07 Stephen, the Man of God Crowned

There are two words for “crown” in the New Testament: diadema, which means “a royal crown” and gives us the English word diadem; and stephanos, the “victor’s crown,” which gives us the popular name Stephen. You can inherit a diadema, but the only way to get a stephanos is to earn it.

Acts 6 and 7 center on the ministry and martyrdom of Stephen, a Spirit-filled believer who was crowned by the Lord. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Rev. 2:10). He was faithful both in life and in death and therefore is a good example for us to follow.

These chapters present Stephen as a faithful believer in four different areas of ministry.

STEPHEN THE SERVANT (6:1-7)

The church was experiencing “growing pains,” and this was making it difficult for the apostles to minister to everybody. The “Grecians” were the Greek-speaking Jews who had come to Palestine from other nations, and therefore may not have spoken Aramaic, while the “Hebrews” were Jewish residents of the land who spoke both Aramaic and Greek. The fact that the “outsiders” were being neglected created a situation that could have divided the church. However, the apostles handled the problem with great wisdom and did not give Satan any foothold in the fellowship.

When a church faces a serious problem, this presents the leaders and the members with a number of opportunities. For one thing, problems give us the opportunity to examine our ministries and discover what changes must be made. In times of success, it is easy for us to maintain the status quo, but this is dangerous. Henry Ward Beecher called success “a last-year’s nest from which the birds have flown.” Any ministry or organization that thinks its success will go on automatically is heading for failure. We must regularly examine our lives and our ministries lest we start taking things for granted.

The apostles studied the situation and concluded that they were to blame: They were so busy serving tables that they were neglecting prayer and the ministry of the Word of God. They had created their own problem because they were trying to do too much. Even today, some pastors are so busy with secondary tasks that they fail to spend adequate time in study and in prayer. This creates a “spiritual deficiency” in the church that makes it easy for problems to develop.

This is not to suggest that serving tables is a menial task, because every ministry in the church is important. But it is a matter of priorities; the apostles were doing jobs that others could do just as well. D. L. Moody used to say that it was better to put ten men to work than to try to do the work of ten men. Certainly it is better for you, for the workers you enlist, and for the church as a whole.

Church problems also give us an opportunity to exercise our faith, not only faith in the Lord, but also faith in each other. The leaders suggested a solution, and all the members agreed with it. The assembly selected seven qualified men, and the apostles set them apart for ministry. The church was not afraid to adjust their structure in order to make room for a growing ministry. When structure and ministry conflict, this gives us an opportunity to trust God for the solution. It is tragic when churches destroy ministry because they refuse to modify their structure. The apostles were not afraid to share their authority and ministry with others.

Problems also give us the opportunity to express our love. The Hebrew leaders and the predominantly Hebrew members selected six men who were Hellenists and one man who was both a Gentile and a proselyte! What an illustration of Romans 12:10 and Philippians 2:1-4! When we solve church problems, we must think of others and not of ourselves only.

We commonly call these seven men of Acts 6 “deacons” because the Greek noun diakonos is used in Acts 6:1 (“ministration”), and the verb diakoneo (“serve”) is used in Acts 6:2. However, this title is not given to them in this chapter, although you find deacons mentioned in Philippians 1:1 and their qualifications given in 1 Timothy 3:8-13. The word simply means “a servant.” These seven men were humble servants of the church, men whose work made it possible for the apostles to carry on their important ministries among the people. Stephen was one of these men. The emphasis in Stephen’s life is on fullness: He was full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom (Acts 6:3, 10), full of faith (v. 5), and full of power (v. 8). In Scripture, to be “full of” means “to be controlled by.” This man was controlled by the Spirit, faith, wisdom, and power. He was a God-controlled man yielded to the Holy Spirit, a man who sought to lead people to Christ.

