The Face of an Angel: Stephen is Arrested
Acts 6:8–15 NKJV
And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.” And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
We continue with our study on the Book of Acts. We have been following several themes which are pr;ominent. The first them comes in the very first verse of the book with the words “all that Jesus began to do and to teach.” (Acts 1:1). The mission of the church is to continue the ministry started by Jesus. Jesus set the example of how we should walk. We can cite several examples: First of all, we read in John 13:15-17
John 13:15–17 NKJV
For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
This is reinforced in John 15:20:
John 15:20 NKJV
Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
Also, we read in Matthew 10:24-25
Matthew 10:24–25 NKJV
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household!
In this last text, Jesus is referring to the disciples of Satan. But if this is true of the disciples of Beelzebub, how much more is this to be true for of the disciples of Jesus to be like Jesus. The important lesson of discipleship is for the disciple to be like his master. In this behooves the church to reflect the character of her Lord.
Luke shows us how Jesus modelled the behavior of someone who is led by the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus as the second person in the Godhead could have acted from His own will and done miracles and ministered in His own powered, He was characterized as having been full of the Holy Spirit and led, sometimes driven, by the same Spirit. The Church does not have the intrinsic power to do mighty miracles. Rather, any works the church does must be enabled and authored by the Holy Spirit. So, Jesus, in His earthly ministry, depended upon the same Holy Spirit which is in His church.
We see a similarity between the baptism of Jesus and that of the church in the following areas. When Jesus was baptized, the heavens were opened, the Spirit descended like a dove and rested upon Him. The voice of the Father was clearly heard. Finally, the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness to begin His public ministry. His baptism separated a life of preparation from that of public proclamation. In the case of the Church at Pentecost, the Apostles were to tarry until they received power from on high. Jesus had spent three years preparing them for ministry. At Pentecost, the Spirit would drive them into public ministry. On that day, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon the Church and rested upon the believers, this time with the visual appearance of tongues of fire rather than a dove.
Before Jesus ascended, He told them Apostles that they would be His witnesses, first in Jerusalem, then Judaea and Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8). The Greek word for “witness” is “martyr.” The word originally was a technical term for giving testimony in court. But so many Christians were slaughtered that the word took on its modern meaning “to die for a cause.” It is important for us to realize that Jesus modelled this in His own ministry. His first ministry occurred among the Jews. But Jesus also went later to meet the Syro-Phoenician woman near Sidon. He went to Caesarea Philippi which was quite Pagan. He went to the Gadarenes to heal the demoniac who had a legion of devils and came from the ten Gentile cities (Decapolis) on the east of the Sea of Galilee. He fed 4,000 from the Gentile areas of Galilee. We should see that “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek begins with Jesus and not Paul. Even in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:16-20 we read that Jesus commanded the Apostles to make disciples from all nations and not just Israel. What the Book of Acts reveals is how this plan was carried out. It starts in Jerusalem and ends in Rome.
So, we now see how the Church is the continuation of the ministry of Jesus. Although there is not an exact correspondence, there is a rhyming. Only Jesus suffered and died for the sin of the world. The suffering of the church can not save anyone, other than it bears witness to Jesus who died for our sin. There are many occasions in which we do see a close rhyme. We see this with the arrest of Paul in Jerusalem. The Jews cried out, “Away with Him!” Paul would be tried before the Sanhedrin. Paul was also about to be scourged by the Romans. What is different is that Paul claimed Roman citizenship which forbade such means of examination. We see similarities and not the differences as well. But the themes rhyme well. It was not for Paul to die at Jerusalem. But Paul would be beheaded later by the Romans. What we must see is that the disciple of Jesus will be treated in similar manner. If people will accept the teaching of Jesus, they will also accept the teaching of the Apostles. After all, it is the same teaching. The same is also true of rejection as well. Jesus had what is called a year of acceptance, a year of controversy, and then a year of rejection. Jesus would be rejected by the Sanhedrin and also the unwitting crowd before Pilate. Jesus would be rejected by the Gentile Herod as well. The same pattern exists in the Church. Some will accept, both Jew and Gentile; some will reject, both Jew and Gentile; and others would betray, both Jew and Gentile. So, in season or out of season, we proclaim Christ.
I know this is a long introduction to today’s passage, but this serves as a good review of what we have covered already. We have read of great popularity and persecution as well. We have seen how the Spirit led Church is powerful in its weakness. We have seen how the Devil tries to destroy the mission of the church. We see this through direct persecution. But we also see it in threats to the internal unity of the church. Ananias and Sapphira threatened the unity of the church by lying to the Church and the Holy Spirit about the sale of a property. We see the dispute between the Aramaic-speaking Jews and the Greek-speaking Jews over the treatment of widows. It is in the solving of the disputes that Stephen and the other six deacons, all with Greek names, are introduced.
