Stoning of Stephen
martyrdom · 34 · Jerusalem
Stephen, first of the seven deacons, argued in the synagogues and was dragged before the council. Seeing the heavens opened, he was driven out and stoned — the witnesses laying their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. The persecution that followed scattered the church into Judea and Samaria, and the scattering became the mission.
The first blood: Stephen's witness and the scattering that follows.
People
- Paul the Apostle participant
- Saint Stephen victim
Glosses
- Martyr means witness The Greek martys is a court word: a witness, someone who testifies to what they saw. In the New Testament it still carries that plain sense, and the apostles are witnesses of the resurrection in the ordinary way that…