What was the result? The blessing of God continued and increased! The church was still unified (Acts 6:5), multiplied (v. 7), and magnified (Acts v. 8). Acts 6:7 is one of several “summaries” found in the book, statements that let us know that the story has reached an important juncture (see Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:12-16; 6:7; 9:31; 12:24; 16:5; 19:20; and 28:31). In Acts 6:7, Dr. Luke describes the climax of the ministry in Jerusalem, for the persecution following Stephen’s death will take the gospel to the Samaritans and then to the Gentiles. It has been estimated that there were eight thousand Jewish priests attached to the temple ministry in Jerusalem, and “a great company” of them trusted Jesus Christ as Savior! Acts 6:1

STEPHEN THE WITNESS (6:8-15)

This Spirit-filled man did not limit his ministry to the serving of tables; he also won the lost and even did miracles. Up to this point, it was the apostles who performed the miracles (Acts 2:43; 5:12), but now God gave this power to Stephen also. This was part of His plan to use Stephen to bear witness to the leaders of Israel. Stephen’s powerful testimony would be the climax of the church’s witness to the Jews. Then the message would go out to the Samaritans and then to the Gentiles.

Jews from many nations resided in Jerusalem in their own “quarters,” and some of these ethnic groups had their own synagogues. The freedmen (“libertines”) were the descendants of Jews who had previously been in bondage but had won their freedom from Rome. Since Paul came from Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 21:39), it is possible that he heard Stephen in the synagogue and may have debated with him. However, nobody could match or resist Stephen’s wisdom and power (see Luke 21:15). Their only alternative was to destroy him.

Their treatment of Stephen parallels the way the Jewish leaders treated Jesus. First, they hired false witnesses to testify against him. Then, they stirred up the people who accused him of attacking the law of Moses and the temple. Finally, after listening to his witness, they executed him (see Matt. 26:59-62; John 2:19-22).

The Jews were jealous over their law and could not understand how Christ had come to fulfill the law and to bring in the new age. They were proud of their temple and refused to believe that God would permit it to be destroyed. Stephen faced the same spiritual blindness that Jeremiah faced in his ministry (see Jer. 7). The church faced the opposition of Jewish tradition for many years to come, from within its own ranks (Acts 15) and from false teachers coming in from the outside (Gal. 2:4).

The enemy surprised Stephen and arrested him while he was ministering (“having came upon him suddenly” is Wuest’s translation of Acts 6:12), and they took him before the same council that had tried Jesus and the apostles. It was not even necessary for Stephen to speak in order to give witness, for the very glow on his face told everybody that he was a servant of God. Certainly the members of the Sanhedrin would recall Moses’ shining face (Ex. 34:29-30). It was as though God was saying, “This man is not against Moses! He is like Moses–he is My faithful servant!”

STEPHEN THE JUDGE (7:1-53)

This is the longest address in the book of Acts and one of the most important. In it, Stephen reviewed the history of Israel and the contributions made by their revered leaders: Abraham (Acts 7:2-8), Joseph (vv. 9-17), Moses (vv. 18-44), Joshua (v. 45), and David and Solomon (vv. 46-50).

But this address was more than a recitation of familiar facts; it was also a refutation of their indictments against Stephen and a revelation of their own national sins. Stephen proved from their own Scriptures that the Jewish nation was guilty of worse sins than those they had accused him of committing. What were these sins?

They misunderstood their own spiritual roots (vv. 1-8)

Stephen’s address opens with “the God of glory” and closes with the glory of God (Acts 7:55), and all the time he spoke, his face radiated that same glory! Why? Because Israel was the only nation privileged to have the glory of God as a part of its inheritance (Rom. 9:4). Alas, the glory of God had departed, first from the tabernacle (1 Sam. 4:19-22) and then from the temple (Ezek. 10:4, 18). God’s glory had come in His Son (John 1:14), but the nation had rejected Him.

Abraham was the founder of the Hebrew nation, and his relationship to God was one of grace and faith. God had graciously appeared to him and called him out of heathen darkness into the light of salvation, and Abraham had responded by faith. Abraham was saved by grace, through faith, and not because he was circumcised, kept a law, or worshipped in a temple. All of those things came afterward (see Rom. 4; Gal. 3). He believed the promises of God and it was this faith that saved him.

