Before we look at the man, Stephen, we ought to consider briefly how his story fits in – for his story is a hinge on which turns Luke’s account of the spread of the Christian faith.

Luke’s Gospel virtually ends with these words of our Lord, This is what is written...repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in Christ’s name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:46-49)

Luke’s second volume records how this begins, with the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Immediately, many believe and the church begins to grow. And as it does so, it runs into opposition. Those who follow Christ whole-heartedly must expect to suffer! (Mark 13:9-13) Luke is presenting us with the pattern of opposition – inspired by Satan – that the church has encountered down the ages to the present day.

1. Persecution – Threats (Acts 4:1-22)

2. Corruption within the church (Ananias & Sapphira) (5:1-11)

3. Persecution – Beating (5:17-40)

4. Dissension within the church (neglect of widows) (6:1-6)

5. Persecution – Martyrdom (7:54-60)

But, at every step, these events lead to the growth of the church!

The persecution then becomes widespread, and the believers scatter, carrying the gospel to Samaria and beyond. Stephen’s colleague, Philip, preaches in Samaria and many believe. The Lord directs him to meet with an important official on his way home to Ethiopia, and that man returns to Africa a believer.

Luke describes how the persecutor, Saul, is arrested by the Lord and comes to faith – who will be the Lord’s chief instrument to reach the non-Jews. Peter evangelises at Joppa – and the Lord leads him to evangelise the Roman centurion Cornelius and his friends, opening the door unmistakeably to non-Jews. And about the same time, Jewish believers in Antioch also reach out to non-Jews. To teach them and build them up, Barnabas fetches Saul from Tarsus... And so the Lord fulfils his prediction – the gospel is for everyone, to the ends of the earth.(Isa 49:6; Acts 13:47)

What part in this great movement is Stephen called to play? God endowed him with great wisdom, so that, when called upon to defend the assertion that Jesus was Lord and Messiah, he was able to show that that was true – but also that the future would no longer stop at Jerusalem... That is why Luke pays so much attention to him!

Stephen’s witness

What do we know about this man? We first encounter him in Acts 6:5, as one of the seven men chosen to oversee the daily distribution of food to needy widows. There’d been a complaint that Greek-speaking widows were being over-looked. From the names of the men chosen we may infer they were all Greek-speaking – six of them Jews, and one a Gentile convert to Judaism. What a gracious way of settling a disputei – because these men would be responsible for the care of all the widows!

Stephen is named at the head of this list, as a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5). No doubt he was already a leader – but he was humble enough to be quite willing to wait on tables (Acts 6:2). However, he didn’t confine his activities to this task. Full of God’s grace and power, he did great wonders and miraculous signs – in support of his testimony to Jesus. His preaching brought him into conflict with unconverted Greek-speaking Jews, and it seems that one synogogue of such men organised a formal debate, with Stephen as the Christian spokesman. But, we are told, they couldn’t stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke. (Acts 6:10)

Unable to discredit him fairly, they resorted to the same tactics as men had used against our Lord. They suborned false witnesses, who accused Stephen of blasphemy against Moses and against the Law – saying that Jesus will destroy the Temple and change the customs Moses handed down to us. (Acts 6:11,13,14)

Stephen is brought before the Sanhedrin, as Jesus had been, and the High Priest – probably still Caiaphas – asks, Are these charges true? Acts 7 gives an extended account of Stephen’s reply. To our ears it may seem a rather boring rehearsal of Jewish history – but to the original hearers it was a startling and provocative defence – not of Stephen himself – but of faith in Jesus as Messiah.

Read it carefully and you will see that it is a brilliant and brave exposé of Jewish failure throughout their history to discern and obey God’s will. To recognise that he is a God who is continually moving his people on, despite their opposition. That any place is sacred if he is there. That he calls men, speaks through them and saves his people by them – even though his people reject them at first. That God directed Moses to make a movable Tent as his dwelling-place among his people – but Solomon had built him a fixed building.

However the Most High does not live in houses made by men. (Acts 7:48) – and Stephen clinches his argument by a quote from Isaiah that speaks of the inadequate nature of the fixed Temple and implies its impermanence in God’s plan. (Isa 66:1,2) Stephen ends by hammering home the lesson from all this – that his hearers were acting as their forefathers had always done – and crowning their wickedness with the murder of their Messiah..

No wonder his judges were furious with him! They were unwilling to be moved by argument – because they didn’t want to be accused of Jesus’ judicial murder, and because they didn’t want their situation to change. It was a situation most of us have found ourselves in, before we surrendered to Christ. Unwilling to see ourselves as sinners in God’s sight, or to face the changes in our lives that commitment would bring – we are therefore deaf to the Holy Spirit!

