Opportunity in Opposition
What Stephen’s Story in Acts 6:8–15 Teaches Us About Faithfulness Under Pressure
Listen
These are my notes from a sermon at my church Lakewood Baptist Church in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.
If you would like to listen to the full sermon, you can do so here.
Most of us carry an unspoken assumption into our faith: if God is with us, things should go well. Attendance grows, relationships improve, our witness is received warmly. And when the opposite happens—when people push back, when ministry gets hard—we start to wonder if we’ve done something wrong.
Acts 6:8–15 says otherwise. Stephen’s story makes a claim that cuts against the grain of our results-driven thinking: when God empowers his people, he doesn’t shield them from opposition. He enables their witness and provides his presence.
That’s a pattern worth understanding, because it shapes how we think about faithfulness—both as individuals and as a church.
Acts 6:8-15 NASB
And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. 9 But some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen. 10 But they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.” 12 And they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged him away and brought him before the Council. 13 They put forward false witnesses who said, “This man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the Law; 14 for we have heard him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and alter the customs which Moses handed down to us.” 15 And fixing their gaze on him, all who were sitting in the Council saw his face like the face of an angel.
God’s Enablement for Ministry (Acts 6:8)
Stephen was “full of grace and power” and was performing “great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). He had been chosen as one of the seven servants because he was “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). The Spirit’s work in his life was already visible.
This connects back to something the Jerusalem church prayed for earlier in Acts 4. When the authorities threatened them and told them to stop preaching, the believers didn’t pray for safety or comfort. They asked God to “grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And God answered: “With great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:33).
Stephen’s life was a continuation of that answer. Two words stand out: power and grace. Power fulfills what Jesus promised in Acts 1:8: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” Grace here isn’t only saving favor—it’s the Spirit-given ability to do things that go beyond what we can do on our own. Paul put it this way: “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). And again: “God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Stephen became the first person outside the apostles to perform miracles. These signs confirmed the gospel message during the church’s earliest days.
Here’s the question worth sitting with: when did we last pray specifically for God’s enablement rather than just for visible results? Whether you’re a husband, wife, parent, or single believer, there are moments where the honest prayer is, “This is beyond me.” That’s the right place to start—asking the Spirit for power to love, lead, stay faithful, and speak the gospel boldly, especially when it’s uncomfortable.
Fierce Opposition Arises (Acts 6:9)
Enablement didn’t mean immunity. Right after Stephen’s Spirit-filled ministry, opposition showed up. Members of the synagogue of the freedmen—Jews who had once been enslaved by Pompey and later gained their freedom—along with Jews from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia, “rose up and disputed with Stephen” (Acts 6:9).
These were Diaspora Jews who had returned to Jerusalem to live near the temple and raise their families according to the law. They were deeply loyal to Moses and to the customs surrounding the temple. Stephen’s message that Jesus is the Messiah threatened everything they held dear. If it was true, everything had to change—and they wanted nothing to change.
When Spirit-filled witness meets determined opposition, the first response is usually debate.
Spirit-Empowered Witness Holds Up (Acts 6:10)
“They could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10). Stephen answered from Scripture, showing from the prophets that the Messiah must suffer before entering glory (Genesis 3:15; Daniel; Isaiah 52–53). His opponents’ arguments fell apart.
This lines up with what Jesus had promised his disciples. He told them: “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 11). In the Olivet Discourse he added that persecution would become “your opportunity to bear witness.” He said: “Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict” (Luke 21).
A clarification matters here: Jesus wasn’t telling believers to skip studying Scripture or to stop thinking carefully. He was speaking to people already trained in the Word. The promise is that in the moment of pressure, the Spirit supplies wisdom, recall, tone, and arguments that go beyond what we could prepare on our own.
Paul described this dynamic plainly: the weapons of our warfare “are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).
But even when the Spirit gives clarity in debate, opposition rarely backs down.
Opposition Escalates to Slander and Arrest (Acts 6:11–14)
When they couldn’t beat Stephen in argument, his enemies changed tactics. They “secretly instigated men” to accuse him of speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God (Acts 6:11). They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, seized him, and dragged him before the Sanhedrin. False witnesses claimed he spoke “against this holy place and the law” and that “this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us” (Acts 6:13–14).
The charges were distortions. Jesus had said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” speaking of his body (John 2). He had also prophesied the temple’s destruction in AD 70: “The days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Luke 21). He never told his followers to destroy the temple, and he didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. The accusers themselves broke the very law they claimed to defend by bearing false witness (Exodus 20:16; Exodus 23:1–2) and seeking to put an innocent man to death (Leviticus 24:16).
The parallel to Jesus’s own trial is hard to miss: “Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death… At last two came forward and said, ‘This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days’” (Matthew 26:59–60). Jesus warned his followers: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household.”
Paul stated it directly: “All who will live godly lives in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). That’s not a warning for some believers. It’s a description of the Christian life.
God’s Presence Intensifies in Opposition (Acts 6:15)
While the council raged, something remarkable happened: “Gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). This echoes Moses after meeting with God on Sinai: “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone… because he had been talking with God” (Exodus 34:29). The council saw the glory of God resting on the very man they accused of blaspheming God. It was a rebuke to them and a reassurance to Stephen.
God doesn’t always make faces glow. But he does promise his presence in the hard places: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Opposition doesn’t cancel that promise. It often deepens the experience of it.
Paul longed to know Christ “and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). Peter and Jesus both taught that suffering for righteousness brings blessing (1 Peter; Matthew 5:11–12). In comfort, we may know God’s presence. In opposition, we often know it more deeply.
What This Means for Us
The early church didn’t treat opposition as failure or as evidence of God’s absence. They prayed for enablement, trusted the Spirit when it was time to speak, endured slander without striking back, and experienced God’s nearness when the cost was highest. Stephen’s story sets the stage for his powerful sermon in Acts 7 and his martyrdom—the church’s first. God’s empowerment didn’t spare him death, but it gave him everything he needed to stay faithful to the end.
For believers today, this means some practical shifts:
- Stop measuring faithfulness mainly by visible results. Pray for power and grace to witness, love, and endure—whether or not you see the fruit right away.
- Study Scripture carefully, and trust the Spirit in the moment. When opposition or opportunity comes suddenly, he will bring the right word, wisdom, and courage.
- Don’t be surprised when the cost shows up. Misrepresentation, social pressure, relational strain—Jesus and Stephen walked this road. Followers should expect the same.
- Recognize that opposition can become the place where God’s presence is most real. Some of the most compelling witness in the history of the church has come from believers under pressure.
Stephen’s story continues in Acts 7 with his defense before the council. The pattern stays the same: empowered witness, fierce opposition, and the sustaining presence of God—all the way to the end.
When opposition comes—this week or next year—the right response isn’t panic or self-doubt. It’s a prayer: “Lord, how will you enable my witness in this moment? How can I know more of your presence in this trial?”