God promised the land to Abraham’s descendants, and then told Abraham that his descendants would suffer in Egypt before they would enter and enjoy the land, and this took place just as God promised. From the very beginning, God had a wise plan for His people, and that plan would be fulfilled as long as they trusted His Word and obeyed His will.

The Jews greatly revered Abraham and prided themselves in being his “children.” But they confused physical descent with spiritual experience and depended on their national heritage rather than their personal faith. John the Baptist had warned them about this sin (Matt. 3:7-12) and so had Jesus (John 8:33-59). The Jews were blind to the simple faith of Abraham and the patriarchs, and they had cluttered it with man-made traditions that made salvation a matter of good works, not faith. God has no grandchildren. Each of us must be born into the family of God through personal faith in Jesus Christ (John 1:11-13).

The Jews prided themselves in their circumcision, failing to understand that the rite was symbolic of an inner spiritual relationship with God (Deut. 10:16; Jer. 4:4; 6:10; Acts 7:51; Gal. 5:1-6; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11-12). Over the years, the fulfilling of ritual had taken the place of the enjoyment of reality. This happens in churches even today.

They rejected their God-sent deliverers (vv. 9-36)

I have combined the sections dealing with Joseph and Moses because these two Jewish heroes have this in common: They were both rejected as deliverers the first time, but were accepted the second time. Joseph’s brethren hated their brother and sold him into servitude, yet later he became their deliverer. They recognized Joseph “at the second time” (Acts 7:13) when they returned to Egypt for more food. Israel rejected Moses when he first tried to deliver them from Egyptian bondage, and he had to flee for his life (Ex. 2:11-22). But when Moses came to them the second time, the nation accepted him and he set them free (Acts 7:35).

These two events illustrate how Israel treated Jesus Christ. Israel rejected their Messiah when He came to them the first time (John 1:11), but when He comes again, they will recognize Him and receive Him (Zech. 12:10; Rev. 1:7). In spite of what they did to His Son, God has not cast away His people (Rom. 11:1-6). Israel today is suffering from a partial spiritual blindness that one day will be taken away (v. 25-32). Individual Jews are being saved, but the nation as a whole is blind to the truth about Jesus Christ.

Before leaving this section, we must deal with some seeming contradictions between Stephen’s address and the Old Testament Scriptures.

Genesis 46:26-27 states that seventy people made up the household of Jacob, including Joseph’s family already in Egypt, but Stephen claimed that there were seventy-five (Acts 7:14; and see Ex. 1:1-5). The Hebrew text has seventy in both Genesis and Exodus, but the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) has seventy-five. Where did the number seventy-five come from in the Septuagint? In their count, the translators included Joseph’s grandchildren (1 Chron. 7:14-15, 20-25). Being a Hellenistic Jew, Stephen would naturally use the Septuagint. There is no real contradiction; your total depends on the factors you include.

Acts 7:16 suggests that Jacob was buried at Shechem, but Genesis 50:13 states that he was buried in the cave of Machpelah at Hebron, along with Abraham, Isaac, and Sarah (Gen. 49:30-31,). It was Joseph who was buried at Shechem (Josh. 24:32). It is likely that the children of Israel carried out of Egypt the remains of all the sons of Jacob, and not just Joseph alone, and buried them together in Shechem. The “fathers” mentioned in Acts 7:15 would be the twelve sons of Jacob.

But who purchased the burial place in Shechem–Abraham or Jacob? Stephen seems to say that Abraham bought it, but the Old Testament record says that Jacob did (Gen. 33:18-20). Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 23:14-20). The simplest explanation is that Abraham actually purchased both pieces of property and that Jacob later had to purchase the Shechem property again. Abraham moved around quite a bit, and it would be very easy for the residents of the land to forget or ignore the transactions he had made.

