<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>LESSON X</h2>
<h3>THE FIRST PERSECUTION</h3>
<p>The persecution which arose in connection with Stephen marks
a turning point in the history of the Church. Up to that time, the
disciples had been content, for the most part, with laboring in
Jerusalem. Now they were forced out into a broader field. One
result of the persecution was the geographical extension of the
Church.</p>
<p>Another result was perhaps even more important. The extension
caused by persecution was not merely geographical; it was also,
perhaps, intellectual and spiritual. The Church was really from
the beginning in possession of a new religious principle, but at first
that principle was not fully understood. Persecution probably
helped to reveal the hidden riches. The Pharisees were keener
than the disciples themselves. Hostility sharpened the vision.
The disciples themselves were still content to share in the established
forms of Jewish worship; but the Pharisees saw that they
were really advocates of a new principle. Christianity, unless it
were checked, would supersede Judaism. The Pharisees were
right. Jealous fear detected what ancestral piety had concealed.</p>
<p>The hostility of the Jews perhaps helped to open the eyes of the
Church. No doubt, a development was already at work. Persecution
was the result as well as the cause of the new freedom.
Stephen was persecuted possibly just because his preaching went
beyond that of Peter. With or without persecution, the Church
would have transcended the bounds of the older Judaism. It
contained a germ of new life which was certain to bear fruit. But
persecution hastened the process. It scattered the Church abroad,
and it revealed the revolutionary character of the Church's life.</p>
<p>With the coming of Jesus a new era had begun. Judaism had
before been separate from the Gentile world. That separation
had been due not to racial prejudice, but to a divine ordinance.
It had served a useful purpose. Jewish particularism should never
be despised; it should be treated with piety and gratitude. It
had preserved the precious deposit of truth in the midst of heathenism.
But its function, though useful, was temporary. It was a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</SPAN></span>
preparation for Christ. Before Christ it was a help; after Christ
it became a hindrance.</p>
<p>Persecution was not the beginning of the new freedom. Freedom
was based upon the words of Jesus. It had become plainer
again, perhaps, in the teaching of Stephen. Furthermore, if freedom
was not begun by the persecution, it was also not completed
by it. The emancipation of the Church from Judaism was a slow
process. The unfolding of that process is narrated in The Acts.
Even after the Church was scattered abroad through Judea and
Samaria, much remained to be done. Cornelius, Antioch, Paul
were still in the future. Nevertheless, the death of Stephen was
an important event. It was by no means the whole of the process;
but it marks an epoch.</p>
<p>The gradual rise of persecution should be traced in class—first
the fruitless arrest of Peter and John and their bold defiance;
then the arrest of the apostles, the miraculous escape, the preaching
in the temple, the re-arrest, the counsel of Gamaliel, the scourging;
then the preaching of Stephen and the hostility of the Pharisees.
The opposition of the Sadducees was comparatively without significance.
The Sadducees were not Jews at heart. They might
persecute the Church just because the Church was patriotically
Jewish. But the Pharisees were really representative of the
existing Judaism. Pharisaic persecution meant the hostility of the
nation. And it implied the independence of the Church. If the
disciples were nothing but Jews, why did the Jews persecute them?</p>
<p>In what follows, a few details will be discussed.</p>
<h4>1. THEUDAS AND JUDAS</h4>
<p>Judas the Galilean, mentioned by Gamaliel, Acts 5:37, appears
also in Josephus. His insurrection occurred at the time of the
great enrollment under Quirinius, the Syrian legate. This enrollment
was different from that which brought Joseph and Mary to
Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus. Luke 2:2-5. That
former enrollment occurred before the death of Herod the Great
in 4 B. C. Luke 1:5; Matt. 2:1. The enrollment to which
Gamaliel referred was carried out after the deposition of Archelaus
in A. D. 6.</p>
<p>With regard to Judas all is clear. But Theudas is known only
from Acts 5:36. The Theudas who is mentioned in Josephus
is different, for his insurrection did not occur till about A. D. 44,
after the time of Gamaliel's speech. Gamaliel was referring to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</SPAN></span>
some insurrection of an earlier period. The name Theudas was
common, and so were tumults and insurrections.</p>
<h4>2. THE SEVEN</h4>
<p>It has been questioned whether the seven men who were appointed
to assist the apostles were "deacons." The title is not applied
to them. The narrative does, indeed, imply that they were to
"serve tables," Acts 6:2, and the Greek word here translated
"serve" is the verb from which the Greek noun meaning "deacon"
is derived; but the same word is also used for the "ministry [or
service] of the word" in which the apostles were to continue. V. 4.
The special technical use of the word "deacon" appears in the New
Testament only in Phil. 1:1; I Tim. 3:8,12. Compare Rom. 16:1.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, though the word itself does not occur in our passage,
it is perhaps not incorrect to say that the seven were "deacons."
Their functions were practically those of the diaconate; their
appointment, at any rate, shows that the apostles recognized the
need of some such office in the Church. It is not quite clear what
is meant by the expression, to "serve tables." The reference is
either to tables for food, or else to the money tables of a banker.
