Study Desk

Upon being released, they went back to their friends and reported what the head cohanim and elders had said to them.

When they heard it, they raised their voices to God with singleness of heart. "Master," they prayed, "You made heaven, earth, the sea and everything in them.

While they were still praying, the place where they were gathered was shaken. They were all filled with the Ruach HaKodesh, and they spoke God's message with boldness.

With great power the emissaries continued testifying to the resurrection of the Lord Yeshua, and they were all held in high regard.

They went so far as to bring the sick into the streets and lay them on mattresses and stretchers, so that at least Kefa's shadow might fall on them as he passed by.

They arrested the emissaries and put them in the public jail.

After hearing that, they entered the Temple area about dawn and began to teach. Now the cohen hagadol and his associates came and called a meeting of the Sanhedrin (that is, of Isra'el's whole assembly of elders) and sent to the jail to have them brought.

But the officers who went did not find them in the prison. So they returned and reported,

When the captain of the Temple police and the head cohanim heard these things, they were puzzled and wondered what would happen next.

The captain and his officers went and brought them, but not with force; because they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

After summoning the emissaries and flogging them, they commanded them not to speak in the name of Yeshua, and let them go.

And not for a single day, either in the Temple court or in private homes, did they stop teaching and proclaiming the Good News that Yeshua is the Messiah.

What they said was agreeable to the whole gathering. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Ruach HaKodesh, Philip, Prochoros, Nikanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicholas, who was a proselyte from Antioch.

They presented these men to the emissaries, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

But opposition arose from members of the Synagogue of the Freed Slaves (as it was called), composed of Cyrenians, Alexandrians and people from Cilicia and the province of Asia. They argued with Stephen,

So they secretly persuaded some men to allege, "We heard him speak blasphemously against Moshe and against God."

They stirred up the people, as well as the elders and the Torah-teachers; so they came and arrested him and led him before the Sanhedrin.

There they set up false witnesses who said, "This man never stops speaking against this holy place and against the Torah;

What God said to him was, ‘ Your descendants will be aliens in a foreign land, where they will be in slavery and oppressed for four hundred years .

But I will judge the nation that enslaves them,' God said, ‘and afterwards they will leave and worship me in this place.'