The Persecuted Church Reaches Out
Acts 8:1-8
Let's have prayer. Father, we come to you now and we ask in a special way that you might really teach us...speak. We don't want just to hear a voice, a voice that is human, a man's voice. We wanna hear you speak. So Father, help me to be able to allow you to speak through the text, so that this can be the time when the Spirit is our teacher. Give us ears to listen, hearts to hear. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Turning in our Bibles this morning to Acts chapter 8, we come to a great transitional portion of the book of Acts; one which establishes for us the second area of mission for the church as it moved out from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria. And the thing which really moved the church out was the death of Stephen, which we just studied last Lord's Day.
A missionary to Egypt told an American audience how a fellow missionary had seen a little Arab Muslim boy in the water, drowning. And the missionary had dashed into the surf to attempt to rescue the child. By some strange confusion, the missionary had drowned and the child made it to safety. Somebody commented to this missionary afterwards, regarding the sacrifice of his fellow missionary, "Isn't it rather pointless for a well trained, well equipped, strategic individual like such a missionary to give his life for a Muslim Arab boy?"
We might ask the same question in the case of Stephen. With all of the capacities that Stephen had, with all of the capability that he had, with all the personal dynamic that was his, with the energy and the power of a Spirit-filled life, with such a great ability to handle the Old Testament, why was it necessary that that man have a ministry that was so brief? Why did it have to be that he got himself into the kind of situation that he was in, and it cost him his life? Why is it that that has to happen? Isn't it rather pointless?
His speech really seemed to have nothing but negative results. It was the trigger that set off the persecution of all Christians. It was because of Stephen that the whole avalanche came down. For another thing, his public testimony unleashed the anger of a Jew by the name of Saul, who set about killing Christians and trying to extinguish the Church as rapidly as he possibly could. And so it seems from just a cursory view, that the whole situation of Stephen's death was tragic in the case of Stephen, and tragic in the case of everything that ever happened after Stephen. Because the persecution wound up scattering the believers, it just fractured the fragile fellowship and sent them all over everywhere.
But you see, to make that kind of evaluation is not to really understand how the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit is in the business of turning negatives into positives, of taking disasters and turning them into miracles. You can't blockade the Holy Spirit. He likes to takes those kind of tragedies and turn them into victory.
If you've been with us in our study of the book of Acts, you know what He's done with Peter and John. Every time they got in a hopeless situation, it just was a greater opportunity to preach the gospel. Every time they got into a negative scene, the Spirit of God turned it into a positive. Every time the persecution arose, the preaching followed right on it's heels. And God allowed the gospel to reach into areas and the hearts of people who could never otherwise be reached, other than through persecution. It's kind of like trying to stamp out a fire, and the harder you jump on it, the more you scatter the embers and start fires all over everywhere. And that's exactly what happened. They started jumping all over the church in Jerusalem and all they did was send the embers all over the world, because that's how the Holy Spirit works. And we've said before and we say it again: "They'll never avoid the negative situation."
That's what the Holy Spirit wants to use. And I'm not talking about sin; I'm talking about a negative situation. God uses persecution. And the first great missionary movement of the church began with persecution. The church had been in Jerusalem all this time, in Jerusalem, and finally the catalyst that shocked the church out was persecution. Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs has become the seed of the church." Stephen's death was a catalyst. In fact, persecution was so tied in with preaching Jesus Christ, that the word for witness is margarus, and it came to mean martyr. It just was natural, seemingly. It was just intrinsic to being a believer that you confer to the world and you got a negative reaction. But that was only impetus for new evangelism and new opportunity.
And so as we approach chapter 8, the church takes a great giant step. It's the first missionary effort of the church outside Jerusalem. Stephen's martyrdom burst the church forth from its temple husk, exploding the believers into Samaria, Judea, Philistine coast there, Antioch, Cyprus, Asia Minor, finally even over in Europe. And all of this because of persecution.
Now we know, as we've studied Acts up to chapter 7, that the church began as a very Jewish thing. It was, of course, involving Jewish people. In Acts 6 we saw the first step, kind of just moving away a little bit because Stephen began to preach, not to Jerusalem Jews, but to Hellenist Jews, or Jews who lived in the Greek speaking world; foreign Jews.
