DAY SEVENTY-THREE:
The First Martyr
Yesterday we saw the Sanhedrin threaten Peter and John, warning them not to preach or heal in Jesus' name. The unstated implication was that if they disobeyed they would be destroyed, just like Jesus. It wasn't long after that this threat was fulfilled.
The disciples (now apostles) gave a wise response: "And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, 'It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.'" The tables here are not dinner tables but rather bankers' tables. Because of the first believers' generosity the church found itself with the equivalent of at least a million dollars and probably more. The apostles could not administer this money while fulfilling their other leadership roles. So they delegated this responsibility to men chosen by the body. All of them had Greek names so presumably they were Hellenists. One of those men was Stephen, "a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." This decision bore good fruit as we read in verse 7: "And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith."
Stephen did more than administer the relief efforts of the church. He also preached and performed miracles. He ran into trouble with "the synagogue of the Freedmen... and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia." These were fellow Hellenistic Jews. They argued with Stephen but couldn't refute him. They found some men who accused Stephen of blasphemy and brought him before the Sanhedrin. Remember, this is the body that sentenced Jesus to death and threatened Peter and John. But Stephen wasn't afraid of them. "And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel."
After his accusers spoke, the Sandhedrin asked Stephen if he had anything to say. Boy did he ever! Unlike Jesus, who said very little, Stephen launched into a sermon. He laid out the story of God's redeeming work, from Abraham through David right up to Jesus. It's an excellent review of what we've considered in this study. Stephen was brutally blunt in his conclusion: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it." Wow! Stephen didn't pull his punches!
You can imagine how this was received. "Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him." While the Sanhedrin and everyone else there were shouting and arguing, Stephen received a vision of heaven: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." This was just too much for the crowd to bear. The text doesn't state that the Sanhedrin delivered a verdict. The mob grabbed Stephen and carried him outside the walls. There they stoned him, in accordance with Leviticus 24:16, "Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him." Stoning is a hideous form of execution. The movie The Kite Runner has a scene where the Taliban stones a man and a woman for having premarital sex. The memory haunts me. It might take 10 to 20 minutes to kill someone by stoning. But Stephen was faithful to the end: "'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And when he had said this, he fell asleep." The Lord mercifully spared Stephen from the worst of the ordeal.
It's here that we meet another of the important figures in God's plan of redemption, and a very unlikely one at that. Those who participated in the stoning had to take off their outer garments in order to have a free range of motion. They laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. He watched their garments while they carried out Stephen's execution. Chapter 8 begins, "And Saul approved of his execution." The word for approved here is more than just agreement. It indicates pleasure, even applause. Saul was happy that Stephen died. He wanted to root out this poisonous Nazarene movement and he stepped up to lead a general persecution. "But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison." We'll see how God deals with Saul next week.
Persecution did not have its desired effect. Yes, Stephen was dead and his voice silenced. Yes, men and women were languishing in prison and awaiting a similar fate. But we read that the believers fled from Jerusalem, all but the apostles. "Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word." We read of Philip going to Samaria. We looked at the division between the Jews and the Samaritans when we considered Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan. Philip preached the Gospel and also healed and cast out demons. The Samaritans believed and were saved! The church continued to grow!
There's a lot of meat in today's passage. The first point applies to me and to all who preach. We saw Peter's boldness- he wasn't afraid to say that his listeners had crucified the Son of God. Neither was Stephen. He told it like it was (and is). At the heart of the Gospel message is the offense of the cross. 1 Corinthians 1:22-25 says, "For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Preaching this Gospel cost Stephen his life. In time Peter and most of the apostles would pay the same price. Every preacher faces the temptation to blunt the offense of the cross. But the cross tells us that we are sinners in need of a Savior, a message that's not always welcome. We preachers like to be liked, but the one we must please is Jesus. Pray for me and for all who stand before congregations!
Second, persecution actually spreads the Gospel. It's like digging out a dandelion that's gone to seed. You get that one weed but in the process scatter the seeds into the wind. The church father Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." It was true in the Book of Acts, and it's true to this day. The church in China survived Mao's Cultural Revolution and is booming today. The converse also seems to be true: wherever the church faces no opposition it grows complacent and weak. The evidence of that is all around us. We dare not pray for persecution, but maybe that's what it would take to shake us up. Let's remember our brothers and sisters in places like North Korea, Iraq and Nigeria in our prayers and keep them close to our hearts.
And third, I love the description of Stephen, with his face like an angel's! His countenance spoke as clearly as his words. May others see Christ in us just by the smile on our faces!
We're the beneficiaries of the faithfulness of generations of Christians who went before us. One day we'll leave the church behind for the generations to come. Listen to this song by Steve Green which addresses this issue:
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