The first part of Acts 6 opens with the problem of unequal food distribution and ends with church growing:

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6.7, ESV)

And Stephen, one of the deacons just mentioned in Acts 6.5, is part of that outreach with, you guessed it, POWER:

And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. (Acts 6.8, ESV)

Just in case you weren’t sure that signs and wonders weren’t limited to the apostles, here’s Stephen, not one of the original 11. Remember, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 2.4)

But this time the story ends differently. Stephen is arrested for blaspheming Moses and God and in his defense preaches a stirring review of Old Testament history recorded in Acts 7. Here’s the close, which includes his theme and the result:

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 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, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7.51 – 60, ESV)

Just as Jesus did not use his power to prevent his crucifixion, neither does Stephen. He is killed and large-scale persecution breaks out:

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles…Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. (Acts 8.1, 4, ESV)

Where is God’s power? God’s power was with those who were scattered, preaching the word! We’ll see some detail tomorrow, but let’s just pause here and recall Jesus’ words:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1.8, ESV)

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem–they had done a fine job of that, but they were still there! Teaching publicly and from house to house. Important work, but when is it finished? In my experience, church people are ready to go on mission after they’ve had “one more course.” But it’s always one more course. So God used the persecution to scatter the believers. Remember, many of them were from out of town to start with:

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. (Acts 2.5, ESV)

The persecution said, “Guys, it’s time to go home. You’re trained. Now GO! So they left, all EXCEPT the apostles, which I find amusing. They were all sent out except the ones whose title of “apostle” means “sent.” To be fair, we know that the eleven did go eventually: Thomas to India, for example. But here it’s a movement of scattered laypeople. We’ll see where that takes us.

I, Peter, am an apostle on assignment by Jesus, the Messiah, writing to exiles scattered to the four winds. (1 Peter 1.1, MSG)