Written by: Paul & Sheelagh Easby

Acts 6 v 5-7
The whole group liked the idea, so they chose these seven men: Stephen (a man with great faith and full of the Holy Spirit), Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas (a man from Antioch who had become a Jew). Then they put these men before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
The word of God was continuing to spread. The group of followers in Jerusalem increased, and a great number of the Jewish priests believed and obeyed.

Notes
Have you ever belonged to a group of people who occasionally argue? 

Have you ever known a church where sometimes disagreements happen?

My guess is that the answer in both cases is YES! because where two or more people rub shoulders, there are bound to be differences of opinion, which can sometimes lead to conflict. But the incredible thing is that when God is involved, conflict is quickly overcome, and differences are an asset rather than a handicap.

That is exactly the background to today’s reading, (see Acts 6:1-4,) ……. the church in Jerusalem is growing fantastically – 3000 at Pentecost, (Acts 2:41), 5000 after the first healing by the disciples, (Acts 4:4), - but one group felt they were being neglected. The disciples acknowledged that there was some truth in this and realised that they couldn’t care for all the new converts, even if, (and this was rather unlikely!), God was calling them to be pastors as well as apostles and evangelists. Result - they called together the whole church and challenged them to appoint men to fulfil this vital calling.

So the seven first ‘deacons’ were chosen, including Stephen, about whom we shall be reading more this week. They were commissioned and authorised through prayer and laying-on of hands, a practice still used today to send out new Christian workers, and the church continued to grow. 

I wonder, did YOU know that you and I have been chosen by God? 
- to be part of His Kingdom. (WOW! – thank You Jesus.)
- and ….. to serve Him in a particular way. (Help!)

Acts 6 v 8-11
Stephen was richly blessed by God who gave him the power to do great miracles and signs among the people. But some Jewish people were against him. They belonged to the synagogue of Free Men (as it was called), which included Jewish people from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia. They all came and argued with Stephen.
But the Spirit was helping him to speak with wisdom, and his words were so strong that they could not argue with him. So they secretly urged some men to say, “We heard Stephen speak against Moses and against God.”

Notes 
Sometimes, the direction our lives follow changes dramatically. When I left school, I trained as an engineer and worked as a research scientist. In my spare time, I was a youth leader. Eventually, God called my wife and I to work as evangelists to young people with the charity Youth for Christ. After 10 years, our tack changed again as we were called to work with Church Army leading a church plant on a council estate. 

From the seven deacons, appointed in the early church in Jerusalem, Acts 6:5, we only read of two of them again. Both Philip and Stephen have changed direction and become powerful preachers and evangelists. Today, we read how Stephen was ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit, and seeing amazing things happen. This is of course exactly what Jesus promised His followers just before He ascended, see Mark 16:15-18.

But as often happens, when the Kingdom of God is advancing, there is resistance. In this case it came from a group of Jews, who were probably frightened that their religion was to be overturned by new beliefs in Jesus Christ. Their initial arguments against Stephen were not having any effect, which is hardly surprising. Have you read another of Jesus’ promises for difficult times, “Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.”

If YOU aren’t sure what God has chosen you to do at this particular time, pray, talk to Him, and other Christians, and find out whether you are to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, or ……..

And ….. listen and trust Him to speak to you and then through you, by His Holy Spirit. 

Acts 6 v 12-15
This upset the people, the older Jewish leaders, and the teachers of the law. They came and grabbed Stephen and brought him to a meeting of the Jewish leaders. They brought in some people to tell lies about Stephen, saying, “This man is always speaking against this holy place and the law of Moses. We heard him say that Jesus from Nazareth will destroy this place and that Jesus will change the customs Moses gave us.” All the people in the meeting were watching Stephen closely and saw that his face looked like the face of an angel.

Notes
When things are going well for one person and exciting things are happening, there will often be someone who is put out or becomes resentful. If you are scoring all the goals for your team, someone will probably be saying something like, “He’s just lucky, if I had the chances he’s had, I would have scored even more.” Or when the exam results come out and you’ve got a stack of ‘A’s, “She just happened to revise the right questions”. 

Stephen was having problems with the Jewish leaders because wonderful things were happening as he shared God’s love with ordinary people, through words and actions. The leaders felt that their traditions, their beliefs, and even their livelihoods were being threatened, and when one or two lies were thrown into the melting pot, the situation exploded. They arrested Stephen and insisted he explain what was going on and what he was preaching. 

Was Stephen angry about the lies? Yes!
Was he frightened about what was going to happen? Probably!
Did he show his anger and his fear? No!

Why? Because he had learnt to trust God and to dwell on Jesus’s promise to His followers, “I am with you to the very end of the age,” (Matthew 28:20b). 

The result – his face glowed like the face of an angel, and he was able to present to these sceptical, angry men, a challenging exposition of the Christian faith. 

When we are faced with challenge, and with false accusation, we can call on the same resources as were available to Stephen - the power of the Holy Spirit, the name and the promises of our Lord Jesus, and the all embracing love of our Heavenly Father. 

Thank you Lord!

Acts 7 v 1-7
The high priest said to Stephen, “Are these things true?”
Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to Abraham, our ancestor, in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. God said to Abraham, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and go to the land I will show you.’ So Abraham left the country of Chaldea and went to live in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God sent him to this place where you now live. God did not give Abraham any of this land, not even a foot of it. But God promised that he would give this land to him and his descendants, even before Abraham had a child. This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves and will mistreat them for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land and will worship me in this place.’ 

