The account in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters six and seven, places Stephen among the earliest converts in the Jerusalem church, chosen along with six other men, all bearing Greek names, to administer the community's daily distribution of food after Greek-speaking widows complained of being overlooked in favor of Hebrew-speaking ones. The text describes Stephen as full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and says he performed great wonders and signs among the people, drawing opposition from members of a synagogue of Greek-speaking Jews who disputed with him and, unable to answer him, brought false witnesses to accuse him before the Sanhedrin of speaking against the Temple and the Law.
Acts records a long speech Stephen gave in his own defense before the council, retelling the history of Israel from Abraham through Moses and the prophets and arguing that the people had always resisted the Holy Spirit and killed those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, and it ends with Stephen declaring that he saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. The council, reading this as blasphemy, dragged him outside the city and stoned him. Acts names Saul of Tarsus as present and consenting to the killing, holding the cloaks of the men who threw the stones, the same man who would become Paul the Apostle after his own conversion.