Acts Chapter 6 verse 7 Holy Bible
And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
read chapter 6 in ASV
And the word of God was increasing in power; and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem became very great, and a great number of priests were in agreement with the faith.
read chapter 6 in BBE
And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem was very greatly multiplied, and a great crowd of the priests obeyed the faith.
read chapter 6 in DARBY
And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
read chapter 6 in KJV
read chapter 6 in WBT
The word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly. A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
read chapter 6 in WEB
And the word of God did increase, and the number of the disciples did multiply in Jerusalem exceedingly; a great multitude also of the priests were obedient to the faith.
read chapter 6 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 7. - Exceedingly for greatly, A.V. Were obedient to the faith. Compare the phrase, obedience of faith or "to the faith" (Romans 1:5; Romans 16:25). The addition of a great multitude of priests was an important incident in the Church's history, both as they were a higher order of men, and a class very liable to be prejudiced against the faith which would rob them of their importance.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(7) The word of God increased.--The tense indicates gradual and continuous growth. The fact stated implies more than the increase of numbers specified in the next clause. The "word of God" is here the whole doctrine of Christ as preached by the Apostles, and, we must now add, by the Seven who are commonly known as Deacons, and there was, as the sequel shows, at this stage, what we have learnt to call an expansion and development of doctrine.A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.--The fact is every way significant. No priest is named as a follower of our Lord's. None, up to this time, had been converted by the Apostles. The new fact may fairly be connected with the new teaching of Stephen. And the main feature of that teaching was, as we shall see, an anticipation of what was afterwards proclaimed more clearly by St. Paul and (if we assign the Epistle to the Hebrews to its probable author) by Apollos: that the time for sacrifices had passed away, and that the Law, as a whole, and the ritual of the Temple in particular, were decaying and waxing old, and ready to vanish away (Hebrews 8:13). We might have thought this likely to repel the priests, and to rouse them to a fanatic frenzy. We find that it attracts them as nothing else had attracted. To them, it may well have been, that daily round of a ritual of slaughtered victims and clouds of incense, the cutting-up of the carcases and the carriage of the offal, had become unspeakably wearisome. They felt how profitless it was to their own spiritual life, how little power there was in the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin (Hebrews 10:4). Their profession of the new faith did not necessarily involve the immediate abandonment of their official function; but they were drifting to it as to a not far-off result, and were prepared to meet it without misgiving, perhaps with thankfulness, when it became inevitable.
