8-10 Stephen, brimming with God’s grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them. But then some men from the meeting place whose membership was made up of freed slaves, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some others from Cilicia and Asia, went up against him trying to argue him down. But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke.
11 So in secret they bribed men to lie: “We heard him cursing Moses and God.”
12-14 That stirred up the people, the religious leaders, and religion scholars. They grabbed Stephen and took him before the High Council. They put forward their bribed witnesses to testify: “This man talks nonstop against this Holy Place and God’s Law. We even heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth would tear this place down and throw out all the customs Moses gave us.”
15 As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn’t take their eyes off him—his face was like the face of an angel!
Stephen was filled with the Spirit and with His wisdom. He powerfully preached and witnessed the Name of Jesus in the midst of oppositions that no one can counter against. His face even became like an angel - a face of light and beauty in God's eyes - that even the enemies had to admit.
In the charismatic community of the early church, the Holy Spirit filled up and empowered the apostles, and also the other lay leaders, like Stephen for witnessing the Name of Jesus. They spoke with the Spirit, they suffered by the Spirit, and they were transformed even including their faces as they lived and ministered by the power of the Holy Spirit. Challenges and even persecution never diminished in the era of the early church, but the power and transformation of the Holy Spirit in the disciples' lives grew even bigger and bigger that the world might know that Jesus has resurrected and been exalted as the Lord. My dear Holy Spirit, how can I grow and minister like your servants in the early church? As challenges increases, the strength of my inner soul and the transformative power of my ministry by the Spirit also increase.
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