The gradual rise of persecution should be traced in class--first the fruitless arrest of Peter and John and their bold defiance; then the arrest of the apostles, the miraculous escape, the preaching in the temple, the re-arrest, the counsel of Gamaliel, the scourging; then the preaching of Stephen and the hostility of the Pharisees. The opposition of the Sadducees was comparatively without significance. The Sadducees were not Jews at heart. They might persecute the Church just because the Church was patriotically Jewish. But the Pharisees were really representative of the existing Judaism. Pharisaic persecution meant the hostility of the nation. And it implied the independence of the Church. If the disciples were nothing but Jews, why did the Jews persecute them?
In what follows, a few details will be discussed.
Judas the Galilean, mentioned by Gamaliel, Acts 5:37, appears also in Josephus. His insurrection occurred at the time of the great enrollment under Quirinius, the Syrian legate. This enrollment was different from that which brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus. Luke 2:2-5. That former enrollment occurred before the death of Herod the Great in 4 B. C. Luke 1:5; Matt. 2:1. The enrollment to which Gamaliel referred was carried out after the deposition of Archelaus in A. D. 6.
With regard to Judas all is clear. But Theudas is known only from Acts 5:36. The Theudas who is mentioned in Josephus is different, for his insurrection did not occur till about A. D. 44, after the time of Gamaliel's speech. Gamaliel was referring to some insurrection of an earlier period. The name Theudas was common, and so were tumults and insurrections.
It has been questioned whether the seven men who were appointed to assist the apostles were "deacons." The title is not applied to them. The narrative does, indeed, imply that they were to "serve tables," Acts 6:2, and the Greek word here translated "serve" is the verb from which the Greek noun meaning "deacon" is derived; but the same word is also used for the "ministry [or service] of the word" in which the apostles were to continue. V. 4. The special technical use of the word "deacon" appears in the New Testament only in Phil. 1:1; I Tim. 3:8,12. Compare Rom. 16:1.