Acts 7
60 verses
Stephen's speech, the longest in Acts, retells Israel's history as an evolving pattern of rejection and deliverance: Joseph rejected by his brothers is delivered by God; Moses rejected by Israel and called away to Midian receives the divine call; the prophets are persecuted and killed, and the stiff-necked Israelites resist the Holy Spirit just as their fathers did—establishing that the present rejection of Jesus is not an anomaly but the culmination of a historical trajectory. The critique of the temple (the Most High does not dwell in houses built by human hands) references Isaiah 66:1-2 and relativizes the Jerusalem sanctuary, suggesting that the true temple is Christ and the Spirit-filled community, a radical claim for a Jewish martyr to make. Stephen's vision of the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (not seated, as in Psalm 110) portrays Jesus as standing to receive his martyr, to welcome him, and perhaps to witness against his murderers—the exalted Lord takes an active stance toward the martyrdom that follows. Stephen's death, witnessed and approved by a young man named Saul, inaugurates the persecution that scatters the church and paradoxically launches the Gentile mission, as the death of the witness becomes the seed of the gospel's expansion.
VERSES IN THIS CHAPTER
1
Then said the high priest, Are these things so?
0 0Open verse page →
2
And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,
0 0Open verse page →
3
And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.
0 0Open verse page →
4
Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.
0 0Open verse page →
5
And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.
0 0Open verse page →
God is faithful in every circumstance.. I notice the repetition here is deliberate — the author wants us to feel the emp...
6
And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.
1 0Open verse page →
7
And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God: and after that shall they come forth, and serve me in this place.
0 0Open verse page →
8
And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs.
0 0Open verse page →
9
And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,
0 1Open verse page →
10
And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
0 0Open verse page →
11
Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.
0 0Open verse page →
12
But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
0 0Open verse page →
13
And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph’s kindred was made known unto Pharaoh.
0 0Open verse page →
14
Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.
0 0Open verse page →
15
So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers,
0 0Open verse page →
16
And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.
0 0Open verse page →
17
But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
0 0Open verse page →
18
Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.
0 0Open verse page →
19
The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.
0 0Open verse page →
20
In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months:
0 0Open verse page →
21
And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.
0 0Open verse page →
I think this is a call to trust beyond what we can see. God is faithful in every circumstance.. God is faithful in every...
22
And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
1 0Open verse page →
23
And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.
0 0Open verse page →
24
And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian:
0 1Open verse page →
25
For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.
0 1Open verse page →
26
And the next day he shewed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?
0 0Open verse page →
27
But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?
0 0Open verse page →
28
Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the Egyptian yesterday?
0 0Open verse page →
29
Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons.
0 0Open verse page →
30
And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.
0 0Open verse page →
31
When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him,
0 0Open verse page →
32
Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.
0 0Open verse page →
33
Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground.
0 0Open verse page →
34
I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.
0 0Open verse page →
35
This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.
0 0Open verse page →
36
He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
0 0Open verse page →
37
This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.
0 0Open verse page →
38
This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
0 0Open verse page →
39
To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,
0 0Open verse page →
40
Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
0 0Open verse page →
41
And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
0 0Open verse page →
42
Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?
0 0Open verse page →
43
Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
0 0Open verse page →
44
Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.
0 0Open verse page →
45
Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;
0 0Open verse page →
46
Who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
0 0Open verse page →
47
But Solomon built him an house.
0 0Open verse page →
48
Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
0 0Open verse page →
49
Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest?
0 0Open verse page →
50
Hath not my hand made all these things?
0 0Open verse page →
51
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
0 0Open verse page →
52
Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
0 0Open verse page →
53
Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
0 0Open verse page →
54
When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
0 0Open verse page →
55
But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
0 0Open verse page →
56
And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
0 0Open verse page →
57
Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
0 0Open verse page →
58
And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
0 0Open verse page →
59
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
0 0Open verse page →
60
And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
0 0Open verse page →
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
No notes on this chapter yet. Be the first to write one!