Acts of the Holy Spirit #11 (Acts 6)

Chapter 6 starts a new section in the Acts with the focus moving from the apostles to Stephen, Philip (ch 8) and then to Saul/Paul in chapter 9.

Stephen is the central character in chapters 6 and 7. Half of ch 6 and all of ch 7 (the longest in the book) is exclusively about him. He has the distinction of being the first martyr and his testimony is an inspiration, but these two factors alone cannot account for the contrast in coverage between Stephen's death and that of James, the first apostle to be martyred, who gets just one short verse (Acts 12:2). A major reason why Luke has so much detail about Stephen is because of the connection with Saul of Tarsus (Acts 7:58; 8:1).

The timing of chapter 6 is not clear, it could be a year or perhaps a few years after Pentecost. But what is clear is that this new community of the Life/Way faces a challenge. It's a problem caused in part by their rapid increase in numbers (problems of growth are much to be preferred to the problems of decline). The complaint is that the Hellenist widows are being overlooked in the charitable distribution of food. The Hellenists were Jews whose culture and first language was Greek, and who had grown up in the diaspora outside Israel; in contrast, the Hebrews were Jews whose first language was Hebrew and had grown up within the land of Israel. (One reason there was a significant number of Hellenist widows was because many devout Jews, who could afford it, chose to move back to the Land in their latter years, specifically to the Jerusalem area so they could be near the Temple. Men tended to die before their wives which left their widows often without the support of their family.)

The twelve (apostles) convene a gathering open to all disciples to rectify the situation. They ask the community to select seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom. The role of the apostles was to seal the disciples' choice and publicly confer authority on them. The apostles demonstrated a Spirit-led wisdom with this approach which resonated with everyone, especially the the Hellenists, because they needed to be able to trust and communicate with these new leaders. All seven of them have Greek rather than Hebrew/Jewish names which strongly suggest they were from that community.

Though these seven are not referred to as “deacons” it seems clear that Paul's instructions about appointing deacons (in 1 Tim. 3) can be traced back to this episode. This delegation and separation of leadership roles has a clear precedent with Moses (Ex 18) where he takes the advice of Jethro, his father-in-law.

Luke's summary speaks of continued growth of the community in Jerusalem, described for the first time as multiplication, and notably bearing fruit among the priests (there were thousands of them), probably among the lower ranks of the priesthood, many of whom were poor.

The second part of the chapter focusses on Stephen, and for the first time signs and wonders (of the Spirit) are seen to be done by someone outside the 12 apostles. Stephen is revealed not just as someone who can “serve tables” but who is a powerful and gifted public speaker and debater. Jews from four cities/places in the Diaspora are mentioned, two in North Africa and two in (modern) Turkey. Alexandria in Egypt was the largest Jewish community outside of Israel and, with its famous library, was a centre of Greek philosophy and learning. (The LXX was written in Alexandria, and it was the home of the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo who was probably still alive at that time.) But none of this counted for anything when up against the wisdom and the Spirit of Stephen's words.

Stephen's opponents resorted to physical force and underhand means to silence him. There are notable parallels between Jesus' trail and Stephen's situation: taken by force and brought before the council (the Sanhedrin); false witnesses; misunderstanding/misrepresenting Jesus' words about destroying “this temple” and in three days raising it up again (Mk. 14:56-58; Jn. 2:18-21).

The final image of Stephen's face is a remarkable one. The faces of angels reflect the glory of God because they stand in his presence. This is reminiscent of what happened to Moses' face when he communed with God (Ex. 34:29-33) and to, some extent, of Jesus' transfiguration.