Acts 6

₁There were more and more people who became disciples of Christ. Some of the believers in Jerusalem spoke Greek and other believers spoke Aramaic. The Greek-speaking believers had a problem. They said that the widows of men who spoke Greek did not get enough food when the apostles gave food to the poor believers every day. ₂Then the 12 apostles called all the believers together. They told them: ‘We are apostles who must teach people the Good_News. It is wrong that we are stopping our work because we are so busy giving food to poor people the whole day long. We do not have time to preach the message of God. ₃Friends, now you must choose 7 believers. Everyone must know that they are good men, and they must be full of the Holy_Spirit and wisdom. We will ask them to help by giving food to the poor people. ₄Then we can do the work of apostles and pray for people and tell them the message of God.’

₅All the believers were happy when they heard what the apostles said and they chose 7 men. The first was Stephen. His faith was strong and he was full of the Holy_Spirit. They also chose Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas. Nicolas was not a Jew but when he lived in the city of Antioch, he started worshipping God with the Jews. ₆The believers said these 7 men must stand before the apostles and the apostles prayed for them and put their hands on the 7 men. ₇More and more people started to believe the message of God and the group of disciples in Jerusalem became bigger. A lot of priests also became believers.

₈God was very good to Stephen and He gave Stephen the power to do miracles and signs to help people. ₉There were Jews from the Synagogue of the Free Men, who had been slaves long before this, but then the Romans said they could go free. They came from the lands of Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia and Asia. They started to argue with Stephen. ₁₀But they could not prove that Stephen was wrong because the Holy_Spirit gave Stephen wisdom and he said the right words. ₁₁Then the Jews paid some men to say false things against Stephen. They said: ‘We have heard Stephen saying bad things against Moses and against God.’

₁₂The people of the synagogue made the Jews and the family leaders and the teachers_of_the_Laws very angry with Stephen. They all ran to Stephen and grabbed him and took him to the Jewish_Council. ₁₃They got false_witnesses who said that Stephen kept on saying bad things against the temple and against the laws of Moses. ₁₄The false_witnesses said: ‘We have heard Stephen say that Jesus of Nazareth will break down the temple and He will change the things that Moses taught us.’

₁₅Everyone in the Jewish_Council looked at Stephen. They saw his face change. It looked like the face of an angel.