And that was a little bit of an extension that Stephen began to make, and Philip and those other early men who were selected to serve the church in chapter 6. All of them having names that were Greek, indicated that some of these Greek speaking Jews were coming to Christ. And so the extension came from these men to the Jews who didn't live in Jerusalem.
That's the first gentle extension. But still, they hadn't gone past the Jews. But in chapter 8, the church moves out. And first it goes to Judea and Samaria and then at the end of chapter eight, we even see Philip embarking on a ministry in the Gentile world.
If you go back to Acts 1:8 in your mind, I'll read you these words. Here's what Jesus says to be the pattern of the expansion of the church: "But ye shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witness unto me." Now here comes the pattern. "Both in Jerusalem and all Judea." Now, Jerusalem was a city in which, which was in Judea, as a province or country. And so He said "In Jerusalem and all Judea, then in Samaria, and then the outermost part of the earth." Now there you have the outline of the book of Acts. First in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then the world. And so in 8, we're beginning to move out of Jerusalem, into Judea and Samaria; the gospel extending. And the Samaritans, I think, in the mind of God, formed a perfect bridge to the Gentile world, because the Samaritans were half-breeds. They were part Jewish, part Gentile. And so it was a little extension, then to go smack into the Gentile situation. But even in chapter 8 later on, as Philip encounters the Ethiopian eunuch, he begins to move in a world that is completely removed from Judaism. So chapter 8, then, is the beginning of the church moving out. And it's a sad thing in a sense, as well as a great thing, to see the gospel move out. It's a sad thing to see the door shut on Jerusalem.
As we continue in the book of Acts, Jerusalem takes kind of a backseat, whereas in the first 7 chapters it was dominant. And it serves to point up repeatedly to us, that opportunity ignored is opportunity lost. The Bible says salvation is of the Jews. The apostle Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," Romans 1:16. "It's the power of God and the salvation of everyone that believeth, to the Jew" - what - "first. Also to the Gentile." God, in terms of the priority of the extension of His message, came to Israel first. And the sad thing is that they rejected the truth. And finally the door was shut. Stephen gave final testimony to the leaders of Jerusalem. And they reacted as they always had, with hard apostate hearts. And they killed him. Now the door was shut. The leadership of Jerusalem had established itself, finally, in antagonism to Christianity. They had a prior claim on the gospel. They lost everything. And it began to move out. It's exciting for us, for we are the Gentiles to whom it came. It's tragic for Israel.
Now as we see the church move out in Chapter 8, I want to show you three simple points. This is just basic general narrative. We'll get into some really more involved detail of exciting things as we go further in the chapter. But this is just kind of getting us going. We are just getting off the ground a little bit here. But there are three things that stand out in a progressive way in the expansion of the church.
The church expanded, and as it expanded in this first opening 13 verses, three things kind of come progressively. First came the persecution, which lead to the preaching, which lead to the productivity. And those are the three things you want to consider.
First of all, let's look at the persecution. Now the persecution had been sort of hit and miss up to this time because there had been somewhat of an antagonism toward particularly Peter and John. They had been in and out of jail constantly. And then there arose a little more antagonism towards Stephen, but the persecution reached its culmination in the first martyr, Stephen. Finally they got to the point where they just killed him, and that was the extreme point in the early persecution. They hadn't gotten that far yet, and here they finally arrive. So, persecution really just kind of flamed at the death of Stephen. That kind of kicked it all off. And the central figure in the persecution as it began here is a man by the name of Saul. And being from the tribe of Benjamin, no doubt he was named for the great King of the Old Testament, Saul himself.
Now let's look at verse 1, and see the persecution. "And Saul was consenting unto his death." Now that's really a P.S. to chapter 7. Stephen was stoned and Saul gave his approval. It says in verse 58 that the people who are taking off their robes, in order to get all their power into throwing rocks at Stephen, laid their garments at the feet of a man named Saul. Saul, we know, was also from Cilicia, so it was very likely that he was in the argument with Stephen that went on back in chapter 6, when Stephen, in verse 9, was moving from the Synagogues, from Synagogue to Synagogue, arguing with the Hellenistic Jews, and very likely got into some debates with this man Saul, who was no small time operator.
