What Does Acts 6:8 Mean?
And Stephen, full of favor and strength, did great wonders and signs among the people.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “miracles” also means “signs”: the wonders point beyond themselves.
THE MEANING
Stephen is full of trust, leaning his full weight on what he knows, and of power. Wonders and signs appear among the people, where they can be seen and recognized as more than spectacle.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that trust is only a private opinion: here it stands alongside power whose signs become visible among people.
THE ROOT
σημεῖα
sēmeia
GROWS FROM
σημ-
sēm-
A mark or sign that indicates something.
The verse pairs signs with wonders: an event can amaze and also point beyond itself. “Miracles” carries the extraordinary force, while “signs” reveals their pointing quality.
ALSO GROWS
sēmeion: sign, mark, indication
σημεῖον
This is the singular form of the word translated “miracles”; it makes the event’s meaning as an indication visible.
sēmainō: indicate, signify
σημαίνω
This related verb shows the action carried by a sign: it points something out.
πίστεως
pisteōs
GROWS FROM
πειθ-
peith-
Persuade or be persuaded, leading to trust.
“faith” in this verse is pisteōs. The word names trust, a leaning of the full weight, rather than a bare opinion. Stephen’s fullness includes this trust alongside power, so the verse joins inward reliance with visible signs.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: persuade, be persuaded
πείθω
This related verb opens the sense of trust as a settled reliance that grows from being persuaded.
pisteuō: trust, entrust oneself
πιστεύω
The verb makes the noun practical: trust is reliance that a person places somewhere.
Στέφανος
Stephanos
GROWS FROM
στεφαν-
stephan-
Wreath or crown.
Stephen’s name carries the nature of a crown or wreath. The verse places this “crowned” one among the people, full of trust and power, with signs becoming visible around him.
ALSO GROWS
stephanos: wreath, crown
στέφανος
This is the noun behind the name, adding the image of a crown to the person named.
stephanoō: crown, wreath
στεφανόω
This related verb carries the crown image as an action, extending the name’s root sense.
THE PATTERN
Signs and wonders make testimony visible among people.
And Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses, and did the signs before the eyes of the people. And the people leaned their weight on it, and they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their bending low. Then they bent their heads and bowed down.And through the hands of the sent ones many signs and wonders came to be among the people. And they were all with one passion in Solomon's colonnade.God also bearing witness alongside them, with signs and wonders, and with many-colored powers, and portions of the Set-Apart Breath, according to his own will.THE THREAD
Now trust is the footing beneath things hoped for, the proof of things unseen.“Faith” here is the same Greek word family as the trust filling Stephen. Hebrews describes that trust as substance and evidence; Acts shows signs becoming visible among people.
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