Acts 7
7
Stephen’s Sermon
1“Is this true? ” # Lit “Are these things so?” the high priest asked.
2“Brothers and fathers,” he said, “listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran, # Gn 11:31; 15:7; Ps 29:3; Ac 22:1; 1Co 2:8 3and said to him:
Get out of your country
and away from your relatives,
and come to the land
that I will show you. # Gn 12:1 # Gn 12:1
4“Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this land you now live in. # Gn 11:31; 12:4-5 5He didn’t give him an inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground, but He promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, # Gn 12:7; 13:15; 15:18; 17:8; Gl 3:16; Heb 8:8-9 even though he was childless. 6God spoke in this way:
His descendants would be strangers
in a foreign country,
and they would enslave
and oppress them 400 years.
7I will judge the nation
that they will serve as slaves, God said.
After this, they will come out
and worship Me in this place. # Gn 15:13-14; Ex 3:12; 12:40 # Gn 15:13-14
8Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision. After this, he fathered Isaac and circumcised # Gn 17:9-11; 21:2-4 him on the eighth day; Isaac did the same with Jacob, and Jacob with the 12 patriarchs. # Gn 25:26; 29:31; 30:5; 35:23
The Patriarchs in Egypt
9“The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt, but God was with him # Gn 37:11,28; 39:2,21; 45:4; Ps 105:17 10and rescued him out of all his troubles. He gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over his whole household. # Gn 41:37-43; 42:6; Ps 105:21 11Then a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, # Gn 41:54; 42:5 and our ancestors could find no food. 12When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors the first time. 13The second time, Joseph was revealed to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. 14Joseph then invited his father Jacob and all his relatives, 75 people in all, # Gn 45:1-4,9-10,16,27; 46:26-27; Ex 1:5; Dt 10:22 15and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there, # Gn 46:5; 49:33; Ex 1:6 16were carried back to Shechem, and were placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. # Gn 23:16; 33:19; 50:13; Ex 13:19; Jos 24:32
Moses, a Rejected Savior
17“As the time was drawing near to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt # Gn 15:13; Ex 1:7; Ps 105:24 18until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt. # Other mss omit over Egypt 19He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them leave their infants outside, so they wouldn’t survive. # A common pagan practice of population control by leaving infants outside to die # Ex 1:8-10,22; Ps 105:25 20At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was cared for in his father’s home three months, 21and when he was left outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted and raised him as her own son. # Ex 2:2-10; Heb 11:23 22So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions. # 1Kg 4:30; Is 19:11; Lk 24:19
23“As he was approaching the age of 40, he decided # Lit 40, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the Israelites. 24When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. 25He assumed his brothers would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other? ’ # Ex 2:11-14; Heb 11:24-26
27“But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed him # Moses away, saying:
Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? 28Do you want to kill me, the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday? # Ex 2:14; Lk 12:14; Ac 7:35 # Ex 2:14
29“At this disclosure, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons. # Ex 2:15,22; 18:3-4 30After 40 years had passed, an angel # Other mss add of the Lord 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. As he was approaching to look at it, the voice of the Lord came: 32I am the God of your fathers — the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. # Ex 3:6; Mt 22:32; Mk 12:26; Lk 20:37 # Ex 3:6,15 So Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look.
33“Then the Lord said to him:
Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34I have observed the oppression of My people in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to rescue them. And now, come, I will send you to Egypt. # Ex 3:5,7-8,10 # Ex 3:5,7-8,10
35“This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge? # Ex 2:14 — this one God sent as a ruler and a redeemer by means of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. # Ex 14:19; Nm 20:16 36This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, # Ex 12:41; 33:1; Heb 8:9 at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness 40 years. # Ex 14:21; 16:35; Nm 14:33; Ps 95:10; Ac 13:18
Israel’s Rebellion against God
37“This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God # Other mss read ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your brothers. # Dt 18:15; Ac 3:22 # Dt 18:15 38He is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. # Ex 19:17; Is 63:9; Ac 7:53 He received living oracles to give to us. # Dt 5:27; 32:47; Jn 1:17; Rm 3:2; Heb 4:12; 5:12; 1Pt 4:11 39Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him, but pushed him away, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. # Ex 16:3; Nm 11:4; 14:3-4; Ezk 20:8,24 40They told Aaron:
Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him. # Ex 32:1,23 # Ex 32:1,23
41They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made. # Dt 9:16; Ps 106:19-20; Rv 9:20 42Then God turned away # Jos 24:20; Is 63:10 and gave them up to worship # Dt 4:19; 2Kg 21:3; Jr 19:13; Zph 1:5 the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
House of Israel, did you bring Me offerings and sacrifices
40 years in the wilderness?