He was a brilliant individual. He was a Pharisee, jealous for Judaism. He was the kind of guy who was committed. I like commitment, even if it's commitment to the degree that Paul went to. At least he was committed to something. He was zealous in killing Christians. In some ways that's better than being apathetic about good things. Not in all ways, but in some ways. Nevertheless, he was a committed kind of guy, which makes for a great conversion, right? When he got committed, he just redirected all that zeal that he had. Praise God for it.
But he was there consenting until Stephen's death. This means that he gave full approval. It's very likely that he may have been the ramrod in the whole deal since they were putting their clothes at his feet. He was involved from the very beginning of this conflict with Stephen. But you know, little did he know as he stood there and kind of gloated over what they were doing to Stephen, that he would go through infinitely more than Stephen ever went through. Stephen had the wonderful blessing of dying the first time. Paul just keep getting it, and getting it, and getting it, and never died until finally they chopped his head off in Rome.
I remember the words of Ananias, in chapter 9. We'll get to the fact that in Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, he then met with this man Ananias. And Ananias said to him, "I will show him how" - the Lord said to Ananias, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." Paul is going to get a lot more than Stephen ever got. What's interesting is, you study the life of Paul, how many things in his life parallel Stephen. The Jews, for example, disputed and resisted Stephen in the Synagogue; so they did with Paul. The Jews rejected Stephen's gospel; so they did with Paul. Stephen was accused of blasphemy; so was Paul. Stephen was accused of speaking against Moses, the Law, and the Temple; so was Paul, at least four times in the book of Acts. Stephen was dragged out of the city; so was Paul. They thought he was dead after they stoned him, and _____ chapter 14 they dragged him out. Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin; so was Paul. Stephen was stoned; so was Paul. Stephen was a martyr; so was Paul. And so everything that Paul was gloating over that day, he paid for, in his own life, for the cause of Christ. And you wanna know something? It wasn't punishment for him; it was glory. Boy, that's a change of attitude, isn't it?
Just a footnote there. In verse 1 it says that Saul was consenting unto his death. The word "death" there is a very vivid word. It is used often in medical terms and old Greek writings. And it has to do with the word "destruction." It is to show that his death was not just dying; he was destroyed, just to show the horror of the kind of death that he would die under the stones that fell on him.
Now the death of Stephen, then, set off the fireworks. You know, it's just like seeing a little bit of blood, and all of the sudden they just got bloodthirsty. A little bit of blood like piranha, you know? They saw it and they wanted to rip and shred the church. And so, that's exactly what they did, and Saul was the prime mover. Verse 1: "And at that time, right then, there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem." This was just the thing that kicked it off, and now we are beginning to see the fulfillment of the Lord's words in John 15 when he said, "Don't be surprised that the world hates you. They hate me, they shall hate you. They shall persecute you." Chapter 16 begins by saying "They'll drag you out of the Synagogues and they'll kill you." And now it's beginning to happen. And Saul was the leader, and it may have been that right there at the death of Stephen, he got the whole deal organized. "At that same time" it says. He might have pulled that mob around him, and the very seed of bloodshed was Stephen was dying, was the thing that really spawned the group of people that followed this man Saul around to kill Christians.
Now we don't have any of the gory details of what Saul did specifically, we only have some general terms. But whatever it was, it resulted in the people being scattered all over everywhere and being driven out of the city. He just drove them out, and I am sure that the ones who were driven out were dominantly the Hellenistic Jews, the Grecian Jews who didn't really belong there. And it may have been in these early times that the whole movement was still associated with Stephen as a Grecian Jew.
And so, many of the Jerusalem Jews still remained there, because the church in Jerusalem did remain, and in fact, in history as we go from this point on, we find the Jerusalem church made up only of Jerusalem Jews. So they likely - many of them did stay. Some of them perhaps couldn't flee, and so many of them stayed. Perhaps some of them did flee, and the Hellenistic Jews, undoubtedly they fled. So it was a great exodus and it scattered them. The end of verse 1: "They were all scattered, abroad throughout the regions of Judea, Samaria" and I like this, "except the apostles." They stayed back to hold the fort.
