Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 6:11

"Then they suborned men, who said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and [against] God." — Acts 6:11 (ASV)

Blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.—The words indicate with sufficient clarity the nature of Stephen’s teaching. The charge was false, but its falsehood was a distortion of the truth, just as the charge against our Lord had been. He was accused of blasphemy in calling Himself the Son of God; making Himself equal with God (Matthew 26:63; John 5:18); threatening to destroy the Temple (Matthew 26:61)—each count in the indictment resting on words He had actually spoken.

And Stephen, similarly, was charged with offences for which there must have seemed plausible grounds. He had taught, we must believe, that the days of the Temple were numbered; that with its fall, the form of worship it represented would pass away; that the Law given by Moses would make way for the higher revelation in Christ; and that the privileges of the elect nation would be merged into the blessings of the universal Church.

In this case, accordingly, the antagonism came not only or chiefly, as in the previous chapters, from the Sadducean high priests and their followers, but from the whole body of scribes and people. Pharisees and Sadducees, Hebrews and Hellenists, were once more brought into a coalition against the new truth.