Persecution

After the death of Stephen, Jesus’ followers were scattered, while the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. They were undoubtedly counting the cost of their discipleship while monitoring the activity of Saul, whose personal mission to destroy the church…

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 56 And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”

57 Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him 58 and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

59 As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.

1 Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen.

A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. 2 (Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning.) 3 But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.
Acts 7:55 – 8:3 NLT

Saul was the coat check at Stephen’s stoning. He was a young man, we see in vs. 58. We find out much more about him later, in terms of his religious pedigree and training under the legendary Gamaliel. We’ll leave that for then. Saul’s credentials are Paul’s humility. For today, he watched over the stoning of Stephen and completely agreed that Stephen deserved to die. His blasphemy was in the tradition of that of Jesus, who the religious leaders also killed.

In the martyring of Stephen, we have the beginning of a great wave of persecution. Enough was enough. They had tolerated the movement of Jesus and the assembly of his followers among them enough. But the numbers were in the thousands now, and seemingly the leadership had forgotten what Gamaliel had said to the council, “If it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!” (Acts 5:39).

The followers of Jesus scattered. This seems familiar. It happened after the arrest of Jesus. But this time, it wasn’t necessarily out of confusion or necessarily fear. They knew Jesus was risen. They knew their role in the Great Commission. They knew that suffering with and for Jesus was part of their new life. Their scattering was practical. It would not serve the movement to sit and wait to be dragged to prison or killed. They had a job to do.

The apostles were not scattered. They stayed in Jerusalem. Stephen was buried with great mourning. They were undoubtedly counting the cost of their discipleship. And they were undoubtedly monitoring the activity of this Saul, who had made it his personal mission to destroy the church.

In the following of Jesus, we find the undeniable presence of the Holy Spirit, amazing miracles of God, the great unity of believers, messiness of wrong motives and sin, growth and development of the Body and leaders, and great persecution. That’s a quick and dirty summary of chapters 1-8. It’s not all perfect because people are involved. But it’s all overseen by the sovereign hand of God.

Persecution is actually a good sign because it means the disciples are staying true to Jesus, their Teacher, Saviour, and Lord. I would fully expect, among all the words they were remembering him to have said, that John 16:33 was ringing in their ears:

“Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 NLT

Amen.

Marc Kinna