Persecution was not the beginning of the new freedom. Freedom was based upon the words of Jesus. It had become plainer again, perhaps, in the teaching of Stephen. Furthermore, if freedom was not begun by the persecution, it was also not completed by it. The emancipation of the Church from Judaism was a slow process. The unfolding of that process is narrated in The Acts. Even after the Church was scattered abroad through Judea and Samaria, much remained to be done. Cornelius, Antioch, Paul were still in the future. Nevertheless, the death of Stephen was an important event. It was by no means the whole of the process; but it marks an epoch.
The gradual rise of persecution should be traced in class—first the fruitless arrest of Peter and John and their bold defiance; then the arrest of the apostles, the miraculous escape, the preaching in the temple, the re-arrest, the counsel of Gamaliel, the scourging; then the preaching of Stephen and the hostility of the Pharisees. The opposition of the Sadducees was comparatively without significance. The Sadducees were not Jews at heart. They might persecute the Church just because the Church was patriotically Jewish. But the Pharisees were really representative of the existing Judaism. Pharisaic persecution meant the hostility of the nation. And it implied the independence of the Church. If the disciples were nothing but Jews, why did the Jews persecute them?
In what follows, a few details will be discussed.
1. THEUDAS AND JUDAS
Judas the Galilean, mentioned by Gamaliel, Acts 5:37, appears also in Josephus. His insurrection occurred at the time of the great enrollment under Quirinius, the Syrian legate. This enrollment was different from that which brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus. Luke 2:2-5. That former enrollment occurred before the death of Herod the Great in 4 B. C. Luke 1:5; Matt. 2:1. The enrollment to which Gamaliel referred was carried out after the deposition of Archelaus in A. D. 6.
With regard to Judas all is clear. But Theudas is known only from Acts 5:36. The Theudas who is mentioned in Josephus is different, for his insurrection did not occur till about A. D. 44, after the time of Gamaliel's speech. Gamaliel was referring to some insurrection of an earlier period. The name Theudas was common, and so were tumults and insurrections.
2. THE SEVEN
It has been questioned whether the seven men who were appointed to assist the apostles were "deacons." The title is not applied to them. The narrative does, indeed, imply that they were to "serve tables," Acts 6:2, and the Greek word here translated "serve" is the verb from which the Greek noun meaning "deacon" is derived; but the same word is also used for the "ministry [or service] of the word" in which the apostles were to continue. V. 4. The special technical use of the word "deacon" appears in the New Testament only in Phil. 1:1; I Tim. 3:8,12. Compare Rom. 16:1.
Nevertheless, though the word itself does not occur in our passage, it is perhaps not incorrect to say that the seven were "deacons." Their functions were practically those of the diaconate; their appointment, at any rate, shows that the apostles recognized the need of some such office in the Church. It is not quite clear what is meant by the expression, to "serve tables." The reference is either to tables for food, or else to the money tables of a banker. If the former interpretation be correct, then the deacons were to attend especially to the management of the common meals. Even then, however, the expression probably refers indirectly to the general administration of charity, a prominent part of the service being mentioned simply as typical of the whole.