In the last passage, we saw that the qualification to be a deacon was that the candidates be filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom. We see in deacons like Stephen and Phillip how the Holy Spirit worked mightily through them, even it the work of evangelism. It was not enough that they took care of the necessary business of the church.
We only know a little of the works of the seven deacons. In fact, the only possible allusion would be to Nicolaus, whom some tradition says defected from the faith and established the sect called the Nicolaitans we encounter in the Book of Revelation. If this were so, then the defection of one of the seven deacons parallels the defection of Judas among the twelve. But this is probably a weak argument. We do have historical examples such as Demas of those who did defect. the ministry of four of the deacons are unknown to us but not to God who knows of our labor, even when no one seems to notice. We read this word of comfort in Revelation 14:13:
Revelation 14:13 NKJV
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”
Phillip would have a longer ministry that Stephen. He was instrumental in introducing the Samaritans to the Gospel. something which Jesus Himself had done. He also introduced the Gospel to the Ethiopian Eunuch. He did more than this in his ministry. But Stephen’s ministry was cut short. It is noted in the text that we see that he spent some time disputing with the Greek-Speaking Jews in their synagogue. No one was able to overcome his testimony for Jesus. Jealousy ensued and Stephen was arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, just as Jesus had been. We hear from the charges that Stephen was accused of speaking against the nation of the Jews and their Temple. In the trial of Jesus, it was brought up that He had said “Destroy this Temple.” (John 2) They had misunderstood that Jesus was talking about the Temple of His Body.” The Jews were very sensitive concerning the Temple as being the place of God’s special presence with the nation of Israel. Anyone who understood differently was going to incur their wrath.
The people who condemned Jesus also wanted to do away with His followers. To this point, they had been too afraid. The violence against the Church increased, and now Stephen was about to suffer their full wrath. Like Jesus, they found false witnesses to testify against Stephen who testified to the charges against him. The Sanhedrin, who did not want to face the wrath of a maddened crowd, had to at least make sure the formality of a trial and defense was afforded Stephen. They would let Stephen condemn himself in his words in a similar way they got Jesus to condemn Himself in their opinion by claiming to be the Son of God who would return to judge Him. So this text this morning ends with the High Priest asking Stephen whether these charges were true. Next week, we will look at Stephens defense to these charges.
So, what do we learn from this passage? As I have mentioned before, we saw in the title of a study done by Terry Teckel called “The 29th Chapter of Acts, we realize that the church continues in what Jesus began to do and to teach. This means we proclaim the Gospel to an increasingly hostile world. Whereas we do not suffer the exact pattern of their sufferings, the ministry of the Church to this day rhymes with the themes we see in the book of Acts. Our starting point is probably not the city of Jerusalem in Israel, but it does start where we currently are. From there, it fans outward. What is exact is that we are called to witness. We probably will not die on a cross in Jerusalem, but we may suffer martyrdom somewhere and by some method like Stephen. But not all will suffer martyrdom, but if we are faithful, we will at least incur the displeasure of a hostile world. We don’t have any record I know of what happened to Philip the deacon, but he ministered faithfully to the Lord. Why the LORD chose Stephen to suffer being stoned is only something we can speculate about. We do know that his death profoundly influenced on Saul of Tarsus who later became Paul the Apostle. What is exact is that we are called to glorify God in all we do through the Lord Jesus Christ while we await the coming of the Kingdom in which we can enjoy Him forever without constraint.
The good news is that the proclamation of the Gospel is not an act of misery. There are difficult times we face, sometimes very difficult. We do not deny this. It is hurtful to be rejected, especially from ones own family or even church family. Here, Stephen is brought to the Sanhedrin by the very people in the synagogue he had fellowshiped with. This may have hurt as much as the stones themselves. But we must realize that the ministry of Stephen directly or indirectly led to millions coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Even Jesus was rejected by his own brothers and sisters until after the resurrection. Jesus felt the pain of betrayal by both Judas and His own people. He took the Passover with the Apostles rather than His earthly family. Now, Jesus is the head of a much larger family. We read in Mark 10:29-30:
Mark 10:29–30 NKJV
So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.
Jesus had said this after His family had thought Jesus out of His mind ad were going to take Him away. Yes there are tribulations, but there is ultimately great blessings. Let us run our race with patience even as Jesus did with the goal of eternal life in mind (Hebrews 12:1-4).
