Acts 6:8-15

STEPHEN'S MINISTRY

8-15. Though Stephen was but a poor, uncultured layman, honored with the office of deacon, i. e., permitted to sweep the floor, and light the lamps, and collect money to support the evangelistic widows, they complimented him with this office because he was “full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.” Yet, like all of the disciples in the Apostolic age (Acts 8:4), he preached the living Word. He did not have to get a license; the apostles had none for themselves nor anybody else. Thus far the plug-hatted clergymen who invented license had not been born. As Stephen is identified with those Hellenistic synagogues in which the Greek language is spoken, he goes to preaching in them with all his might. The representatives of these synagogues, dispersed in all heathen lands, had come to Jerusalem to attend the great Jewish feast of Pentecost, which so miraculously and unexpectedly by divine intervention was transformed into the most memorable revival the world ever saw and memorialized with the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, and the embarkation of the gospel ship. These synagogues, here represented by their delegates, were the Libertines, i. e., the freed people, consisting of Jews who had been carried to Rome as slaves, but afterward liberated by the Emperors; the Cyrenians from Cyrene, a large city in northern Africa, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where there were many Jews; the Alexandrians, from the city of Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, where the Jews dwelt in great numbers and were much encouraged by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek, known as the Septuagint, for the benefit of his Jewish subjects; and the Greek-speaking Jews from Cilicia and Asia. Here we find the first indirect mention of that celebrated man, Saul of Tarsus, destined in two more Chapter s to come to the front and prove the hero of this inspired history. Since he was born to rule, depend on it, he was the speaker of the opposition against Stephen, with the delegates from all of these prominent cities holding up his hands while he pressed the battle to the awful ultimatum of Stephen's martyrdom.