Stephen’s vision

Throughout his speech, Stephen has been filled with the Holy Spirit. They’d seen the radiance of his face. Like that of Moses come from the presence of the Lord! (Exod 34:29-35) So at the conclusion, looking up to heaven, Stephen sees what others cannot see – the glory of God and Jesus in God’s presence – standing.

Elsewhere in the NT, Jesus is referred to as sitting (from Psa 110:1), his work accomplished (e.g. Heb 1:3; 10:12-14; 12:2) – but Stephen sees him standing! A witness stands – and Jesus stands, the true and faithful witness (Rev 3:14), – acknowledging before his Father his own servant, Stephen (Luke 12:8). Ready to welcome him into his own presence, vindicated and loved!

Stephen is the only person to call Jesus the Son of Man, apart from Jesus himself. It’s as if he sees what Daniel saw (Dan 7:13-14) – the vision of one like a son of man brought before the throne of the Ancient of Days – to receive authority, glory and sovereign power – so that all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. No wonder Stephen cries out in admiration and wonder – or that his hearers, their hearts hardened, cover their ears – and yelling at the top of their voices – drag Stephen out to the place of execution, to stone him as a blasphemer and sacriligious speaker against the Temple.

Stephen’s prayer

While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed. (Acts 7:59) Stephen’s actions now consciously follow the example of our Lord. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. The like prayer of Jesus was addressed to the Father (Luke 23:46) – so Stephen’s prayer surely acknowledges the deity of our Lord. And as he falls to his knees under the hail of stones, Stephen cries out, like his Master before him, Lord, do not hold this sin against them! (Luke 23:34)

And then, adds Luke, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:60) What a lovely way of acknowledging that – despite all the outward brutality and hatred – Stephen, and indeed, all of us – can view that death – or any other Christian death – as a calm departure from this life, no stranger than sleep, which pictures it. A confident entrustment of oneself to the Saviour’s care – until he awakens us to life immortal.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die! (John Donne 1573-1631)

Finally, God saw that devout men gave Stephen’s body fitting burial.

Stephen’s legacy

As we look back over Stephen’s brief Christian life, we could, quite appropriately, make the following comments.

1. His life was a wonderful answer to the prayer of the infant church, recorded after its first taste of persecution. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:29-30)

Is this the sort of prayer you and I make? – for our leaders today, and for ourselves? When we think about the furnace of suffering the Church is going through right now, in other lands – how do we pray for the Church there? And what are we doing practically to give them aid?

2. More profoundly even than this clear answer to prayer – we may go back to Luke’s preface to this book of Acts, in which he refers to his Gospel, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day he was taken up to heaven. (Acts 1:1-2) The implication is quite clear – Acts is an unfinished record of what Jesus is continuing to do through his servants. Jesus had himself said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations... And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matt 28:18-20) Stephen had not only witnessed to God’s ever-clearer redeeming purpose, culminating in Jesus, the Righteous One – in his vision, Stephen had seen – Jesus as LORD.

Is that how you see him, amid all the outward turmoil of nations, the cross-currents of events in the news, including the persecution of the Church? The persecution that broke out after Stephen’s death drove Christians out of Jerusalem – and began the mission that was to lead to the ends of the earth. In this, as in all things, Jesus is Lord, using even the hatred and hostility of men to carry forward his own purposes. How does that impact the daily circumstances of your life?

Do you realise that we, who have daily opportunities to represent our Lord before men and women – have the same resource of the indwelling Spirit, as Stephen had? In St Paul’s words, the night is far spent, the day is at hand (Rom 13:12 AV). Do we order our lives accordingly, and make the right value-judgements in the decisions we have to make?

3. A moment ago I suggested that Stephen’s life of witness was an answer to the church’s earlier prayer. Luke clearly hints that Stephen’s dying prayer had its answer, too – in the life of Saul, the young man at whose feet the witnesses had left their clothes while stoning Stephen. Saul, the persecutor of the church, became Paul, the great missionary-apostle. And the rest of Luke’s book is filled with an account of what the Lord did, through his servant Paul.

I have little doubt that Saul heard Stephen’s speech – and agreed with it (for Saul also had a brilliant, far-seeing mind) in so far as it clearly signalled that the Christian message would not remain confined within the walls of an exclusive Judaism, centred on the Temple worship. But Saul’s response was to oppose that message heart and soul – as destructive of all that he treasured – as plainly in error. For hadn’t Jesus died under God’s curse, nailed to a tree? (Gal 3:13; Deut 21:23; 1 Pet 2:24)

But by the grace of God, this man was to be his chosen instrument to bring the gospel to the Gentile world – and ultimately to us! Do we pray for the persecutors of Christians – that they might be changed and become God’s messengers? Surely no such change would be any greater than that of Saul?

And what about ourselves? Are we open to the Holy Spirit? Open to be changed? Ready to have our minds convinced of Jesus’ Lordship and ready to respond to his call upon our lives?