Stephen
Under the preaching of the Apostles
Full of the Holy Spirit:
Acts 6:5 (CSB) This proposal pleased the whole company. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a convert from Antioch.
Taught and preached informally
Powerfully
Acts 6:8–15 (CSB) Now Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Opposition arose, however, from some members of the Freedmen’s Synagogue, composed of both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, and they began to argue with Stephen. 10 But they were unable to stand up against his wisdom and the Spirit by whom he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; so they came, seized him, and took him to the Sanhedrin. 13 They also presented false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking against this holy place and the law. 14 For we heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.” 15 And all who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
Acts 6:10 (NASB95) But they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.
saw that his face was like the face of an angel
Calm, confident, full of the Spirit:
- Spirit brings to the mind
- Spirit enables to give an account
- Spirit gives us power
Biblically
Exposits the Old Testament:
Acts 7 (CSB)
1 “Are these things true?” the high priest asked.
2 “Brothers and fathers,” he replied, “listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,
3 and said to him: Leave your country and relatives, and come to the land that I will show you.
4 “Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this land in which you are now living.
5 He didn’t give him an inheritance in it—not even a foot of ground—but he promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he was childless.
6 God spoke in this way: His descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, and they would enslave and oppress them for four hundred years.
7 I will judge the nation that they will serve as slaves, God said. After this, they will come out and worship me in this place.
8 And so he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. After this, he fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
9 “The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt, but God was with him
10 and rescued him out of all his troubles. He gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over his whole household.
11 Now a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food.
12 When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time.
13 The second time, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.
14 Joseph invited his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five people in all,
15 and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there,
16 were carried back to Shechem, and were placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
17 “As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt
18 until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt.
19 He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn’t survive.
20 At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was cared for in his father’s home for three months.
21 When he was put outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted and raised him as her own son.
22 So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions.
23 “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.
24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.
25 He assumed his people would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.
26 The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’
27 “But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying: Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us?
28 Do you want to kill me, the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?
29 “When he heard this, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.
31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he was approaching to look at it, the voice of the Lord came:
32 I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look.
33 “The Lord said to him: Take off the sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34 I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. And now, come, I will send you to Egypt.
35 “This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge?—this one God sent as a ruler and a deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37 “This is the Moses who said to the Israelites: God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.
38 He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us.
39 Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
40 They told Aaron: Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him.
41 They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made.
42 God turned away and gave them up to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: House of Israel, did you bring me offerings and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness?
43 You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship. So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.
44 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.
45 Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, until the days of David.
46 He found favor in God’s sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
47 It was Solomon, rather, who built him a house,
48 but the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says:
49 Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me? says the Lord, or what will be my resting place?
50 Did not my hand make all these things?
Convicting
51 “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also.
52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
53 You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it.”
The results cut to the heart:
Acts 7:54–60 (CSB) When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
2 Timothy 4:1–5 (CSB) I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: 2 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. 3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. 4 They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5 But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Humbly
Acts 7:56-60 He said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. 58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And after saying this, he fell asleep.
Philip
Obediently
Acts 8:26–40 (CSB) An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is the desert road.)
We go where God sends us.
Revelation 1:16 (CSB) He had seven stars in his right hand; a sharp double-edged sword came from his mouth, and his face was shining like the sun at full strength.
27 So he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem 28 and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.”
Expositorily
30 When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the Scripture passage he was reading was this: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who will describe his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. 34 The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or someone else?” 35 Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning with that Scripture.
Continually
36 As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water. What would keep me from being baptized?” 38 So he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any longer but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip appeared in Azotus, and he was traveling and preaching the gospel in all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
James
Theologically
Acts 15:13–21 (CSB) After they stopped speaking, James responded, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has reported how God first intervened to take from the Gentiles a people for his name.
Doctrinally
16 After these things I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again, 17 so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles who are called by my name— declares the Lord who makes these things 18 known from long ago.
When you speak, Scripture flows out and teaches doctrinally
Pastorally
19 Therefore, in my judgment, we should not cause difficulties for those among the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but instead we should write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For since ancient times, Moses has had those who proclaim him in every city, and every Sabbath day he is read aloud in the synagogues.”
Soberly
James 3:1 (CSB) Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment.
2 Timothy 2:15 (CSB) Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.
We will give an account to God for our preaching. Period.
1 Corinthians 3:10–15 (CSB) According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved—but only as through fire.
All the crap that we preach will go up in flames and smoke