Notes
In my newspaper last week, on the computer page, people were asking very complicated questions about such things as Trojans, firewires, JPEGs and TIFFs. In the middle, however, was a simple one; “Could you explain the difference between the Internet and the Web?” This person needed the very basic teaching for beginners, anything more complicated would confuse them. 

In this passage, Stephen, when asked to explain what he has been saying, goes back to the very beginning of God’s intervention with His people. God speaking to Abraham and calling Him, was the beginning of the Israelite nation. The Jewish leaders who were questioning Stephen knew all about this, so of course could understand him. As the story unfolds they will see how Jesus comes into it. Stephen, though, recognised where they were ‘at’ and spoke to them in a way which they could understand.

Sometimes people ask us to explain our faith in Jesus or why we behave in certain ways. Maybe they want to know why it is that we can be trusted. When this happens to you, think about where the people are ‘at’. Do they need a complicated answer, or do you perhaps just have to tell them how you met Jesus and what a difference He has made to you? Pray for His wisdom and help.

Acts 7 v 8-10
God made an agreement with Abraham, the sign of which was circumcision. And so when Abraham had his son Isaac, Abraham circumcised him when he was eight days old. Isaac also circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob did the same for his sons, the twelve ancestors of our people.
“Jacob’s sons became jealous of Joseph and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him and saved him from all his troubles. The king of Egypt liked Joseph and respected him because of the wisdom God gave him. The king made him governor of Egypt and put him in charge of all the people in his palace.

Notes 
I love 1983!! 

I wonder if you have watched the BBC 2 programmes that have been looking at highlights from particular years? The ones I like best are the ones I’ve participated well in, where I’ve liked a particular band or a TV show. If you weren’t around at that time though, it is all a bit boring.

Stephen continues to tell the story of the Israelites history to the court of the Jewish leaders. He spells out what happened at certain times. He wasn’t doing it just for the enjoyment of those men, though. He was pointing out to them how God had been totally involved in their history, and how one step led to another.

God made an agreement with Abraham and sealed it in a physical way, circumcision. But the important thing to notice is that when God makes an agreement, He keeps it. He can be trusted. He could then, and as the Bible tells us, “Jesus is the same, yesterday, and today, and for ever!” (Hebrews 13:8), so He can be trusted today!

Jesus promises His followers, and that includes US, that He will be with us to the “end of the age”, - SO HE WILL! 

He promises peace beyond understanding, - SO HE WILL GIVE IT!

Ask Him!

Acts 7 v 11-17
“Then all the land of Egypt and Canaan became so dry that nothing would grow, and the people suffered very much. Jacob’s sons, our ancestors, could not find anything to eat. But when Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent his sons there. This was their first trip to Egypt. When they went there a second time, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and the king learned about Joseph’s family. Then Joseph sent messengers to invite Jacob, his father, to come to Egypt along with all his relatives (seventy-five persons altogether). So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and his sons died. Later their bodies were moved to Shechem and put in a grave there. (It was the same grave Abraham had bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.)
“The promise God made to Abraham was soon to come true, and the number of people in Egypt grew large. 

Notes 
Have you ever tried making a jigsaw puzzle without the picture to follow? or worse still with some of the pieces missing?

When Joseph was sold into slavery and eventually put into prison, he must have wondered what it was all about. What on earth was God thinking about? He had given Joseph dreams that he would be great, and look at what had happened!

We see though in these verses, that God did have a plan, it’s just that Joseph couldn’t see it as he was going through it. Joseph was appointed ruler in Egypt during the famine, and because of that all the sons of his father Jacob, and their families, came to live there. God’s promise to Abraham came true, the Israelite people grew in numbers in Egypt. God could see the whole picture, and now Stephen is explaining it to the Jewish leaders who have arrested him.

It may be that you’re having a hard time and don’t understand why. Don’t give up on God! He sees the big picture, the whole jigsaw of life, and we only see the little bit that’s happening to us, now. Make a decision to trust Him, and you’ll discover He doesn’t let you down. He is always there for you! 

Acts 7 v 18-24
Then a new king, who did not know who Joseph was, began to rule Egypt. This king tricked our people and was cruel to our ancestors, forcing them to leave their babies outside to die. At this time Moses was born, and he was very beautiful. For three months Moses was cared for in his father’s house. When they put Moses outside, the king’s daughter adopted him and raised him as if he were her own son. The Egyptians taught Moses everything they knew, and he was a powerful man in what he said and did.
“When Moses was about forty years old, he thought it would be good to visit his own people, the people of Israel. Moses saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite, so he defended the Israelite and punished the Egyptian by killing him. 

Notes
When I was 10 years old, my family moved from a small town in Northern Ireland to a large town in Yorkshire. It was a tremendous upheaval, but eventually we all settled into our new life. This experience was however, of great help to me in later life. God has called me to minister to people through the Church Army. This has meant moving house several times and settling quickly into new surroundings and situations.

In our reading today, Stephen , under arrest by the Jewish authorities is continuing his explanation of God’s plan throughout the history of the Jewish people.
The king of Egypt condemned all the Israelite babies to death. Moses, however was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter, and was brought up by her. He learned all the privileged ways of the Egyptians. 

When, much later in life, God called Moses to meet with Pharaoh to negotiate the release of the Israelite people, he was able to do so, because he was experienced in the ways of the Egyptians, …… and he had God on his side! God used what he had experienced to help him to do what he was called to.

I encourage you to thank God for all that happens to you daily. Thank Him for your family, your friends, your school, college, or work. Know too, that every experience is important in your journey with Him. God really is on your side to


word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes