The Challenge to Religion
The religious folks resisted what was happening, and charge Stephen with going against the temple and the law. Stephen re-tells their own history to them, showing that God has always operated outside of the temple, Jerusalem and Israel. God was with his people, and at work, in all the difficult places.
God is in the business of doing new things. We are on a journey with him. In difficult times, times of change, times of uncertainty, we follow Jesus.
Sometimes in order to pick up new things, we have to lay other things down.