Acts 7
7
Stephen’s Address: The Call of Abraham
1Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2And he said, #Acts 22:1“Brethren and fathers, listen: The #Ps. 29:3; 1 Cor. 2:8God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in #Gen. 11:31, 32Haran, 3and said to him, #Gen. 12:1‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ 4Then #Gen. 11:31; 15:7; Heb. 11:8–10he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was #Gen. 11:32dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. 5And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, #Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 15:3, 18; 17:8; 26:3He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. 6But God spoke in this way: #Gen. 15:13, 14, 16; 47:11, 12that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into #Ex. 1:8–14; 12:40, 41; Gal. 3:17bondage and oppress them four hundred years. 7#Gen. 15:14‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will #Ex. 14:13–31judge,’ said God, #Ex. 3:12; Josh. 3:1–17‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’ 8#Gen. 17:9–14Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; #Gen. 21:1–5and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; #Gen. 25:21–26and Isaac begot Jacob, and #Gen. 29:31—30:24; 35:18, 22–26Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.
The Patriarchs in Egypt
9#Gen. 37:4, 11, 28; Ps. 105:17“And the patriarchs, becoming envious, #Gen. 37:28sold Joseph into Egypt. #Gen. 39:2, 21, 23But God was with him 10and delivered him out of all his troubles, #Gen. 41:38–44and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. 11#Gen. 41:54; 42:5Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance. 12#Gen. 42:1, 2But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. 13And the #Gen. 45:4, 16second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to the Pharaoh. 14#Gen. 45:9, 27Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and #Gen. 46:26, 27; Deut. 10:22all his relatives to him, seventy-five people. 15#Gen. 46:1–7So Jacob went down to Egypt; #Gen. 49:33; Ex. 1:6and he died, he and our fathers. 16And #Gen. 50:13; Ex. 13:19; Josh. 24:32they were carried back to Shechem and laid in #Gen. 23:16the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.
God Delivers Israel by Moses
17“But when #Gen. 15:13; Ex. 2:23–25; Acts 7:6, 7the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, #Ex. 1:7–9; Ps. 105:24, 25the people grew and multiplied in Egypt 18till another king #Ex. 1:8arose who did not know Joseph. 19This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, #Ex. 1:22making them expose their babies, so that they might not live. 20#Ex. 2:1, 2At this time Moses was born, and #Heb. 11:23was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. 21But #Ex. 2:3, 4when he was set out, #Ex. 2:5–10Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. 22And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was #Luke 24:19mighty in words and deeds.
23#Ex. 2:11, 12; Heb. 11:24–26“Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. 24And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. 25For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. 26And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ 27But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, #Ex. 2:14; Luke 12:14; Acts 7:35‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29#Heb. 11:27Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he #Ex. 2:15, 21, 22; 4:20; 18:3had two sons.
30#Ex. 3:1–10; Is. 63:9“And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. 31When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, 32saying, #Ex. 3:6, 15; (Matt. 22:32); Heb. 11:16‘I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. 33#Ex. 3:5, 7, 8, 10‘Then the Lord said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34I have surely #Ex. 2:24, 25seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will #Ps. 105:26send you to Egypt.” ’
35“This Moses whom they rejected, saying, #Ex. 2:14; Acts 7:27‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer #Ex. 14:21by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36#Ex. 12:41; 33:1; Deut. 6:21, 23; Heb. 8:9He brought them out, after he had #Ex. 7:8, 9; Deut. 6:22; Ps. 105:27; John 4:48shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, #Ex. 14:21and in the Red Sea, #Ex. 16:1, 35; Num. 14:33; Ps. 95:8–10; Acts 7:42; 13:18; Heb. 3:8and in the wilderness forty years.
Israel Rebels Against God
37“This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, #Deut. 18:15, 18, 19; Acts 3:22‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. #Matt. 17:5Him you shall hear.’
38#Ex. 19:3“This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with #Is. 63:9; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, #Ex. 21:1; Deut. 5:27; John 1:17the one who received the living #Rom. 3:2; Heb. 5:12; 1 Pet. 4:11oracles to give to us, 39whom our fathers #Ps. 95:8–11would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, 40#Ex. 32:1, 23saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 41#Ex. 32:2–4; Deut. 9:16; Ps. 106:19And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and #Ex. 32:6, 18, 19rejoiced in the works of their own hands. 42Then #Ps. 81:12; (2 Thess. 2:11)God turned and gave them up to worship #Deut. 4:19; 2 Kin. 21:3the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets:
#Amos 5:25–27‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness,
O house of Israel?
43You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch,
And the star of your god Remphan,
Images which you made to worship;
And #2 Chr. 36:11–21; Jer. 25:9–12I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’
God’s True Tabernacle
44“Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moses #Ex. 25:40; (Heb. 8:5)to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, 45#Deut. 32:49; Josh. 3:14; 18:1; 23:9which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, #Neh. 9:24; Ps. 44:2whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the #2 Sam. 6:2–15days of David, 46#2 Sam. 7:1–13; 1 Kin. 8:17who found favor before God and #1 Chr. 22:7; Ps. 132:4, 5asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. 47#1 Kin. 6:1–38; 8:20, 21; 2 Chr. 3:1–17But Solomon built Him a house.
