a standing Jesus. Is this “request” a speech act of prayer? Like RSV of Acts 7:59, some Christadelphians[1] go for “…he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’…”—however, the relevant Greek (epikaleo) is not specific enough to fix unambiguously on ‘pray’. The Greek can be used for “calling upon [God]” (1 Pet 1:17), but it is also used when Paul later “appeals” to Caesar’s judgment (Acts 25:10, 11, 12, 21, 25). The speech act of appealing to Caesar in a framework of seeking a legal judgement is obviously not a speech act of “prayer”. The question therefore is this: what type of speech act is Stephen’s request? In an earlier article,[2] it was shown that while Saul was “standing” legally consenting to Stephen’s death (Acts 22:20), Jesus’ own “standing” created a corresponding Divine Council in which he shared a different moment of judgment with Stephen, vindicating his witness. It follows therefore that in this context Stephen’s request to Jesus is an appeal and not an example of prayer.

As another example of speaking to Jesus without praying, we might cite Acts 9:3ff, where the as yet unconverted, unbaptised Saul has a heavenly encounter, a vision (Acts 26:19), which those with him did not fully experience; they saw the light but did not hear the voice. It was the first of other promised appearances (Acts 18:9; 26:16) of Jesus to Saul/Paul. Saul engages directly with the identified voice of Jesus, asks what he should do, and follows the instructions Jesus gave him in the Hebrew tongue (Acts 26:14).

[1] H. A. Whittaker, Studies in the Acts of Apostles (Cannock: Biblia, 1985), 104: “Now Stephen prayed…to Jesus”.

[2] J. W. Adey, ‘Stephen and the Divine Council’, in the Christadelphian EJournal of Biblical Interpretation, Vol. 2. No. 4. Oct 2008.