Now they were courageous men, and like the faithful watchmen, they remained at their post. There were believers in Jerusalem that needed to be continually nurtured. There were those who couldn't flee and they needed to be ministered to. And this, there were those there to be reached, for the cause of Christ. Oh yes, the leaders have been rejecting, but not all of the people had. Not all of the people. And I say that in reference to verse 2. It says, "And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." And I think that's a note that the Spirit adds to show us why the apostles stayed there. There were still devout men there.
Now, let me give you a thought on that. The devout men, I do not think, refers to Christians. If they were referring to Christians, it would have said "believers," or "the brothers," or something. But it says "devout men". That's a term that has to do with pious Jews. And what it says is this: "There were some Jews in Jerusalem, though not Christians, who still believed that the murder of Stephen was wrong." That's kind of nice to know. There was still some fertile soil for the gospel in Jerusalem. The apostles stayed; devout men carried Stephen.
You know, it's interesting that criminals, according to the Jewish law, had to have a fitting burial. They had to be buried. They couldn't just let the body lie around. They had to be buried. But the law also said that they were forbidden to weep or lament over their death. And here you have a direct protest to devout men - not only bury Stephen - but they did make lamentation over him. So in a very real sense - and incidentally it was probably very public. What they were doing there was reacting by protest to the murder of this man. Now here's some fertile soil for the apostles to reach for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So they stayed behind and kind of acted like a home base. You remember that James later became the head of the Jerusalem church, and things still kind of tied into Jerusalem as we go along. You remember in chapter 15, the great Jerusalem council and all that. So they did remain there, but a great mass of these Jews were scattered, and they went everywhere.
Now I like verse 3. It says this: " As for Saul," meanwhile, back at the persecution, "he made havoc of the church." I mean, this guy was something. Entering into every house, he just went right down the block, every house. If he could find a Christian - hailing men and women - committed them to prison. Just yanking Christians out of everywhere. He's the prime mover in blasting the church out of Jerusalem. I mean, once they were disposed of their homes, I am sure many of them took off and high tailed it out of town.
It's interesting to note that he had the full authority of Jewish leaders. Chapter 26, and verse 10, the apostle Paul indicates that he had this right from the chief priests and all. It says in verse 10 and - verse 9 he says, "I did many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did in Jerusalem. And many of the saints that I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priest." They hired him to do this. "And when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them often in every Synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme." And the compelling them to blaspheme is probably some sort of torture to get them to renounce their faith. "And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them, even into foreign cities." Now that guy was really zealous. He chased Christians all over everywhere.
It's interesting to think about the fact that he thought he was right. He thought he was right. He wasn't just some kind of a horrible criminal. He really believed in what he was doing. Galatians 1:13 proves that: "Just as you heard of my manner of life in time past, in the Jew's religion. How that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. And profited in the Jew's religion above many my equals and mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. I thought I was pleasing God. I was so zealous for my religion." But he was wrong.
You know how people say, "It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you believe." That is so dumb. Paul believed. He was wrong. He was zealous for his religion. You say, "If I a man is religious, leave him alone." If that man's religion says he kills me, then I don't have to buy his religion. And if my religion says I run around and kill everybody that doesn't agree with my religion, then there's something wrong with my religion. Don't tell me that you can believe anything that you want. Paul was wrong....absolutely wrong.
It's like the new religion they invented at St. Quentin. One of the things they ask for - did you read that in the paper? One of the things they ask for, in those demands that they made, was the right for this new religion. And you hear what the tenants for this new religion were? Porterhouse steak, and several other things, and sexual privileges, and all this kind of stuff.
See? You cannot say that everybody's entitled to his own religion, and all religions are true and right. That isn't so. There is only one way to God and that's through Jesus Christ. And Judaism was right all the way until Jesus came, and then it was wrong. It didn't include the fulfillment in the Messiah. And Judaism today is no different than the most primitive paganism because it's nothing but the absence of God, because if Christ isn't there, God isn't there.
