Acts 6 - IVP New Testament Commentaries

The Hellenistic Jewish Christian Witness

MKs--missionary kids--are ulturally "green." They are a mixture, having spent their formative years in two cultures: their parents' home culture and their parents' place of service. This makes them very fit to take the gospel crossculturally. Evangelist Luis Palau, born of British and Argentinean parents, is a good example.

It has ever been God's plan that the culturally marginal should be effective bearers of his message crossculturally. He began by raising up Hellenistic Jewish Christians (see notes). Though discriminated against (6:1-7), they bore a powerful witness to unsaved Jews, Hellenistic and Hebrew-speaking alike (6:8--7:53). Their persecution, in the wake of Stephen's martyrdom (7:54--8:3), actually advanced the church's mission across the cultural thresholds of Samaria (8:4-25) and "to the ends of the earth" (representatively, 8:26-40).