Acts 6-7

Intro

Who here knows who William Tyndale is?

William Tyndale was a man who lived in the early 1500’s and was the first man to translate the New Testament from the original Greek to English. He was also able to translate the first five Old Testament books of the Bible from Hebrew to English. Before his translation was published, there was one existing English translation of the Bible that was translated from the Latin Vulgate by John Wyclif. What made Tyndale’s translation far more credible than Wyclif’s was that he translated a vast majority of the Bible from the original language of the early manuscripts.

The existing English translations we have are widely influenced from the work of William Tyndale and we have him to thank for the Bibles we hold today. I share the significance of William Tyndale because he was a man who pursued a great task in making the Bible accessible to the common English-speaking person. The task he pursued was great, but it came at a cost and that cost was his life as a friend of his, Henry Phillips lured Tyndale from his work and gave him into the arms of soldiers for “heresy” because he disagreed with Roman Catholic doctrine. Back in the time of Tyndale, to deny Roman Catholic authority was a great abomination that came with a death sentence.

Tyndale never was able to fully complete the English translation he had worked on and was burned at the stake with his last words being “open the eyes of the king of England”.

Standing for truth is bold, it involves great risk, and that risk can come with a great cost.

Today, our lesson in Acts is one of my most favorite stories in all the New Testament. It is the story of Stephen, the first martyr of the church who spoke in boldness preaching the truth of the gospel before the council of Jerusalem. He was a man who chose to stand for truth and was willing to give up his life for it, and that he did.

I understand that the story I just shared about William Tyndale and the story we will look at involving Stephen are both scary stories. But they are stories that we must give great attention to because its stories such as these that speak volume for the faith that we have. The person of Jesus is real. The story of our Savior is not some made up superhero story out of a comic book, His life, death and resurrection was a real thing just like you and I are real. Faith in Him changes everything and breathes new life into the lifeless.

These truths are the very things that Stephen in the book of Acts and William Tyndale understood and were willing to do whatever it took to reach people for the sake of the gospel.

With that, turn with me to Acts 6…

The story of Stephen begins with him being appointed by the apostles to serve people in the daily distribution. He alongside 6 other men were of great faith and the Holy Spirit which is why they were chosen by the apostles. The choosing of these men allowed the apostles to not bear more responsibility than needed and enabled other faithful men to serve where needed.

Now that we have an idea who Stephen is, let’s move ahead in reading the remainder of Acts 6 together from v. 8-15.

What so far do you know about the man of Stephen?

Is Stephen someone you would aspire to become?

ACTIVITY - Splits into two groups. One group reads the sermon from Stephen (Acts 7:1-53 before the council and the other reads the sermon of Peter at Pentecost (Acts 2:14-41) and create an outline of what was said at each message.

Questions

What is different between these two messages?

What is similar between these two messages?

What do we have to learn from these two messages?

Peter and Stephen’s sermons are both incredible. While they do have their similarities both were spoken at two different times with two different audiences. If we were to continue further on in the reading of our text in Acts, we would find the response to Stephen’s sermon was not well recieved. It ended with him being stoned death out of rejection for the words he shared.

Unlike Peter in Acts 2 who had a great response from the people (3,000 were saved) there was no exciting ended. There was no amazing increase to the number of believers, nobody healed, nobody celebrating. If there was anyone celebrating it was the people celebrating the death of a man who they thought was crazy.

What do you think caused Stephen to be so bold and have the attitude that he had?