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§18 The Church Persecuted and Scattered (Acts 8:1b–3)

Though it would be foolish to suppose that the believers were anything other than a minority in Jerusalem, they had by this time made their presence felt at every level of the city’s life and, on the whole, had been well received. But the storm that broke over Stephen brought in its wake a decline in their popularity (cf. 6:12), which in turn enabled the Sanhedrin to take much stronger action against them. The word “persecution” occurs here for the first time in Acts (v. 1), and for the first time ordinary believers were directly affected. But again we are reminded that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28; see disc. on 4:28). Because of the persecution many believers fled the city, and by this means the gospel began to spread (cf. 8:4–40; 11:19–30).

8:1b / Until now the Sadducees had been the chief antagonists of the Christians (cf. 4:1, 5f.; 5:17), whereas the Pharisees, if Gamaliel is any criterion, had adopted a more neutral position (5:34ff.). But Paul, a Pharisee (23:6; Phil. 3:5), now abandoned the milder stance of his teacher and took the lead in a concerted attempt to root out the new teaching. His prominence is indicated by the mention of his name three times within the space of a few verses (7:58–8:3) and by the fact that the persecution seems to have faded away after his conversion. The reason for the Pharisees’ change of policy is not hard to find. They were devoted to the law and its institutions, which Stephen had attacked. In some respects, they felt affinity with the Christians (cf. 15:5; 23:6ff.; 26:4f.; see disc. on 5:34), but once the Christians questioned the validity of the law as the Pharisees understood and interpreted it, they felt the full weight of Pharisaic opposition. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that their fury was not directed equally against all the believers, but especially against those who were most closely associated with Stephen and who probably shared his views. In short, the Hellenists were probably the main target of their attack, so that it was they for the most part who were compelled to leave Jerusalem. No doubt the Hebrew Christians were also affected. Some may have fled with the Hellenists. But we need not understand by the word all that every member of the church left the city; verse 3 shows that they did not. Luke is prone to use “all” in the sense of “many” (see disc. on 9:35). But even of those who left, many may soon have returned; and of those who remained or returned, the greatest number were Hebrews (see discussion on 15:1).

Meanwhile, whoever else fled the city, the apostles did not (on the tradition of Christ’s command that they stay, see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.18.14; Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 6.5). Their known association with the temple would have spared them the charges that were leveled against Stephen. They would therefore have been relatively safe, though safety was never a consideration with them (see disc. on 4:19ff.; 5:40). Rather, they remained, we may suppose, from a sense of duty. Of the Christians who did leave the city, Luke gives us a vivid picture of their being “scattered like seed” throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria—a dispersion (or Diaspora, from the same Greek root as “scattering”) of the new Israel corresponding to that of the old and a “sowing” that would bear much fruit (cf. v. 4). They were the real founders of the Gentile mission.

8:2 / Some godly men buried Stephen. Elsewhere this expression is usually used of pious Jews (e.g., 2:5), and such these men may have been. But on the whole, it seems more likely that they were Christians whose piety, like that of their Jewish counterparts, was expressed in terms of the law (cf. 22:12). Thus, they may have had little sympathy with Stephen’s views, but he was still their brother in Christ. It was a mark of the devout that they paid great attention to the proper burial of the dead, and of those who had died by execution no less than others. But though criminals should be properly buried, it was forbidden that they should be publicly mourned (m. Sanhedrin 6.6). The fact, then, that these devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him might furnish an argument in support of the view that he was not legally put to death but lynched by the mob. On the other hand, it might speak of their courage.

8:3 / If verse 2 shed a little light on these dark days, verse 3 plunges us back into the darkness. Here was a very different expression of zeal for the law. The word used of Paul’s activities (he began to destroy the church) can describe the devastation caused by an army or a wild beast tearing its meat. It conjures up a terrible picture of the persecutor as he went from house to house—perhaps every known Christian home and at least every known place of Christian assembly (see note on 14:27). The relentlessness of the pogrom is underlined by the reference to women being dragged off as well as men, though Luke is interested in any case to draw attention to the presence and role of Christian women (see disc. on 1:14). Paul himself gives a more detailed account of this persecution in 26:9–11 and refers to it several times in his letters (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13, 22f.; Phil. 3:6; 1 Tim. 1:13).