The Bible Study Podcast, episode 144.

Today, the Bible Study Podcast continues the study of Acts with chapter 6.

Welcome to the Bible Study Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

We left off in Acts chapter 6,

verse 7, so we'll continue on in verse 8, Stephen being seized. Now Stephen, a man full of God's

grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people. Opposition arose, however,

from members of the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was called, Jews of

Cyrene and Alexandria, as well as the provinces of Silesia and Asia. These men began to argue

with Stephen, but they could not stand up against his wisdom, or the spirit by whom he spoke.

Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, we have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against

Moses and against God. So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law.

They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedron. They produced false witnesses who testified

this fellow never stopped speaking against this holy place and against the law.

For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.

All who were sitting in the Sanhedron looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

And so we have the beginning of the first persecution, and it starts here with Stephen.

We'll see it continue on in Chapter 7, where we'll go in just a moment.

But we have Stephen, whose job, remember, last week, he was chosen as someone who could wait tables,

someone who could make sure that the food was distributed to the widows evenly. And he was someone who was filled with grace and power and with wisdom.

And we see that again in this section here because he is someone who is performing miraculous

signs and he is someone who is teaching and they are

not able to refute him and so they lie they basically just make up lies to try and deal with

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