God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favour and wisdom. Acts 7:9b-10a
If you need any more evidence that being full of the Holy Spirit makes you speak take a look at Acts 7! Talk about a long answer to a short question! 
There is so much in this chapter I feel I shall have to return to it again to give it more attention. Stephen was a man full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace and power, and clearly full of the word of God. There is a strong implication made at the end of this chapter that the end of Stephen's earthly ministry was a catalyst for the beginning of the apostle Paul's.
But, to the verse I selected...
Afflictions and the favour of God. Not two things we often put together. Yet in the scriptures we find them together all the time! Not least in this very passage, where Stephen sees the glory of the risen Christ and is stoned to death in the space of six verses!
It is a mistake ever to equate the presence of afflictions as the absence of God's favour!
[Originally posted to Facebook 09/02/18]
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