This is a short chapter which will introduce a couple of players who will be important in the next two chapters—Stephen and Philip. A small problem arose in the church. The brethren were taking care of their widows, but certain of this class (called “Hellenists”) were being neglected “in the daily distribution” by the ”Hebrews” (v. 1). We don’t know, for sure, who these two groups were. The Hellenists were likely Jews who had lived outside Israel, and spoke Greek and had adopted some Hellenic (Greek) culture. The “Hebrews” were perhaps native to the land of Palestine, and might have had a bit of a bias against those Jews who were not native to Israel. Tribalism is common in history.
Regardless, the problem was easily solved. The apostles, who felt the need to keep preaching (that’s what Jesus instructed them to do), told the brethren to find “seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom” (v. 3) to handle this matter while the apostles continued to give themselves to “prayer and to the ministry of the word” (v. 4). This solved the matter as seven men were assigned to oversee this work (vs. 5-6). Stephen and Philip were the two most prominent, at least for the book of Acts.
The church continued to grow as even “a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith” (v. 7). No doubt the enemies of the new religion were strenuously trying to disprove it, but they could find no evidence to dispute the apostles’ claim of a resurrected Jesus. And remember, this is all happening in the very city where Jesus was crucified and resurrected! And still his enemies could find nothing to gainsay the message. Never forget that the same evidence (which no historian of worth today denies) for Jesus’s crucifixion is the same type of evidence that proves His resurrection—multiple eye-witness accounts. Which is the same evidence we have for every verifiable historical fact.
The remainder of chapter 6, and then chapter 7, are given entirely to the martyrdom of Stephen. He was a man “full of faith and power” who did a lot of “great wonders and signs among the people” (v. 8). Certain men of the “Synagogue of the Freedmen” (we don’t really know who these people were), disputed with Stephen (v. 9), but could not refute his arguments (v. 10). So, they did the common thing. They found some people to lie about Stephen, accusing him of “blasphemous words against Moses and God” (v. 11). They made a big enough stink that Stephen was arrested and brought before the council (v. 12)—probably the same bunch that had tried and beaten the apostles earlier. Not much chance of a fair trial here. More “witnesses” were brought forth against Stepen (v. 13) and exaggerated what Stephen had been preaching (v. 14).
Stephen’s accusers actually spoke some truth, though it would be nice to have heard what Stephen actually said. They accused him of saying that “Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place” (the temple? Yes, Jesus did say such (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), but the Romans would do it, not Him. Stephen’s opponents also said that he preached that Jesus wanted to “change the customs which Moses delivered to us.” Not exactly. Jewish customs were fine, as are any people’s customs that do not violate Jesus’s law. God did indeed intend to change the law; the Old Testament had said that (read Jeremiah 31:31-33), and there is a decided break between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism was never intended to be God’s final law, or the way in which humanity would be saved from sin. It was our “tutor” to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24). This is the whole argument of the book of Hebrews. Yet, of course, those Jews who were determined not to believe (the Old Testament talked about them, too, Isaiah 29:13) were dead set against Christianity and weren’t above being disingenuous, at best, about it. We see the same thing happening today.
Stephen was calm in the face of their accusations. His face was “as the face of an angel” (v. 15). His sermon is the subject of chapter 7.