In Jerusalem

    Jesus commissioned his disciples to be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Chapters 2-7 are a snapshot of their early witness in Jerusalem, where, not surprisingly, the people who killed Jesus aren't very excited about these people claiming he raised from the dead.
    Peter and John are immediately jailed for healing a crippled beggar. Peter takes the opportunity to proclaim Jesus as the power behind the healing: the Apostles' ministry really functions as a continuation of Jesus own ministry with healing and miracles opening the door for the message. Miraculous signs. The Jewish rulers and elders find themselves powerless to stop this new movement. They threaten them but let them go.
     Their threats mean nothing to the Apostles.....threats from the very men who killed Jesus just months before! On one occasion the men are angelically released from jail and when the guard summons them to appear before the rulers,  they are already out preaching in the temple courts! I already wrote about them being changed men. The Holy Spirit in them is transforming them into true witnesses for Jesus.
    This transition time is interesting as far as the function of the "church" is concerned. We see the Apostles going up to the temple to pray....at the appointed Jewish times of prayer! Yet they are at constant odds with the religious rulers. They also meet together in homes for fellowship, prayer and teaching. Individuals sell property to support those displaced by their new faith. It's tempting to draw conclusions for the church today out of these amazing stories, but at this time the predominately Jewish believers are just finding their way out of the old wine skin of Judaism and into the new wine of the Kingdom of God.
    Already there is a rift between those with a Jewish background and those with Greek or gentile backgrounds. I was surprised to see these two groups distinguished from each other within Judaism; one would assume a Jewish proselyte became a Jew. Anyone who would go through circumcision as an adult to join a club surely should get full membership!
    But the Hellenistic Jews [the rift was real enough that the groups were labeled!] feel their widows are getting shorted in the food distribution. The Apostles let the people chose 6 men to oversee the distribution and they chose 6 very godly men, but interestingly, all of Greek backgrounds.
    Then in the background to the story of Stephen we find a so called Synagogue of the Freedmen... within Judaism apparently this separation of Jews and Greeks was well established. One must wonder if the debates in this Synagogue of the Freedmen would more quickly get to the idea the Jesus didn't just come for the Jews. If that seems logical, it doesn't lessen the fierceness of the debate. In fact, out of their debate Stephen becomes this new faith's first martyr.
     We must keep in mind Luke's agenda as we see the space devoted to Stephen's defense, a pattern of writing Luke develops thoroughly in the rest of the book. As he records the history of the early church at a time when persecution and trouble are really just getting started, Luke finds it necessary to prove that this young church is not the instigator. It is true that they will not be silenced. But the violence is clearly laid at the feet of the Jewish leaders.
    [Although the Jews unfortunately have a history of persecution, one would hate to think that the terrible treatment of the Jewish people through the middle ages and even the 20th Century was influenced by this. One clearly hears the accusation, "Christ Killers" echo through the corridors of history.]
    Almost everyone we are reading about so far is Jewish. We have the three kinds of followers of God in this earliest Christian era. Jews were born Jewish. Proselytes were born gentile but totally practiced the Jewish law and religion including circumcision. The only way to God was through the Jews. Yet we also have God-fearing men....[we will read about another one, Cornelius, in chapter 10]... monotheistic in their practice of religion, yet not accepting the totality of the Jewish law. Men who believed in God but did not become Jewish.
    It think it's important to keep this in mind as we continue. Luke is not anti-Semitic. All the Apostles are Jews. The 3000 saved at Pentecost were Jews. Nearly everyone in Jerusalem, both those who hated Jesus and those who loved and followed him, were Jews. 
    Now I've lost my train of though, but the problem of Jews and Greeks united in the worship of God was already a problem in Jewish Jerusalem. It rears its ugly head already in chapter 6 with the issue of distribution of food, and it will be a main theme in much of the New Testament.
    But Stephen was a Hellenistic Jew who believed in Jesus [now I remember what I was writing about] and was in conflict especially with the Synagogue of the Freedmen, which was likely where he worshiped. They accused him of sin against the temple and against the customs of Moses. His defense becomes much easier to understand if you keep in your head those two charges that are made against him.
   Number 1: God has always been bigger than just the Jewish religion. He was before creation, remember, but Stephen's defense only goes back to Abraham, who predates the Jewish religion by generations.
   Number 2: the Jews themselves have a history of ignoring both God and Moses. Stephen claims he is agreeing with Moses in 7:37. "This is that Moses who told the Israelites, 'God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.'" This prophet was Jesus.
   Number 3: "Heaven is my throne and the Earth is my footstool." God is not contained in within the Jewish religion or the Jewish temple. God is available, in Peter's words from Pentecost, to "all who call upon the name of the Lord."
    Stephen died for those big truths, gazing into heaven and seeing God himself and Jesus standing at his side.
    And with that, [8:1] a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria." The narrative of the book of Acts moves with them. Chapters 8-12 are going to show the followers of Jesus being witnesses to him there, in obedience to his commission to them.