They disobeyed their law (vv. 37-43)

Stephen’s opponents had accused him of speaking against the sacred law of Moses, but the history of Israel revealed that the nation had repeatedly broken that law. God gave the law to His congregation (“church”) in the wilderness at Mount Sinai, His living Word through the mediation of angels (see Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19). No sooner had the people received the law than they disobeyed it by asking Aaron to make them an idol (Ex. 32), and thereby broke the first two of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-6).

The Jews had worshipped idols in Egypt (Josh. 24:14; Ezek. 20:7-8), and after their settlement in the Promised Land they gradually adopted the gods of the pagan nations around them. God repeatedly disciplined His people and sent them prophets to warn them, until finally He carried them off to Babylon, where they were finally cured of idolatry.

Acts 7:42 should be compared with Romans 1:24-28, for all of these verses describe the judgment of God when He “takes His hands off” and permits sinners to have their own way. When Stephen quoted Amos 5:25-27, he revealed what the Jews had really been doing all those years: In outward form, they were worshipping Jehovah, but in their hearts, they were worshipping foreign gods! The form of the question in Acts 7:42 demands a negative reply: “No, you were not offering those sacrifices to the Lord!”

In this day of “pluralism” of religions and an emphasis on “toleration,” we must understand why God hated the pagan religions and instructed Israel to destroy them. To begin with, these religions were unspeakably obscene in their worship of sex and their use of religious prostitutes. Their practices were also brutal, even to the point of offering children as sacrifices to their gods. It was basically demon worship, and it opened the way for all kinds of godless living on the part of the Jews. Had the nation turned from the true God and succumbed to idolatry, it could have meant the end of the godly remnant and the fulfillment of the promise of the Redeemer.

God’s law was given to the Jews to protect them from the pagan influence around them, and to enable them to enjoy the blessings of the land. It was the law that made them a holy people, different from the other nations. When Israel broke down that wall of distinction by disobeying God’s law, they forfeited the blessing of God and had to be disciplined.

They despised their temple (vv. 44-50)

The witnesses accused Stephen of seeking to destroy the temple, but that was exactly what the Jewish nation did! Moses built the tabernacle where God’s glory graciously dwelt (Ex. 40:34-38). Solomon built the temple, and once again God’s glory came in (1 Kings 8:10-11). But over the years, the worship at the temple degenerated into mere religious formality, and eventually there were idols placed in the temple (2 Kings 21:1-9; Ezek. 8:7-12). Jeremiah warned people against their superstitious faith in the temple and told them that they had turned God’s house into a den of thieves (Jer. 7:1-16).

Had the nation heeded their own prophets, they would have escaped the horrors of the Babylonian siege (see the book of Lamentations) and the destruction of their city and temple. Even Solomon recognized the truth that God did not live in buildings (1 Kings 8:27), and the prophet Isaiah made it even clearer (Isa. 66:1-2). We really make nothing for God because everything comes from Him, and how can the Creator of the universe be contained in a man-made building (Acts 17:24)? The Jewish defense of their temple was both illogical and unscriptural.

They stubbornly resisted their God and His truth (vv. 51-53)

This is the climax of Stephen’s speech, the personal application that cut his hearers to the heart. Throughout the centuries, Israel had refused to submit to God and obey the truths He had revealed to them. Their ears did not hear the truth, their hearts did not receive the truth, and their necks did not bow to the truth. As a result, they killed their own Messiah!

The nation refused to accept the new truth that God was revealing from age to age. Instead of seeing God’s truth as seed that produces fruit and more seed, the religious leaders “embalmed” the truth and refused to accept anything new. By the time Jesus came to earth, the truth of God was encrusted with so much tradition that the people could not recognize God’s truth when He did present it. Man’s dead traditions had replaced God’s living truth (see Matt. 15:1-20).

