But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.
Read Chapter 6
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Again they plead for themselves, beginning and ending with this. Will give ourselves continually, he says. For so it behooved, not just to do the mere acts, or in any chance way, but to be continually doing them. And the saying, we are told, pleased the whole multitude. (v. 5, 6.) This too was worthy of their wisdom. All approved of what was said so sensible was it. And they chose, it says (again it is the people (αὐτοί) that choose,) Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch: whom they set before the Apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. They separated them from the multitude, and it is the people (αὐτοί) that draw them, not the Apostles that lead them. Observe how he avoids all that is superfluous: he does not tell in what way it was done, but that they were ordained (ἐ χειροτονήθησαν) with prayer: for this is the meaning of χειροτονία, (i.e. putt...
Again they plead for themselves, beginning and ending with this. Will give ourselves continually, he says. For so it behooved, not just to do the mere acts, or in any chance way, but to be continually doing them. And the saying, we are told, pleased the whole multitude. (v. 5, 6.) This too was worthy of their wisdom. All approved of what was said so sensible was it. And they chose, it says (again it is the people (αὐτοί) that choose,) Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch: whom they set before the Apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. They separated them from the multitude, and it is the people (αὐτοί) that draw them, not the Apostles that lead them. Observe how he avoids all that is superfluous: he does not tell in what way it was done, but that they were ordained (ἐ χειροτονήθησαν) with prayer: for this is the meaning of χειροτονία, (i.e. putt...
