Acts 6

1. More and more people were becoming followers of Jesus. But during this same time, the Greek-speaking followers had an argument with the other Jewish followers. The Greek speaking Jews said that their widows were not getting their share of the food that was given out every day.

There were now thousands of believers in Jerusalem. God gives certain men the gift of knowing how to get a job done. The church would have to find such men and let them use the gift God gave them.

2 – 4

The twelve apostles called the whole group of followers together. They said, “It is not right for us to stop our work of teaching God’s word in order to serve tables.

So, brothers, choose seven of your own men. They must be men who are of good reputation. They must be full of wisdom and full of the Spirit. We will put them in charge of this work. Then we can use all our time to pray and to teach the word of God.”

These are the first deacons that we know about. Later Paul will teach us how to select deacons in the letters to Timothy and Titus. These first deacons were selected because they had witnesses who would testify of their character.

5 – 6

The whole group liked the idea. So they chose these seven men: Stephen (a man with great faith and full of the Holy Spirit), Philip Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas (a man from Antioch who had become a Jew). Then they put these men before the apostles. The apostles prayed and laid their hands on the men.

These are Greek names so we see that the apostles were making a balance between Jewish serving their countrymen and Greek Christians serving other Greeks so that there would be no arguments.

7. The Word of God was reaching more and more people. The group of followers in Jerusalem became larger and larger. A great number of the Jewish priests believed and obeyed.

The priests would have seen many things that Jesus had done, and finally became convinced that He was the Messiah. They might have had trouble later understanding how the Gentiles could become part of the church, which became an issue in Acts Chapter 15.

8. Stephen was richly blessed by God. God gave him the power to do great miracles and signs among the people.

Some people say that this kind of power was only given to the church to help it get started. They say that after those days, God showed the church how to run like a business and use their own wisdom so that they did not need the power of the Spirit.

Because of this teaching, there are less people in the world today who have heard of Jesus Christ than ever before in modern times.

Interviews have been made on the street and most of the people say that they have never heard of Jesus Christ, or that they think He has something to do with a church and that the churches are full of hypocrites. We need God’s power and not our own wisdom if we are going to reach this world.

Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord! Zechariah 4:6

9. But some Jews were against him. They belonged to a synagogue of Free Men (as it was called). (This synagogue was also for Jews from Cyrene and from Alexandria.) Jews from Cilicia and Asia were also with them. They all came and argued with Stephen.

This synagogue was for Greek speaking Jews whose ancestors were Roman slaves who were later set free. A large stone has been found in Jerusalem that tells about this synagogue.

10 – 11

But the Spirit was helping him to speak with wisdom. His words were so strong that they could not argue with him. So they paid some men to say, “We heard him say things against Moses and against God!”

Some teachers think Paul belonged to this synagogue and that is why he became so angry to hear Stephen speak. If so, it is interesting to see that even Paul, who was so strong in the Old Testament, could not answer Stephen.

12 – 15

This upset the people, the Jewish elders, and the teachers of the law. They came to Stephen, grabbed him and brought him to a meeting of the Jewish leaders.

They brought in some men to tell lies about Stephen. They said, “This man is always saying things against this holy place and the law of Moses.

We heard him say that Jesus from Nazareth will destroy this place. He also said that Jesus will change the things that Moses told us to do.”

All the people in the meeting were watching Stephen closely. His face looked like the face of an angel.

The only reason they would bring false witnesses is because they could not prove what they were saying against Stephen without lying.

It is interesting that they accused Stephen of the same things that Jesus said. We can see that if we speak the Words of Jesus they will accuse us also, but that is an honor! Matthew 26:61