If the former interpretation be correct, then the deacons were to
attend especially to the management of the common meals. Even
then, however, the expression probably refers indirectly to the
general administration of charity, a prominent part of the service
being mentioned simply as typical of the whole.</p>
<h4>3. THE SYNAGOGUES</h4>
<p>The Greek word translated "Libertines" in Acts 6:9 comes from
the Latin word for "freedmen." The freedmen here mentioned
were probably descendants of Jews taken by Pompey as slaves to
Rome. The Jewish opponents of Stephen therefore included Romans,
men of eastern and middle north Africa, and men of eastern and
western Asia Minor. These foreign Jews, when they settled in
Jerusalem, had their own synagogues. It is doubtful how many
synagogues are mentioned in our passage. Luke may mean that
each of the five groups had a separate synagogue, or he may be
grouping the men of Cilicia and Asia in one synagogue. The wording
of the Greek perhaps rather favors the view that only two synagogues
are mentioned—one consisting of Libertines and men of
Cyrene and Alexandria, and the other consisting of Cilicians and
Asians.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>4. THE SPEECH OF STEPHEN</h4>
<p>In defending himself, Stephen gave a summary of Hebrew
history. At first sight, that summary might seem to have little
bearing upon the specific charges that had been made. But the
history which Stephen recited was a history of Israel. "You are
destroying the divine privileges of Israel"—that was the charge.
"No," said Stephen, "history shows that the true privileges of
Israel are the promises of divine deliverance. To them law and
temple are subordinate. From Abraham on there was a promise
of deliverance from Egypt. After that deliverance another
deliverance was promised. It is the one which was wrought by
Jesus. Moses, God's instrument in the first deliverance, was
rejected by his contemporaries. Jesus, the greater Deliverer,
was rejected by you. We disciples of Jesus are the true Israelites,
for we, unlike you, honor the promises of God."</p>
<p>Other interpretations of the speech have been proposed. For
example, some find the main thought of the speech to be this:
"The wanderings of the patriarchs and the long period of time which
elapsed before the building of the temple show that true and
acceptable worship of God is not limited to any particular place."
At any rate, the speech requires study—and repays it.</p>
<p>What was said in the last lesson about the speeches of The Acts
in general applies fully to the speech of Stephen. The very difficulties
of the speech, as well as its other peculiarities, help to show
that it represents a genuine tradition of what, in a unique situation,
was actually said.</p>
<h4>5. MARTYRDOM</h4>
<p>The word "martyr" is simply the Greek word for "witness."
That is the word which is translated "witness" in Acts 1:8.
"Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you:
and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa
and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." There,
of course, there is no special reference to dying for the sake of
Christ. It is primarily the ordinary verbal testimony which is
meant. The special meaning "martyr" is not often attached to the
Greek word in the New Testament. Probably even in Acts 22:20,
where the word is applied to Stephen, it is to be translated "witness"
rather than "martyr."</p>
<p>Martyrdom, then, is only one kind of witnessing. But it is a
very important kind. Men will not die for what they do not
believe. When Stephen sank beneath the stones of his enemies<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span>
he was preaching a powerful sermon. The very fact of his death
was a witness to Christ. The manner of it was still more significant.
Stephen, crying in the hour of death, "Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit," Stephen dying with words of forgiveness on his lips, "Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge," was a witness indeed.</p>
<p>The Church can never do without that kind of witnessing.
True, it may not now often appear as actual martyrdom. But
bravery is needed as much as ever—bravery in business, men who
will not say, "Business is business," but will do what is right even
in the face of failure; bravery in politics, men to whom righteousness
is more than a pose; bravery in social life, men and women who will
sacrifice convention every time to principle, who, for example,
will maintain the Christian Sabbath in the face of ridicule. Modern
life affords plenty of opportunities for cowardice, plenty of opportunities
for denying the faith through fear of men. It also affords
opportunities for bravery. You can still show whether you are of
the stuff that Stephen was made of—above all, you can show
whether you are possessed by the same Spirit and are a servant of
the same Lord.</p>
<h4>6. THE RESULT OF THE PERSECUTION</h4>
<p>The persecution resulted only in the spread of the gospel.
Gamaliel was right. It was useless to fight against God. The
disciples were in possession of an invincible power, and they knew
it from the very beginning. When Peter and John returned from
their first arrest, the disciples responded in a noble prayer. Acts
4:24-30. Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the
peoples of Israel, gathered together against Jesus, had accomplished
only what God's hand and God's counsel foreordained to come to
pass. So it would be also with the enemies of the Church. When
the disciples had prayed, "the place was shaken wherein they were
gathered together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
and they spake the word of God with boldness." The answer to
that prayer was prophetic of the whole history of the Church.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p><span class="smcap">In the Library.</span>—Purves, "Christianity in the Apostolic Age,"
pp. 40-42, 47-55. Davis, "Dictionary of the Bible": articles on "Gamaliel,"
"Theudas," "Judas" (6), "Deacon"; Purves, article on "Stephen."
Ramsay, "Pictures of the Apostolic Church," pp. 44-65. Rackham,
pp. 69-111. Lumby, pp. 61-97. Plumptre, pp. 28-47. Cook, pp.
386-406.</p>
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