156 Stephen, the First Martyr

Jul 15, 2026

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Stephen, the First Martyr (Acts 5:40-8:1) narrates early Christian events marked by opposition to preaching about Jesus as the Messiah. After the apostles are beaten, they continue sharing the good news, leading to rapid growth in believers. Internal support needs arise as Greek-speaking widows receive less than Hebrew-speaking widows, prompting the apostles to appoint seven Spirit- and wisdom-filled men for food distribution. The Word spreads quickly and disciples increase in Jerusalem as many Jewish priests believe.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryReligion & Spirituality

FormatPDF

Pages32

Reading Time1 h 21 min

Stephen, the First Martyr

Opposition and continued preaching

Feeding distribution dispute

Appointment of seven men

Growth of believers and disciples

156 Stephen, the First Martyr Acts 5:40-8:1 English Spiritual 156 Stephen, the First Martyr English © 2020 Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) You are free to make commercial use of this work. You may adapt and add to this work, but you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. You must keep the copyright and credits for authors, illustrators, etc. Original illustrations by Jim Padgett, © Sweet Publishing licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. [www.sweetpublishing.com](www.sweetpublishing.com) Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. has skin darkened all of the Jim Padgett illustrations in our collection, and has modified some of them. Story script © 2018 Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Template © 2017 Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Music © 2017 Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. A special thanks to the 50+ unnamed people who worked on the story scripts, templates, adapted illustrations and music. The Jewish leaders beat the apostles for preaching about Jesus, but the apostles never stopped telling people the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. The result was that more and more people became believers in Jesus. Each day the believers distributed food to the poor believers among them. But the Greekspeaking believers complained that their widows were not getting as much as the Hebrew-speaking widows. So the twelve apostles called all the believers together. They said,“We apostles should use our time teaching the Word of God, not distributing food. You choose seven other men to be in charge of that work.” “Choose men filled with God’s Spirit and wisdom and we will give them the job of distributing food to the widows. We apostles will give our full time to prayer and teaching the Word of God.” All the believers agreed with the idea, so they chose the seven men. Their names were Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus. Then the apostles laid their hands on them and prayed. The Word of God spread and the number of disciples in Jerusalem grew quickly. Many of the Jewish priests believed.

FAQs

What happened to the apostles after the Jewish leaders objected to their preaching?

The Jewish leaders beat the apostles for preaching about Jesus, but the apostles continued telling people the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.

Why did the believers have a dispute about food distribution?

Greek-speaking believers complained that their widows were not receiving as much food as the Hebrew-speaking widows.

How were responsibilities organized to address the widows’ needs?

The twelve apostles asked the believers to choose seven men filled with God’s Spirit and wisdom to handle distribution, while the apostles focused on prayer and teaching the Word of God.

Jul 15, 2026

Upload by Jiven