Acts 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

As the group of believers grows, Greek-speaking Jews complain that their widows are being passed over in the daily handing out of food. The twelve apostles have the group choose seven trusted men to handle this work so the apostles can keep to prayer and teaching, and the seven are presented, prayed over, and given the job. One of them, Stephen, does great wonders among the people, and men from a certain synagogue argue with him and lose. They then get men to accuse him of speaking against Moses and God, stir up a crowd, and bring him before the Jewish high court with false witnesses.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • In those days the number of the disciples was multiplying.
   • A complaint arose from the Greek-speaking Jews against the Hebrews.
   • The complaint was that the widows of the Greek-speaking Jews were being overlooked in the daily distribution.
2. 6:2
   • The twelve summoned the whole body of the disciples.
   • The twelve said it was not fitting for them to abandon the word of God in order to serve tables.
3. 6:3
   • The twelve told the brothers to look out from among themselves seven men of good report.
   • The twelve said these men were to be full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.
   • The twelve said they would appoint such men over this task.
4. 6:4
   • The twelve said they would devote themselves continually to prayer.
   • The twelve said they would devote themselves continually to the ministry of the word.
5. 6:5
   • The proposal pleased the whole multitude.
   • They chose Stephen.
   • Stephen was a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.
   • They chose Philip.
   • They chose Prochorus.
   • They chose Nicanor.
   • They chose Timon.
   • They chose Parmenas.
   • They chose Nicolas, a convert to Judaism from Antioch.
6. 6:6
   • They set these men before the apostles.
   • The apostles prayed.
   • The apostles laid their hands on them.
7. 6:7
   • The word of God kept increasing.
   • The number of the disciples in Jerusalem multiplied greatly.
   • A large number of the priests became obedient to the faith.
8. 6:8
   • Stephen was full of faith and power.
   • Stephen did great wonders and signs among the people.
9. 6:9
   • Certain men from the synagogue called that of the Freedmen rose up.
   • Cyrenians were among them.
   • Alexandrians were among them.
   • Men from Cilicia and Asia were among them.
   • They disputed with Stephen.
10. 6:10
    • They were not able to withstand the wisdom by which Stephen spoke.
    • They were not able to withstand the spirit by which Stephen spoke, whether his own spirit or the Holy Spirit.
11. 6:11
    • They secretly induced men to make an accusation.
    • Those men said they had heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses.
    • Those men said they had heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against God.
12. 6:12
    • They stirred up the people.
    • They stirred up the elders.
    • They stirred up the scribes.
    • They came upon Stephen and seized him.
    • They brought Stephen to the council.
13. 6:13
    • They set up false witnesses.
    • The false witnesses said this man does not stop speaking blasphemous words against the holy place.
    • The false witnesses said this man does not stop speaking blasphemous words against the law.
14. 6:14
    • The witnesses said they had heard Stephen say that this Jesus of Nazareth would destroy this place.
    • The witnesses said they had heard Stephen say that Jesus would change the customs Moses delivered to them.
15. 6:15
    • All who sat in the council looked intently at Stephen.
    • They saw his face as though it were the face of an angel.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

"Grecians" in 1611 did not mean Greeks. Both groups here are Jews who follow Jesus; what divides them is language and background. The "Grecians" grew up in Jewish families settled elsewhere around the Mediterranean, spoke Greek and read their scriptures in Greek; the "Hebrews" were native to Judea and spoke Aramaic or Hebrew. A widow without a husband or a grown son had almost no way to earn a living, so a daily handout of food or money was what kept her fed. "Ministration" is simply the practical work of distributing it.

6:2

"It is not reason" is old English for "it is not reasonable" or "it is not fitting," not "there is no reason." "Serve tables" is a phrase that can point two ways in Greek: waiting on people at meal tables, or working at a money table, the way a banker or money changer did. Either way it means the hands-on administration of the fund rather than the teaching.

6:3

"Honest report" means well spoken of. In 1611 "honest" carried the sense of honorable and respectable in the eyes of others, so the test is public reputation rather than truthfulness alone. "Holy Ghost" is not a spook: "ghost" was the ordinary English word for spirit, and this is the Holy Spirit.

6:4

"Ministry" means service or work done for others; it does not refer to an office or a building. "The ministry of the word" is the labor of teaching and preaching.

6:5

A "proselyte" was a non-Jew who had converted fully to Judaism, accepting circumcision and the law, as opposed to a sympathetic outsider who attended the synagogue without converting. Antioch was a large city in Syria with a substantial Jewish population. All seven of these names are Greek, which is worth noticing in a dispute that began over the Greek-speaking side of the community.

6:6

Laying hands on someone was a recognized formal gesture, used when commissioning a person for a task, conferring a blessing, or publicly transferring responsibility. It made the appointment visible to everyone watching.

6:7

The priesthood was not a small circle. Several thousand priests were attached to the temple in Jerusalem, serving in rotating shifts, and most lived ordinary lives the rest of the year. A large number of them joining the movement is a note about scale within the temple establishment.

6:8

The word the King James renders "miracles" is the Greek word for "signs," meaning acts that point to something beyond themselves rather than mere marvels. Also, the manuscripts differ here: some read "full of faith," others "full of grace."

6:9

"Libertines" does not mean people of loose morals. It renders a Latin term for freedmen: former slaves who had been released, or their descendants. Many Jews had been taken as prisoners to Rome and later freed, and such families kept their own synagogue. Cyrene was a city in North Africa, Alexandria the great Egyptian city with a large Jewish community, Cilicia a Roman province in the southeast of what is now Turkey, and "Asia" the Roman province on the western coast of the same peninsula, not the continent. The Greek is loose enough that this may describe one synagogue drawing all these groups or several synagogues acting together.

6:10

Greek was written without capital letters, so the word here can mean the Holy Spirit or Stephen's own spirit, that is, the force of the man himself. Translators have to choose; the text does not. "Resist" here means withstand or hold their own against.

6:11

"Suborned" is a legal term: to secretly procure someone, usually by bribe or pressure, to give false testimony. "Blasphemous words" translates a word meaning slander or abusive speech; when aimed at God or at sacred things it was a capital charge under the law of Moses.

6:12

"Scribes" were not copyists in this context but trained experts in the law, the men who interpreted and applied it. The "council" is the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court in Jerusalem, some seventy members plus the high priest, which handled religious and legal cases of this weight.

6:13

"This holy place" means the temple in Jerusalem. "The law" means the law of Moses, the first five books of scripture together with the whole body of practice built on them.

6:14

"Delivered" in 1611 means handed on or passed down, as a tradition is passed from one generation to the next. It has nothing to do with rescue. The "customs" are the inherited practices of Jewish life: sacrifice, circumcision, sabbath, food laws, and the rest.

6:15

"Stedfastly" means fixedly or intently; everyone in the room turned and stared. Comparing a face to an angel's suggests a look that is lit up and unafraid, and readers of the Hebrew scriptures would hear an echo of Moses coming down from Sinai with his face shining, which is pointed given the charge just made against Stephen.