Acts 6:2-11

²So, after the twelve apostles had heard what they were complaining about, they summoned all the other believers in Jerusalem to meet together. Then the apostles said to those other believers, “We (exc) would not be doing right if we stopped preaching and teaching God's message about Jesus in order to distribute food MTY and money to the widows !

³So, fellow believers, carefully choose seven men from among you, men whom you know that the Spirit of God controls completely and who are very wise. Then we (exc) will appoint them to do this work,

⁴and we (exc) will devote our time to pray and to preach and teach the message about Jesus.”

⁵What the apostles recommended pleased all of the other believers. So they group chose Stephen. He was a man who strongly believed in God and whom the Holy Spirit controlled completely. They also chose Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas who was from Antioch city. Nicolas had accepted the Jewish religion before he had believed in Jesus.

⁶They brought these seven men to the apostles. Then after the apostles prayed for those men, they placed their hands on the heads of each one of them to appoint them to do that work.

⁷So the believers continued to tell many people the message from God. ◄The number of people in Jerusalem who believed in Jesus was increasing greatly./More and more people in Jerusalem were believing in Jesus.► Among them were many Jewish priests who were believing the message about Jesus.

⁸God was enabling Stephen to do many things by God's power. He was doing many amazing miracles among the Jewish people.

⁹However, some people opposed Stephen. They were Jews from a group that regularly met together in a Jewish meeting place that was { that people} called the Freedmen's Meeting Place. Those people were from Cyrene and Alexandria cities and also from Cilicia and Asia provinces. They all began to argue with Stephen.

¹⁰But they were not able ◄to refute what he said/to prove that what he said was wrong►, because God's Spirit enabled him to speak very wisely.

¹¹Then that group secretly persuaded some men to falsely accuse Stephen. saying, “We (exc) heard him say bad things about Moses and God.”