The martyrdom of Stephen was a major event in the growth of the Church. It brought home to the early Christians the truth of Jesus' teaching about suffering and persecution. In writing the account of the trial and death of Stephen, St Luke underlines the similarity with the trial and death of Jesus. We do not know whether this was Luke's own interpretation or whether it came to him from the tradition of the Church. What is important is that this way of understanding the trial and death of Stephen reveals quite a deep theology: the suffering and death of a Christian, especially that of a martyr, is moulded to the pattern of Jesus' suffering and death, as St Paul teaches (cf. Philippians 3:10)

Though the early Church knew of the importance of the virtue of hope, and spoke often of "faith, hope and love", there was no developed theological reflection on the nature of hope. Instead, the Church recounted the stories of the martyrs as examples of hope overcoming all fear of suffering and death.