Signs and Disputation

Immediately after his appointment Stephen is shown as “full of grace and power,” working “great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8) and disputing with the members of the Hellenist synagogues of Jerusalem, who “could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:9–10). This file follows that ministry — the wonder-working that marks Stephen out as a bearer of apostolic grace, and the disputation that provokes his enemies to the false witness and seizure that follow.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Protomartyr)

“Full of Grace and Power”

The transition is deliberate and swift. The Seven were chosen to “serve tables” (Acts 6:2), but the very next verse after the appointment-summary turns to Stephen alone and describes him in terms reserved elsewhere for apostles: “And Stephen, full of grace and power (charitos kai dynameōs), was doing great wonders and signs (terata kai sēmeia megala) among the people” (Acts 6:8). The phrase “wonders and signs” is the same Luke uses of the apostles’ ministry (Acts 2:43; 4:30; 5:12) and of Moses (Acts 7:36) — it is the language of the bearers of God’s saving power. Stephen, appointed to a diakonia of tables, is at once shown exercising the full charismatic ministry of the apostolic age: he is “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5), “full of grace and power” (Acts 6:8), and shortly “full of the Holy Spirit” at the moment of his vision (Acts 7:55). The fourfold “full” frames the whole portrait: Stephen is a man wholly possessed by the Spirit, and his wonders are the visible token of that possession (Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts 15; NPNF I/11). The deacon’s grace, the tradition will say, is no lesser grace; the man set over the tables works the signs of the kingdom.

The Disputing Synagogues

Stephen’s preaching brings him into debate with the Greek-speaking synagogues of Jerusalem — his own milieu, the Hellenist world from which he came. “Some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen” (Acts 6:9). The roster is a map of the Diaspora resident in Jerusalem: the Freedmen (Latin libertini) were descendants of Jews taken captive to Rome and later freed; the Cyrenians and Alexandrians came from the great Jewish communities of North Africa; those of Cilicia and Asia from Asia Minor — and it is worth noting that Tarsus, the home of Saul, lay in Cilicia, so that the young Saul may have belonged to, or known, precisely these disputing synagogues (Acts 6:9; 22:3; Barrett, Acts, ICC, 1994, 1:323–325). [Disputed: whether Acts 6:9 names one synagogue or several. The Greek can be read as a single "synagogue of the Freedmen" comprising all the listed groups, or as two synagogues, or as up to five distinct congregations; commentators divide (Barrett, *Acts*, ICC, 1:324, surveys the options without resolving them), and the underlying question of how many Greek-speaking synagogues Jerusalem held is itself uncertain]. What is clear is that Stephen’s debate was with the Greek-speaking Judaism of the Diaspora, the world most open to him and most threatened by his message.

“They Could Not Withstand the Wisdom and the Spirit”

The outcome of the disputation is given in a phrase that recalls a promise of the Lord himself: the opponents “could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10). Luke’s wording deliberately echoes Jesus’ assurance to his disciples that when they are brought before councils he will give them “a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict” (Luke 21:15) — a promise Acts now shows fulfilled in Stephen (Barrett, Acts, ICC, 1:325–326). The failure of the disputants is not a failure of zeal but of argument: they cannot answer him. This is the immediate cause of what follows, and it is morally weighted in the narrative — having lost the debate, Stephen’s enemies turn from argument to subornation and violence (Acts 6:11). The pattern is the pattern of the gospel: the witness who cannot be refuted is destroyed instead (cf. the trial of Jesus, Mark 14:55–59), and Luke draws the parallel without comment but unmistakably (and see The Arrest and the Charges).

The Patristic Reading of the Wonder-Worker

The fathers dwelt on the conjunction in Stephen of humble office and overflowing grace. Chrysostom, preaching on Acts, marvels that Stephen, “though enrolled among the seven for the serving of tables,” yet “wrought signs” and so showed that the grace given was not bounded by the task assigned — “see how even in the lesser charge he is great” (Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts 15; NPNF I/11). Gregory of Nyssa, in his encomia on the protomartyr, makes Stephen’s wisdom and Spirit the very weapons of his contest: he conquers not by the sword but by the word, and the synagogues that cannot withstand his wisdom are the first casualties of a warfare waged with grace alone (Gregory of Nyssa, On Saint Stephen I; GNO X/1). For the Orthodox reader the lesson the tradition draws is plain: the wonders and the wisdom alike are gifts, not achievements; Stephen “full of grace and power” is the deacon transparent to the Spirit, and his disputation is the Spirit’s own argument made through a willing man (cf. The Church Fathers). The signs and the disputation together set the stage: the man whom argument cannot defeat and wonders attest will now be brought, by false witness, before the council — and there he will preach the longest sermon in Acts.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible — Luke 21:15; Acts 2:43; 4:30; 5:12; 6:5, 8–11; 7:36, 55; 22:3. Cited by book chapter:verse.
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 15. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 11. (The wonder-working deacon.)
  • Gregory of Nyssa. Two Homilies on Saint Stephen the Protomartyr. Greek text in Gregorii Nysseni Opera X/1, ed. O. Lendle. Leiden: Brill, 1990. (Stephen’s contest by wisdom and Spirit.)
  • Barrett, C. K. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Vol. 1. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994. (Acts 6:8–10; the synagogues.)
  • Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Acts of the Apostles. Anchor Bible 31. New York: Doubleday, 1998. (Acts 6:8–10.)