48“However, #1 Kin. 8:27; 2 Chr. 2:6; Acts 17:24the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
49‘Heaven#Is. 66:1, 2; Matt. 5:34 is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
What house will you build for Me? says the Lord,
Or what is the place of My rest?
50Has My hand not #Ps. 102:25made all these things?’
Israel Resists the Holy Spirit
51“You #Ex. 32:9; Is. 6:10stiff-necked and #Lev. 26:41uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52#2 Chr. 36:16; Matt. 21:35; 23:35; 1 Thess. 2:15Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of #Acts 3:14; 22:14; 1 John 2:1the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, 53#Ex. 20:1; Deut. 33:2; Acts 7:38; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”
Stephen the Martyr
54#Acts 5:33When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55But he, #Matt. 5:8; 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; Acts 6:5being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the #(Ex. 24:17)glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56and said, “Look! #Matt. 3:16I see the heavens opened and the #Dan. 7:13Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And #Acts 22:20the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, #Ps. 31:5receive my spirit.” 60Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, #Matt. 5:44; Luke 23:34“Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Currently Selected:
Acts 7: NKJV
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Acts 7
7
1Then the kohen gadol said, “Are these things so?”
2Stephen declared, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.
3He said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and come here to the land that I will show you.’
4Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God moved him to this land where you now live.
5He gave him no inheritance in it—not even a foothold—yet He promised ‘to give it to him as a possession to him and to his descendants after him,’ even though he had no child.
6“But God spoke in this way, that his ‘descendants would be foreigners in a land belonging to others, and they would enslave and mistreat them for four hundred years.
7But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’
8“Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. So he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and so Isaac with Jacob, and Jacob with the twelve patriarchs.
9The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. Yet God was with him.
10He rescued him out of all his troubles and granted him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him governor over Egypt and all his household.
11“Famine and great suffering came over all Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers could find no food.
12But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time.
13On the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and his family became known to Pharaoh.
14So Joseph sent and called for Jacob and all his relatives—seventy-five persons.
15Jacob went down to Egypt and died, he and our fathers.
16They were carried to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
17“But as the time drew near for the promise God had sworn to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt—
18until ‘there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph.’
19Dealing with our people with cruel cunning, this king mistreated our fathers and forced them to abandon their infants so they would not survive.
20“At this time Moses was born—extraordinary before God. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house.
21And when he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and raised him as her own son.
22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his words and deeds.
23“When he was approaching forty years of age, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, Bnei-Yisrael.
24When he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he went to the defense of the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.
25He was assuming that his brothers understood that by his hand God was delivering them, but they did not understand.
26So on the next day he appeared to them as they were fighting. He tried to reconcile them in shalom, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’
27“But the one doing wrong to his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?
28You don’t want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’
29At this remark, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30“When forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush.
31When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. But when he came up to look, there came the voice of Adonai:
32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.’ “Moses trembled in fear and did not dare to look.
33But Adonai said to him, ‘Take the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34I have surely seen the oppression of my people in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. Now come—let Me send you to Egypt.’
35“This Moses—whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who appointed you as ruler and judge?’—is the one whom God sent as both ruler and redeemer, by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37This is the Moses who said to Bnei-Yisrael, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’
38“This is the one who was in the community in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living words to pass on to us.
39Our fathers did not want to be obedient to him, but shoved him aside. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,
40saying to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will go before us. For this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we have no idea what has happened to him.’
41“And they made a calf in those days, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.
42But God turned and gave them over to serve the host of heaven, just as it is written in the book of the Prophets: ‘It was not to Me that you brought sacrifices and offerings for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O House of Israel?
43You also took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images you made to worship. And I will deport you beyond Babylon.’
44“Our fathers had the Tent of Witness in the wilderness—just as the One speaking to Moses had directed him to make it according to the design he had seen.
45Our fathers received it in turn and brought it in with Joshua when they took possession of the land of the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it remained until the days of David,
46who found favor in God’s sight. He asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
47But Solomon built a house for Him.
48However, Elyon does not dwell in man-made houses. As the prophet says,
49‘Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet. What kind of house will you build for Me, says Adonai, or what is the place of My rest?
50Did not My Hand make all these things?’
51“O you stiff-necked people! You uncircumcised of heart and ears! You always resist the Ruach ha-Kodesh; just as your fathers did, you do as well.
52Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed the ones who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. Now you have become His betrayers and murderers—
53you who received the Torah by direction of angels and did not keep it!”
54When they heard these things, they became enraged and began gnashing their teeth at him.
55But Stephen, full of the Ruach ha-Kodesh, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God—and Yeshua standing at the right hand of God.
56And he said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57But they covered their ears; and crying out with a loud voice, they rushed at him with one impulse.
58Driving him out of the city, they began stoning him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59They went on stoning Stephen as he was calling out, “Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit!”
60Then he fell on his knees and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” After he said this, he died.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Copyright © 2014 - Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society