What was happening with the number of members of the church in those days?
Who had a complaint? Who were they complaining against? Why?
Who summoned the disciples? How were the disciples described in verse 2?
What did they say they didn’t want to leave doing?
How many men were they supposed to seek out? What characteristics were they looking for?
What were the apostles going to do instead?
Did the church members (disciples) accept this idea?
Name the seven men they chose.
What two things did they do for these seven men?
Then, what three things happened? Where were the disciples multiplied? A great many of what specific group of people were obedient to the faith?
How is Stephen described? What did he do?
From what groups of people were there those who disputed with Stephen?
What were they not able to resist?
What did they secretly induce others to accuse him of?
Who did they stir up? What did they do to Stephen? Where did they bring him?
What did the false witnesses accuse Stephen of saying?
What did Stephen’s face look like then?

Thought Questions

Is your church big or small? What organizational problems do you feel the church faces? Do you think they have done a good job in trying to solve them? What solutions would you propose?
Do you believe everyone in the church should do the same thing, or have different jobs? What role do you think you are best at? Are you fulfilling it? Are some roles better or more important than others?
Is feeding the hungry more important than preaching, or the other way around? Or are they equal?
When your church chooses officers, what requirements do they look for?
Read verse 7 again. What were the results–including some possibly unexpected ones–of this action? Do you think there was a direct correlation? How can you put this example to work in your church?
Why do people dispute with Christ’s followers? Have you seen examples of this personally? Did the words in verse 10 apply in that situation?
What would you do if someone falsely accused you of saying something you didn’t say, or twisted your words?
Why do you think Stephen’s face looked like the face of an angel? Could yours?

My prayer is:
that the Holy Spirit would give power to the people in my church to be able to solve problems of organization in an effective way;
that God would show my my role in the church, and that I would carry it out faithfully and contentedly,
and that I would always reflect Christ even when falsely accused.