And so Paul was zealous, but he was wrong. He was wrong. He made havoc. The word "made havoc" literally means he "exercised brutal and sadistic cruelty. It's used of a wild boar, ravaging a vineyard in some old Greek literature. Another old Greek writing has it, an animal savagely tearing a body apart, and it's the same word, here translated "made havoc." You could say, as for Saul, he tore the church apart.
You know something? It's interesting to psychoanalyze Paul. This thing really hurt Paul in years to come. You know, all of us have things we can't forget, right? Dumb things, sinful things, painful things that we've said to hurt something. Or things that we've done that were so foolish and only hurt us. We all have those things in our background that keep rearing their ugly heads at us from time to time and we wish we could forget. Can you imagine living your life like Paul, all your life long knowing that you had slaughtered hundreds of Christians? Well, it bothered him. There's no question in my mind that it bothered him. Chapter 26, I just read you how he said he did it. In Galatians 1 he repeated he did it. In chapter 22 of Acts, verse 3, he says "I am verily a man who is a Jew, born in Tarsus, city of Cilicia, brought up in this city of Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the perfect manner of law of the fathers, zealous toward God, and I persecuted this way under the death, binding, delivering into prisons both men and women." Same statement. He seems to need to say this, partly from the psychological standpoint, I'm sure just the relief of expressing his honesty at saying it, because it was a hard thing to carry in his heart. Later on in the very same chapter, in verse 19, he says "And I said 'Lord they know that I imprisoned and beat in every Synagogue those that believed on Thee. And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting unto his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him." In other words, there were times he didn't want to talk to God about it.
So it was a hard thing for Paul, I'm sure, to remember these days. He was zealous. He raged against the church like a wild beast. And I like just a little note that Luke makes there. He says "men and women" which indicates there was no exception for the weaker sex. He entered into every house. Most Christians in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10 verse 32, 34, it says of them that they were "disposed of all their possessions" and that's apparently what happens here and perhaps some of them were even in this Jerusalem persecution and later when to the congregation to whom the book of Hebrews is written.
But notice the word "haling." It's kind of a strange word if you have an authorized version. It really could be translated to the English word "hauling." He just hauled them out of the houses. It means dragging, literally. It's used in John 21:8 of dragging the fishnet in with all the fish. Remember when Peter caught so many fish he just dragged them? That's what he did. He grabbed them, dragged them out into the street, and threw them in jail.
And so the persecution began. And it was negative, there's no question about it. But God always takes those negatives and turns them into positives. So what followed persecution is the second point: preaching.
I love the first word of verse 4. And you know, I studied all week on this thing, and this is one of those kind of passages you gotta squeeze everything there is in it, out, because there's just not a lot there to make a whole sermon out of. And so I just worked on this thing, I gotta make this thing live, and all this, and I struggled. Then I was sitting up here this morning, and Lenny was reading it, and I thought "Boy, that never hit me before." And I just looked at that word "therefore," which is so matter of fact, it simply says, "Therefore they were scattered abroad, went everywhere preaching the word." The thing that hit me was "therefore" is like, that's the natural thing you always do when you get persecuted. They were being torn apart, thrown into prison, therefore they went everywhere and preached the word. I mean, it wasn't any big change. It just - if they got thrown around, they just preached wherever they got thrown. You see, it's a case of a whole lot of people, preaching Christ, and it you take a whole lot of people here preaching Christ, and throw them, then you have a whole lot of people all over everywhere preaching Christ.
So the issue of the "therefore" is not therefore they started preaching, it's therefore they were already preaching - no it's they were already preaching, therefore when they got scattered they preached wherever they got scattered, which is so good. Now you don't look too excited, but I'm excited about that. I mean, it was so much a part of their life. They were just - they were in the world to do that, you see? And it doesn't say when they were scattered they abroad they all huddled in little caves and made little fires and prayed to God and kept warm. They did, wherever they went, they just kept doing what they always did. Just like it says, like trying to stamp out the fire and all you do is scatter the embers all over the world. So therefore they went, preaching the word. That's so good.
The word "went about" is used many times in the book of Acts. It literally means, "They went through countries and districts." And it's used of missionary extensions, and here you have the first missionary effort of the church. Missions is born right here. What a sig