Acts 7:23

But when he was well nigh forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, smiting the Egyptian: and he supposed that his brethren understood that God by his hand was giving them deliverance; but they understood not. And the day following he appeared unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?

Who made thee a ruler and a judge ...? There was a shocking parallel to this in the venomous question of the Sanhedrinists who had rejected Christ in almost the same words, demanding, "By what authority doest thou these things; or who gave thee this authority?" (Mark 11:28). The point of Stephen's message could hardly have escaped the bitter enemies to whom it was addressed.

In all of this, Stephen was tracing a pattern in Jewish behavior which would lead inevitably to the rejection of the Saviour.