ACT 7
7
Stephen's Apologia
1 The high priest posed the question: "Are these charges true?"
2 Stephen gave this response:
"Brothers and fathers, give me your attention. The God who possesses all glory appeared before our ancestor Abraham while he still resided in Mesopotamia, before he had moved to Haran.
3 God instructed him: 'Leave behind your homeland and your kinfolk, and journey to the territory I will reveal to you.'
4 So Abraham departed from Chaldean territory and established residence in Haran. After his father's death, God brought him to resettle in this very land where you now live.
5 Yet God provided him with no property rights here—not even enough ground to place one foot. Still, God gave a promise that He would grant this land as a possession to Abraham and his offspring, even though Abraham was childless at that time.
6 God communicated this to him: 'Your offspring will live as aliens in a foreign territory. The inhabitants will enslave them and treat them harshly for a period of four hundred years.
7 However, I will execute judgment against the nation that enslaves them,' God announced, 'and afterwards they will leave that place and give Me worship in this location.'*
8 God then established the covenant marked by circumcision with Abraham. This led Abraham to father Isaac, whom he circumcised eight days after birth. Isaac in turn fathered Jacob, and Jacob became father to the twelve tribal ancestors.
9 The tribal ancestors became jealous of Joseph and sold him into slavery in Egypt. But God's presence remained with him.
10 God delivered Joseph from every hardship he faced. God granted Joseph wisdom and brought him into Pharaoh's favour—Pharaoh being Egypt's king—so that Pharaoh appointed him as governor over Egypt and over his entire royal household.
11 Then severe famine struck throughout Egypt and Canaan, creating enormous suffering, and our ancestors could locate no food supplies.
12 When Jacob received word that grain supplies existed in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there for their initial trip.
13 On the second trip, Joseph made his identity known to his brothers, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family background.
14 Joseph then sent word for his father Jacob to come, along with all his extended family—seventy-five people altogether.
15 So Jacob travelled down to Egypt. Both he and our ancestors eventually died there.
16 Their remains were transported back to Shechem, where they were laid to rest in the burial site that Abraham had purchased with silver payment from Hamor's descendants in Shechem.
17 As the time approached for God to fulfil what He had promised Abraham, our people multiplied and became numerous in Egypt.
18 Eventually a different king rose to power in Egypt who had no connection to Joseph's legacy.
19 This king dealt deceptively with our people and brutalised our ancestors, forcing them to expose their newborn babies so the infants would perish.
20 Moses was born during this period. He was extraordinarily beautiful in God's eyes. For three months he received care in his father's home.
21 When he was set outside, Pharaoh's daughter rescued him and raised him as though he were her own child.
22 Moses received comprehensive education in Egyptian wisdom and developed great capability in both speaking and acting.
23 When Moses had reached forty years of age, it occurred to him to visit his relatives, the Israelite people.
24 When he witnessed one of them suffering abuse from an Egyptian, he intervened to protect him, avenging the mistreated man by killing the Egyptian.
25 Moses anticipated that his fellow Israelites would recognise that God was bringing them deliverance through him, but they failed to grasp this.
26 The next day Moses encountered two Israelites engaged in a fight. He attempted to bring them to peaceful resolution, saying, 'Men, you share kinship; why are you inflicting harm on each other?'
27 But the one acting as the aggressor shoved Moses aside, demanding, 'Who designated you as our authority and judge?
28 Are you planning to murder me just as you murdered the Egyptian yesterday?'
29 This confrontation caused Moses to flee. He became a refugee in Midian's territory, where he fathered two sons.
30 Forty years later, in the wilderness region near Mount Sinai, an angel manifested to Moses within the flames of a bush that was burning.
31 Moses was astounded when he saw this. As he moved closer to examine it, the Lord's voice came to him:
32 'I am the God of your ancestors—Abraham's God, Isaac's God, and Jacob's God.' Moses began trembling and was too frightened to continue looking.
33 Then the Lord directed him: 'Remove your sandals from your feet, because the ground where you are standing has been made holy.
34 I have definitely observed the suffering of My people in Egypt. I have heard the sounds of their anguish and have come down to liberate them. Now then, I am commissioning you to return to Egypt.'
35 This Moses—the very one they had rejected by challenging 'Who made you our authority and judge?'—this man God sent as both leader and liberator through the angel who had manifested to him in the bush.
36 This man guided them out of Egypt while performing miraculous wonders and signs in Egyptian territory, at the Red Sea, and throughout the wilderness over a forty-year period.
37 This Moses is the one who told the Israelites, 'God will raise up a prophet for you from among your own people, someone like me.'
38 This is the man who stood with the assembled people in the wilderness, accompanied by the angel who addressed him on Mount Sinai and by our ancestors. He received living divine utterances to transmit to us.
39 Yet our ancestors refused to submit to his leadership. They rejected him and in their deepest desires turned back towards Egypt.
40 They told Aaron, 'Fashion gods for us who will lead our way. This Moses who brought us out from Egypt—we have no idea what has become of him.'
41 During that time they constructed an idol shaped like a calf. They presented offerings to this idol and celebrated what their own hands had manufactured.
42 So God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the celestial bodies, exactly as the prophetic writings state:
'Did you present sacrificial animals and offerings to Me
during the forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?
43 Instead you carried the shrine of Moloch
and the star representing your god Rephan,
the idols you fashioned for worship.
Therefore I will deport you beyond Babylon's borders.'*
44 Our ancestors possessed the tent of testimony while in the wilderness. It had been constructed according to the pattern God had shown Moses, exactly as God had directed him.
45 Our ancestors received this tent and brought it with them under Joshua's leadership when they took possession of the territories of the nations God expelled ahead of them. It remained in use through David's lifetime.
46 David found favour in God's sight and requested permission to establish a permanent dwelling for Jacob's God.
47 Solomon, however, was the one who actually constructed a house for Him.
48 Yet the Most High does not inhabit buildings constructed by human effort, just as the prophet declares:
49 'Heaven functions as My throne,
while the earth serves as My footstool.
What sort of house could you possibly build for Me, the Lord asks,
or what location could serve as My resting place?
50 Did My own hand not create all these things?'*
51 You obstinate people, with hearts and ears that remain uncircumcised! You continuously oppose the Holy Spirit, exactly as your ancestors did.
52 Name a single prophet your ancestors did not persecute. They murdered those who predicted the arrival of the Righteous One. Now you have become His betrayers and murderers—
53 you who received the Law transmitted through angelic mediation, yet you have not observed it."
54 When the council members heard these words, they became furious deep within and gnashed their teeth at him in rage.
55 But Stephen, filled completely with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze upward towards heaven and saw God's glory, with Jesus standing at God's right hand.
56 He declared, "I am looking at the heavens opened up, and I see the Son of Man standing at God's right hand."
57 They let out loud shouts, pressed their hands over their ears, and charged at him as one group.
58 After dragging him outside the city limits, they began pelting him with stones. The witnesses who testified against him laid their outer garments at the feet of a young man called Saul.
59 As the stones struck Stephen, he called out in prayer, "Lord Jesus, accept my spirit into Your care."
60 Then he collapsed to his knees and shouted loudly, "Lord, do not charge them with this sin." After speaking these words, he fell asleep.
Notes
6-7 Quoted from Gen. 15:13-14
42-43 Quoted from Amos 5:25-27
49-50 Quoted from Is. 66:1-2
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ACT 7: AFINT
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Copyright © 2026 Michael Adeyemi Adegbola. This Scripture text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
