The Face of an Angel

“And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people…..And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.”  Acts 6:8,15

In the first part of Acts 6, we find that more and more people were becoming followers of Jesus Christ.  As anyone knows, when numbers of anything dramatically increase, something falls through the cracks, that is, some things or some people get overlooked or ignored.  That old saying about too many chiefs and not enough Indians doesn’t apply here.  This was a time when there were more followers than there were church staff to see to the need of particularly the widows.  The Grecians were murmuring against the Hebrews because the Greek widows were being neglected on a daily basis.  In order to accommodate all the new believers who needed help, the twelve apostles called for a group of men, seven to be exact, who were filled with the Holy Spirit and had the wisdom, and likely patience, to deal with these ladies who had no husband to care for them.

The men who were chosen for this task were Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas.  The apostles approved them, prayed for, and laid hands on them.  The apostles were now freed up to do the work of the ministry, and these seven deacons took care of the needs of the believers.  There is an old saying that goes like this: “It is not the years of your life, but the life in your years that counts.”  This statement would be found to describe the life of Stephen.  It is assumed that he was a Hellenist Jew, one brought up in the Greek culture.  We don’t know when he was converted to Christ, but from his life, we can see that he was a follower of Christ.  As with other believers who were bold in their faith, Stephen made some enemies among those who refused to believe the gospel.  I can picture him as he went about his duties as a deacon proclaiming Christ to all with whom he came in contact.  He was also given the ability to perform miracles among the people.  His enemies, like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, hated anyone who could do what they couldn’t, like, miracles.  They don’t call envy the “green-eyed monster” for nothing.

As Stephen spoke in the synagogue filled with these men, his grace, knowledge, and testimony enraged them.  They did not like being “shown up” by this common Jew who happened to believe in Christ and were insulted by what they claimed was blasphemy.  They came up with a plan.  They did something similar to what the religious leaders did to Jesus:  brought in some false witnesses after they had brought Stephen to the council in order to try him for blasphemy.  These false witnesses said that they had heard Stephen say that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy Jerusalem and change the customs which Moses delivered to the Jews, similar to what the false witnesses said about Jesus (Mark 14:57-58).

Not satisfied with this one avenue of bringing Stephen to their brand of justice, they put the word out to the elders, scribes, and the people in order to rile up the masses against Stephen and against the gospel in hopes of quashing this Jesus talk.  Anytime anyone could convince the Jews that someone was appearing to negate Moses and the law of Moses or to diminish the power of God by attributing His power to another would bring chaos among the people, causing them to band together against the one whom they saw as a blasphemer.  This is how Stephen was presented to them.  It doesn’t take a great effort at stirring people up emotionally in order to get them involved in mass protest, angrily voicing their displeasure and moving toward some type of action.  This behavior has been termed “herd mentality” because individuals stop thinking for themselves and allow themselves to become influenced by a few rebel rousers.  We’ve seen this occur many times in our nation particularly in the last two years.

As Stephen stood before the Sanhedrin, he could see the anger and frustration evident on the faces of his accusers.  Other witnesses were brought in who verified the accusation of the first two witnesses.  The main difference between Stephen and his accusers was that God’s law was written in his heart but was only in the heads of his accusers who refused to see the law as a means to show them their need for a Savior.  They rejected Christ preferring to stay under the law which could never save them from their sin.  Regardless of the anger and vitriol spewing from the mouths and eyes of his enemies, the fact that Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit who gave him a calm assurance that everything was according to God’s plan, was evident on Stephen’s face.  He wasn’t shaking, weeping, whining or fearful as he stood before the council.  He wasn’t afraid of what they could do to him.  His faith showed him that whatever sentence they passed down was by the permissive will of God.  Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, described Stephen’s face as that of an angel.  I have never seen what I knew to be a real angel at the time, but I can imagine an angel’s face as one that displays brightness, purity, and righteousness.  Stephen’s appearance stood in stark contrast to the faces of his accusers.

Next time: Stephen’s Testimony and Sentence