Contemplate these questions as you dwell in Acts 6:1-15:

1. How did the early church address the issue of neglecting the needs of certain groups within the community, and what role did the appointment of deacons, like Stephen, play in this resolution? How did this decision benefit the apostles in their ministry?

2. What accusations were made against Stephen, and how did those opposing him twist his words to falsely accuse him of blasphemy? How did Stephen's response demonstrate his unwavering commitment to his faith?

3. In what ways can we apply Stephen's boldness and public proclamation of Christ to our own lives? How can we be more intentional about sharing our faith and proclaiming the message of Christ, even in our own contexts? How might this impact those around us?

Transcript:

 Once again, another interesting story in the book of Acts. The first thing that we see is that there is so much to be done that the apostles are finding themselves not doing a good job of making sure that everybody's needs are met because there are so many people. We see this here that there is a complaint from the Hellenists against them.

Now the Hellenists would have been Greek speaking Jewish people. And so, they were concerned that they were not getting the distribution for their widows. They were being neglected and so they spoke up and so the Apostles Basically say, we just can't keep up, so there needs to be a group of people, and essentially these are deacons who help other people who, uh, while the apostles take care of spiritual matters.

And so, they go through this picking process, and we see that Stephen is one of these men who is chosen to be in this position. And we see in verse 7, This is an important sentence here, because it tells us that this is the result of what the, the Apostles had done by setting up these men to distribute this money. They're able to continue to preach, able to continue to have the gospel go forth and to have people come to faith. And we see something else interesting here, that there's priests who are becoming obedient to the faith.

There are these people who, who have a vested interest in sticking to the way things are. And now they are coming to faith. They're stepping away from the Hebrew practices that they have done all these years. They're, there's these Jewish things that they do that, that their livelihood, their lives are, are based around this.

But even they are coming to faith. Even they are being convinced by what they're hearing and what they're seeing. The Spirit. Continues to be at work. Well, then Stephen is well, he's seized. He is taken because they don't like what he's doing. There's people who are coming up against him. But when they debated with him, they couldn't stand up to the wisdom that Stephen has through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so, we see in verse 11 that they instigate people to speak Lies about him. They're violating the ninth commandment, right? They're bearing false witness about Stephen And so they say we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God  They say that he never ceases to speak words against the holy place of the temple and of the law They even say that they've heard him say that Jesus will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us You know We don't know what exactly Stephen had said versus what they are saying to bear false witness against him But a lot of this stuff is in fact true.

You know, Jesus did not undermine the law of Moses. He said he came to fulfill it. There's a very, very important distinction there, right? But it would be easy to twist the words of someone who is proclaiming the words of Jesus and proclaiming the ideas of the early church into making it seem like they were speaking against these things.

But when in actuality, they were saying that, Look, these things were never ultimate. These things were never the end goal in the first place. They were pointing to Jesus. Let me tell you about Him.  Well, they're able to use that against Him. And so, they bring Him in and bring these charges. And we're going to see what happens when we read Stephen’s speech next time.

But what happens here at the end of this is that Stephen is seen in front of this council and then it says that his face is like that of an angel. Now, we don't know exactly what that looks like, but it shows that he is continuing to be faithful. It shows that he is standing strong in the face of this adversity.

In the midst of everything that's happening to him, they're twisting his words, they're bearing false witness. They're doing all these things, but Stephen is resolved to be faithful to his God and the one who saved him.  Now, how do we apply this here? Uh, you know, we already have people who are in the position of deacons.

So, the first part of this chapter, uh, not much to talk about there other than, you know, we see the defined roles there. of elder and of deacon those who proclaim the word and take care of spiritual matters and those Who take care of physical matters, but I want us to think about something here in the second half of the chapter  we see that these people are making accusations against him and They're doing this why because they disagree with them, but they're also  having the opportunity to do this because they are Stephen is out in a place where people can publicly see him proclaiming Christ.

Are we doing this are we?  Out and about with the gospel. Are we out and about with our faith? Now we're not going to face the type of oppression that he is But it's an important reminder that the power of the spoken word of proclaiming Christ And what he has done Has a power and so may we not forget that as we step out into the world this week May we have the boldness of Stephen may we be out there talking about Christ That others may hear and believe and that we may have the opportunity to share more.