STEPHEN THE MARTYR (7:54-60)

You wonder what kind of a world we live in when good and godly men like Stephen can be murdered by religious bigots! But we have similar problems in our “enlightened” age today: taking hostages, bombings that kill or maim innocent people, assassinations, and all in the name of politics or religion. The heart of man has not changed, nor can it be changed apart from the grace of God.

What were the results of Stephen’s death? For Stephen, death meant coronation (Rev. 2:10). He saw the glory of God and the Son of God standing to receive him to heaven (see Luke 22:69). Our Lord sat down when He ascended to heaven (Ps. 110:1; Mark 16:19), but He stood up to welcome to glory the first Christian martyr (Luke 12:8). This is the last time the title “Son of man” is used in the Bible. It is definitely a messianic title (Dan. 7:13-14), and Stephen’s use of it was one more witness that Jesus is indeed Israel’s Messiah.

Stephen was not only tried in a manner similar to that of our Lord, but he also died with similar prayers on his lips (Luke 23:34, 46; Acts 7:59-60). A heckler once shouted to a street preacher, “Why didn’t God do something for Stephen when they were stoning him?” The preacher replied, “God did do something for Stephen. He gave him the grace to forgive his murderers and to pray for them!” A perfect answer!

For Israel, Stephen’s death meant condemnation. This was their third murder: They had permitted John the Baptist to be killed; they had asked for Jesus to be killed; and now they were killing Stephen themselves. When they allowed Herod to kill John, the Jews sinned against God the Father, who had sent John (Matt. 21:28-32). When they asked Pilate to crucify Jesus, they sinned against God the Son (Matt. 21:33-46). When they stoned Stephen, Israel sinned against the Holy Spirit, who was working in and through the apostles (Matt. 10:1-8; Acts 7:51). Jesus said that this sin could never be forgiven (Matt. 12:31-32). Judgment finally came in AD 70 when Titus and the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.

For the church in Jerusalem, the death of Stephen meant liberation. They had been witnessing

“to the Jew first” ever since Pentecost, but now they would be directed to take the message out of Jerusalem to the Samaritans (Acts 8) and even to the Gentiles (Acts 11:19-26). The opposition of the enemy helped prevent the church from becoming a Jewish “sect” and encouraged them to fulfill the commission of Acts 1:8 and Matthew 28:18-20.

Finally, as far as Saul (Acts 7:58) was concerned, the death of Stephen eventually meant salvation. He never forgot the event (22:17-21), and no doubt Stephen’s message, prayers, and glorious death were used of the Spirit to prepare Saul for his own meeting with the Lord (Acts 9). God never wastes the blood of His saints. Saul would one day see the same glory that Stephen saw and would behold the Son of God and hear Him speak!

When Christians die, they “fall asleep” (John 11:11; 1 Thess. 4:13). The body sleeps and the spirit goes to be with the Lord in heaven (Acts 7:59; 2 Cor. 5:6-9; Phil. 1:23; Heb. 12:22-23). When Jesus returns, He will bring with Him the spirits of those who have died (1 Thess. 4:14), their bodies will be raised and glorified, and body and spirit will be united in glory to be “forever with the Lord.” Even though we Christians weep at the death of a loved one (Acts 8:2), we do not sorrow hopelessly, for we know we shall meet again when we die or when the Lord returns.

God does not call all of us to be martyrs, but He does call us to be “living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1-2). In some respects, it may be harder to live for Christ than to die for Him, but if we are living for Him, we will be prepared to die for Him if that is what God calls us to do.

In 1948, Auca martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal, “I seek not a long life, but a full one, like You, Lord Jesus.” Two years later, he wrote: “I must not think it strange if God takes in youth those whom I would have kept on earth till they were older. God is peopling Eternity, and I must not restrict Him to old men and women.”

Like Stephen, Jim Elliot and his four comrades were called on January 8, 1956, to “people Eternity” as they were slain by the people they were seeking to reach. What has happened to the Aucas since then is proof that the blood of the martyrs is indeed the seed of the church. Many Aucas are now Christians.

“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Rev. 2:10). Acts 6:8 - 7:54