The Seven Helpers

¹Some time later, as the number of disciples kept growing, there was a quarrel between the Greek-speaking Jews and the native Jews. The Greek-speaking Jews claimed that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of funds.

²So the twelve apostles called the whole group of believers together and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the preaching of God's word in order to handle finances.

³So then, friends, choose seven men among you who are known to be full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, and we will put them in charge of this matter.

⁴We ourselves, then, will give our full time to prayer and the work of preaching.”

⁵The whole group was pleased with the apostles' proposal, so they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a Gentile from Antioch who had earlier been converted to Judaism.

⁶The group presented them to the apostles, who prayed and placed their hands on them.

⁷And so the word of God continued to spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem grew larger and larger, and a great number of priests accepted the faith.

The Arrest of Stephen

⁸Stephen, a man richly blessed by God and full of power, performed great miracles and wonders among the people.

⁹But he was opposed by some men who were members of the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), which had Jews from Cyrene and Alexandria. They and other Jews from the provinces of Cilicia and Asia started arguing with Stephen.

¹⁰But the Spirit gave Stephen such wisdom that when he spoke, they could not refute him.

¹¹So they bribed some men to say, “We heard him speaking against Moses and against God!”

¹²In this way they stirred up the people, the elders, and the teachers of the Law. They seized Stephen and took him before the Council.

¹³Then they brought in some men to tell lies about him. “This man,” they said, “is always talking against our sacred Temple and the Law of Moses.

¹⁴We heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will tear down the Temple and change all the customs which have come down to us from Moses!”

¹⁵All those sitting in the Council fixed their eyes on Stephen and saw that his face looked like the face of an angel.

God and His People

¹I am speaking the truth; I belong to Christ and I do not lie. My conscience, ruled by the Holy Spirit, also assures me that I am not lying

²when I say how great is my sorrow, how endless the pain in my heart

³for my people, my own flesh and blood! For their sake I could wish that I myself were under God's curse and separated from Christ.

⁴They are God's people; he made them his children and revealed his glory to them; he made his covenants with them and gave them the Law; they have the true worship; they have received God's promises;

⁵they are descended from the famous Hebrew ancestors; and Christ, as a human being, belongs to their race. May God, who rules over all, be praised forever! Amen.

⁶I am not saying that the promise of God has failed; for not all the people of Israel are the people of God.

⁷Nor are all of Abraham's descendants the children of God. God said to Abraham, “It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I promised you.”

⁸This means that the children born in the usual way are not the children of God; instead, the children born as a result of God's promise are regarded as the true descendants.

⁹For God's promise was made in these words: “At the right time I will come back, and Sarah will have a son.”

¹⁰And this is not all. For Rebecca's two sons had the same father, our ancestor Isaac.

^11-12But in order that the choice of one son might be completely the result of God's own purpose, God said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” He said this before they were born, before they had done anything either good or bad; so God's choice was based on his call, and not on anything they had done.

¹³As the scripture says, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”

¹⁴Shall we say, then, that God is unjust? Not at all.

¹⁵For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on anyone I wish; I will take pity on anyone I wish.”

¹⁶So then, everything depends, not on what we humans want or do, but only on God's mercy.

¹⁷For the scripture says to the king of Egypt, “I made you king in order to use you to show my power and to spread my fame over the whole world.”

¹⁸So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes.

God's Anger and Mercy

¹⁹But one of you will say to me, “If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? Who can resist God's will?”

²⁰But who are you, my friend, to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, “Why did you make me like this?”

²¹After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special occasions and the other for ordinary use.

²²And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to make his power known. But he was very patient in enduring those who were the objects of his anger, who were doomed to destruction.

²³And he also wanted to reveal his abundant glory, which was poured out on us who are the objects of his mercy, those of us whom he has prepared to receive his glory.

²⁴For we are the people he called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles.

²⁵This is what he says in the book of Hosea: “The people who were not mine I will call ‘My People.’ The nation that I did not love I will call ‘My Beloved.’

²⁶And in the very place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called the children of the living God.”

²⁷And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: “Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved;

²⁸for the Lord will quickly settle his full account with the world.”

²⁹It is as Isaiah had said before, “If the Lord Almighty had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”

Israel and the Gospel

³⁰So we say that the Gentiles, who were not trying to put themselves right with God, were put right with him through faith;

³¹while God's people, who were seeking a law that would put them right with God, did not find it.

³²And why not? Because they did not depend on faith but on what they did. And so they stumbled over the “stumbling stone”

³³that the scripture speaks of: “Look, I place in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall. But whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”

¹My friends, how I wish with all my heart that my own people might be saved! How I pray to God for them!

²I can assure you that they are deeply devoted to God; but their devotion is not based on true knowledge.

³They have not known the way in which God puts people right with himself, and instead, they have tried to set up their own way; and so they did not submit themselves to God's way of putting people right.

⁴For Christ has brought the Law to an end, so that everyone who believes is put right with God.

Salvation Is for All

⁵Moses wrote this about being put right with God by obeying the Law: “Whoever obeys the commands of the Law will live.”

⁶But what the scripture says about being put right with God through faith is this: “You are not to ask yourself, Who will go up into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down).

⁷“Nor are you to ask, Who will go down into the world below?” (that is, to bring Christ up from death).

⁸What it says is this: “God's message is near you, on your lips and in your heart”—that is, the message of faith that we preach.

⁹If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved.

¹⁰For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.

¹¹The scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”

¹²This includes everyone, because there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles; God is the same Lord of all and richly blesses all who call to him.

¹³As the scripture says, “Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved.”

¹⁴But how can they call to him for help if they have not believed? And how can they believe if they have not heard the message? And how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed?

¹⁵And how can the message be proclaimed if the messengers are not sent out? As the scripture says, “How wonderful is the coming of messengers who bring good news!”

¹⁶But not all have accepted the Good News. Isaiah himself said, “Lord, who believed our message?”

¹⁷So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through preaching Christ.

¹⁸But I ask: Is it true that they did not hear the message? Of course they did—for as the scripture says: “The sound of their voice went out to all the world; their words reached the ends of the earth.”

¹⁹Again I ask: Did the people of Israel not understand? Moses himself is the first one to answer: “I will use a so-called nation to make my people jealous; and by means of a nation of fools I will make my people angry.”

²⁰And Isaiah is even bolder when he says, “I was found by those who were not looking for me; I appeared to those who were not asking for me.”

²¹But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I held out my hands to welcome a disobedient and rebellious people.”

¹⁰Do not forget your friends or your father's friends. If you are in trouble, don't ask a relative for help; a nearby neighbor can help you more than relatives who are far away.

¹¹Be wise, my child, and I will be happy; I will have an answer for anyone who criticizes me.

¹²Sensible people will see trouble coming and avoid it, but an unthinking person will walk right into it and regret it later.