4th May 2025

New Testament Heroes 13 – 04/05/25 – Martin Mowat

First reading: Acts 6:1-7

Second reading: 1 Timothy 3:1-13

If you were here last week, you’ll know that my hero nomination went to a man called Gamaliel, even though it’s quite possible that he wasn’t really a very nice guy.  He was a member of the Sanhedrin and they were known for their corrupt self-interest. 

Nevertheless, he certainly saved the lives of some of the apostles, including Peter and John. If he hadn’t, the book of Acts might have read very differently. You can catch that message on the church site. 

So, as we’ve just heard, seven men, one called Stephen, one called Philip, one called Nicolas and four others were selected, not by the apostles, but by the congregation, and these are my heroes today. Particularly Stephen as we’ll hear presently. 

Nicolas was from Antioch, we’re told, and a convert to Judaism, so, because we’re not told otherwise, it’s reasonable to assume that the others were all Jews from Jerusalem – certainly Philip was. 

At that time the church was growing rapidly as Jews converted to Christianity, including some priests, and that would have really aggravated the Sanhedrin. But those Jews, it seems, fell into two distinct groups. Let me explain.

As you know, Jesus’ crucifiction took place at the time of the Feast of the Passover. This is one of the three feasts which all Jews were required to attend in Jerusalem. So Jews from all over the world were present at the time of Jesus' death and resurrection, and many of them gave their lives over to Christ. 

Those Jews who lived in Israel, were referred to as Hebraic Jews, while those who came from elsewhere in the Roman and Greek worlds were referred to as Hellenistic Jews. When they became Christians and the persecution started, these Hellenistic Jews left their home towns and settled in Jerusalem.

Not surprisingly, because of their different cultural backgrounds, the two groups saw certain things differently, and one of those things was whether the Hellenistic women, the ones who were from outside Israel, were being overlooked when it came to the distribution of food. 

No church is perfect, and the early church in Jerusalem was certainly experiencing teething problems.  That was one of them but another, and more serious problem was that the apostles were being overworked. They badly needed administrative and logistical support.

Three things are worth noting. First, the apostles wanted to spend more time in prayer and in teaching. Second, as we heard, SEVEN men were chosen. Why SEVEN? Perhaps because it was considered to be the perfect number, the number of completeness.  Why only men, when there were certainly some excellent women who would have qualified? Personally, I think that it was purely cultural.

Third, those seven were known for being “full of the Spirit and wisdom”.  To know more about deacons, we look to Paul’s instructions to Timothy, that Janet read to us in our second reading. As we heard, they were to be, he said very firmly, “worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain.  They were to keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience, to be faithful to their spouses and manage their children and households well. They were first to be tested; and only then if there wasnothing against them, could they serve as deacons. 

Even more stringent qualifications were required for elders, who had to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.  He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. …. He must not be a recent convert, …. and he must also have a good reputation with outsiders.

Different denominations have different structures, and use different job titles, and I am not here to say that they are right or wrong, better or worse. But this this was the biblical pattern, that the local church was to be led by a team of elders, of whom the pastor was one, and it was to be administered by a team of deacons.  It was in order that it maintain a squeaky-clean reputation that the requirements for those elders and deacons were, and should still be, so stringent. Those roles were not to be taken on lightly.

Back to our seven heroes, then, the most outstanding of whom was Stephen.

I wish that we would have had time to read the whole of chapters 6 and 7 because Stephen is described as “a man full of God’s grace and power, who performed great wonders and signs among the people.” God’s hand was clearly on him, but that, inevitably, brought opposition from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called …) who began to argue with Stephen. But because they couldn’t stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke, they secretly persuaded some men to lie to the dreaded Sanhedrin, saying, “We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God” and “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law … that Moses handed down to us.”

Don’t forget that Stephen would have known that this was the powerful council that had been instrumental in Jesus’ demise, but it seems they had two problems.  One was that when they looked intently at Stephen … they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. That’s an intriguing thought for us, but it was clearly quite daunting for them.

The second one was that when they asked him “Are these charges true?” he addressed them in a polite and friendly manner and went into a long and detailed explanation of Jewish spiritual history, showing that what his accusers were saying was groundless.

It’s interesting that they didn’t try to stop him, or interrupt him, but then at the end, whether he got carried away, or whether he was being prompted by the Holy Spirit, I don’t know, he finished by saying “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!  Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.  But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  Whoa!  What an amazing thing to happen for him at that particular moment, and how it must have helped him endure what was just about to happen to him. 

“Look,” he said to them, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

At this they covered their ears because for them, this was blasphemy, and, yelling at the top of their voices, perhaps trying to drown out what he was saying, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and laying their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul (and you know who he was to become), they began to stone him. 

Doing that was not only strictly against God’s law, but also against the Roman law – but they were so enraged that they just didn’t care.

While they were stoning him, we’re told, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

I know that several of us don’t like to hear the gory bits of the Bible, but they’re there for a reason, and we can’t just ignore them.

To conclude, we’ve seen last week and this week how the early church was more and more persecuted.  But until this moment no-one had actually died for their faith in Jesus.  Stephen was the first and the consequences would be both profound and far-reaching.

Was what he did a heroic thing to do?  We’ll find out next week.