The Strength to Speak (The Story of Stephen--Acts 6-7)

Greetings in Christ Jesus, fellow soldiers.

People often dream of being heroes, which isn't a necessarily a bad thing--if it's for a purpose greater than oneself. The problem is that our heroic dreams are often tainted by selfishness and the desire for praise and adoration and gratitude. As a result, we often read ourselves into stories of heroism and turn heroes into projections of ourselves. This happens, for example, when we turn Jesus into simply a moral man, not God. A Jesus who is good, but not God, is a Jesus we can be like. We do the same thing when we strive to be strong like Samson, a man after God's own heart like David, dare to be a Daniel, or desire the heroic martyrdom of Stephen.

Yet these men never thought of themselves as heroes. The one true hero of Scripture and of all of human history is Jesus Christ, and his heroism is utterly unique--only God can rescue sinners from the just penalty of their sin: death and damnation. Thus, we must never look to figures in Scripture primarily as heroes to imitate, but as ordinary men empowered by an extraordinary God.

That is what we find in the book of Acts. This book has historically been known as the "Acts of the Apostles," but it is perhaps better understood as the "Acts of Christ through His Word and Spirit." It was written alongside the book of Luke. In the first book (Luke), we read of Christ redeeming His Church. In the second book (Acts), we read of Christ building His Church. In the beginning of the book of Acts, Christ promises to give the Holy Spirit to equip His people in sharing the Word with the world. Over and over again throughout the book, we don't see great men, but a great Lord sending people by His Spirit and spreading His Word to the nations.

It is this great Lord who now strengthens Stephen in Acts 6 and 7. In 6:5, Stephen is singled out from his fellow deacons, in that he is full of "faith and the Holy Spirit." This is told to us not as much to highlight any special gifting of Stephen, but of the fact that these God-given gifts would soon be necessary and put to use. And as is the pattern, where the Spirit is spoken of, the Word is spoken of soon after as spreading to more people (v7).

In v8, we're told the Stephen was full of "grace and power" and was doing "great wonders and signs." Again, these things are not being told us so that we can replicate them. While we do have grace and power, we cannot do wonders and signs. Just like in Stephen's martyrdom to come, while we have the same Holy Spirit guiding us through this life, we will not glow like an angel or see heaven open up before us. These extraordinary acts were displayed in this time to show the church of that time and all ages (through God's Word) that this is the power of Christ over His Church.

In the remaining verses of ch6, we see that Stephen's opponents, who "could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking," conspired against him, drew up false charges, and got him thrown into a farce of trial. Notice what Stephen didn't do in the face of the lies told against him: He didn't become defensive, assert his rights, proclaim his innocence, rebut the charges, attack the character of his opponents, etc.

Rather, Stephen turned the tables. Just as the farce of trial put on for Jesus was really the trial of mankind and their heart toward God, so Stephen used this opportunity to put his prosecutors on trial for the crime of rebelling against God (7:1-50). Throughout his defense (really, prosecution) he showed how God's people had rejected God, persecuted those entrusted with God's Word, and rejected those truths to which God's Word testified. The irony behind all of this is that Stephen's trial is proof of all of these things in the here and now!

Finally, Stephen lays them out with his closing statement: ⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. ⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, ⁵³ you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

The book of Acts is about Christ building His Church through Word and Spirit. Stephen, speaking God's Word by the power of His Spirit, has shown that God's people to the present day have engaged in a few acts of their own--the act of resisting the Spirit who gives life, the act of killing those entrusted with God's Word, the act of killing the very Son of God who was sent by the Father to call His people to account. The rebel heart of this group of "religious leaders" was thoroughly exposed and condemned, and in order to suppress this truth, they condemned Stephen and murdered him.

My friends, Stephen was an ordinary man empowered by an extraordinary God, much as we are today. He went, not with great words of eloquence, impeccable logic, or crocodile tears, but with the power of the Holy Spirit and Holy Word. We have this same power. And like Stephen, by these appointed means given us by Christ, we have the strength to speak.

Yet I fear that we do not often realize the power given us because we absorbed in our own supposed power. We desire the intelligence, eloquence, and emotional fervor needed to save sinners. The problem is, we have none of those things in a supply sufficient to save ourselves, let alone others. These things will neither suffice anyway, even in the great of supply, because sinners are not suppressing the truth because of intellectual objections or emotional struggles, but in unrighteousness. The hand of man cannot compete with the hand of Satan.

Ultimately, the only way to attack this spiritual rebellion is to be saved and equipped by Jesus Christ to go forth with His Spirit and Word. In Christ alone we find the strength to stand and only in the tools that He gives us are we able to wage war for the hearts and minds of a hostile world and the demonic forces operating behind them (Eph. 6). The man who was used by God to pen these words in Scripture was one who was saved in part by the spiritual tools wielded by Stephen on that great day of his martyrdom. If we desire to be useful to our Lord and Savior, let us not forsake the weapons He has given us--the ones He first used to save us.