Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 8:1

"And Saul was consenting unto his death. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles." — Acts 8:1 (ASV)

(1a) Again, as in 7:58, Luke makes the point that Saul was present at Stephen’s death and approved of it. Because the verb “to give approval” (GK 5306) is also used in 26:10, some have taken the reference here to be to Saul’s official vote as a member of the Sanhedrin. But that is not necessarily implied. All Luke wants to do here is provide a transition in his account of the developing Christian mission.

(1b) Taken in the broader context of Luke’s presentation, we should probably understand the persecution recorded here as directed primarily against the Hellenistic Christians of Jerusalem rather than chiefly against the whole church. A certain stigma must also have fallen on the native-born and more scrupulous Jewish Christians, and they probably became as inconspicuous as possible in the countryside and towns around Jerusalem. The Hellenistic Jews of the city had already been able to disassociate themselves from the Hellenistic Jewish Christians among them. Probably the Jewish leaders made a somewhat similar distinction between the Hellenistic and the more Hebraic Christians within the Jerusalem church, though not nearly so sharply. We are told by Luke in a somewhat sweeping statement that “all” the Christians of Jerusalem “except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” Apparently, however, only the Hellenistic believers felt it inadvisable to return.

As a result of the persecution that began with the martyrdom of Stephen, the Gospel was carried beyond the confines of Jerusalem, in initial fulfillment of Jesus’ directive in 1:8. From this time onward, the Jerusalem church seems to have been largely, if not entirely, devoid of Hellenistic believers. With the martyrdom of Stephen, the Christians of Jerusalem learned the bitter lesson that to espouse a changed relationship to the land, the law, and the temple was (1) to give up the peace of the church and (2) to abandon the Christian mission to Israel. The issues and events connected with Stephen’s death and the expulsion of those who shared his concerns would stand as a warning to the Jerusalem congregation throughout its brief and turbulent history and would exert mental pressure upon Christians in the city to be more circumspect in their future activities within Judea.