43No, you took up the tent of Moloch # Canaanite or Phoenician sky or sun god
and the star of your god Rephan, # Perhaps an Assyrian star god — the planet Saturn
the images that you made to worship.
So I will deport you beyond Babylon! # 1Kg 11:7; Am 5:25-27; Ac 7:36 # Am 5:25-27
God’s Real Tabernacle
44“Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. # Ex 25:8-9,40; 38:21; Heb 8:5 45Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers, # Jos 3:14; 18:1; 23:9; 24:18; Ps 44:2 until the days of David. 46He found favor in God’s sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God # Other mss read house of Jacob. # 2Sm 7:1,8; 1Ch 22:7; Ps 89:19; 132:5 47But it was Solomon who built Him a house. # 1Kg 6:1-2; 8:17-20; 2Ch 3:1 48However, the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says: # 1Kg 8:27; 2Ch 2:6
49Heaven is My throne,
and earth My footstool.
What sort of house will you build for Me?
says the Lord,
or what is My resting place?
50Did not My hand make all these things? # Is 66:1-2; Mt 5:34-35 # Is 66:1-2
Resisting the Holy Spirit
51“You stiff-necked # Ex 32:9; Dt 10:16; Heb 3:13 people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! # Lv 26:41; Jr 4:4; 6:10; 9:26 You are always resisting the Holy Spirit; as your ancestors did, so do you. 52Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? # 2Ch 36:16; Mt 5:12; 21:35; 23:31,37; 1Th 2:15 They even killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers # Ac 3:14; 5:28 you have now become. 53You received the law under the direction of angels # Ac 7:38; Gl 3:19; Heb 2:2 and yet have not kept it.”
The First Christian Martyr
54When they heard these things, they were enraged in their hearts # Or were cut to the quick and gnashed their teeth at him. 55But Stephen, filled by the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw God’s glory, with # Lit and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, # Jn 12:41; Ac 6:5 and he said, 56“Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God! ” # Mt 3:16; Jn 1:51
57Then they screamed at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. 58They threw him out of the city and began to stone # Lv 24:14-16; Dt 13:9; Heb 13:12 him. And the witnesses laid their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. # Ac 8:1; 22:20 59They were stoning Stephen as he called out: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! ” # Ps 31:5; Lk 23:46; Ac 9:14 60Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, # Mt 5:44; Lk 22:41; 23:34; Ac 9:40 “Lord, do not charge them with this sin! ” And saying this, he fell asleep. # Jn 11:11; 1Co 11:30; 1Th 4:13-15
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Acts 7: HCSB
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Acts 7
7
1 Then the high priest said, "Are these things so?"
2 And Stephen said: "Noble brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he stayed in Haran.
3 And God said to him, 'Depart from your country and from your kindred, and go into the land that I will show to you.'
4 Then he went away from the land of the Chaldeans, and he lived at Haran. And later, after his father was dead, God brought him into this land, in which you now dwell.
5 And he gave him no inheritance in it, not even the space of one step. But he promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his offspring after him, though he did not have a son.
6 Then God told him that his offspring would be a settler in a foreign land, and that they would subjugate them, and treat them badly, for four hundred years.
7 'And the nation whom they will serve, I will judge,' said the Lord. 'And after these things, they shall depart and shall serve me in this place.'
8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so he conceived Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac conceived Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve Patriarchs.
9 And the Patriarchs, being jealous, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him.
10 And he rescued him from all his tribulations. And he gave him grace and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And he appointed him as governor over Egypt and over all his house.
11 Then a famine occurred in all of Egypt and Canaan, and a great tribulation. And our fathers did not find food.
12 But when Jacob had heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers first.
13 And on the second occasion, Joseph was recognized by his brothers, and his ancestry was made manifest to Pharaoh.
14 Then Joseph sent for and brought his father Jacob, with all his kindred, seventy-five souls.
15 And Jacob descended into Egypt, and he passed away, and so did our fathers.
16 And they crossed over into Shechem, and they were placed in the sepulcher which Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the son of Shechem.
17 And when the time of the Promise that God had revealed to Abraham drew near, the people increased and were multiplied in Egypt,
18 even until another king, who did not know Joseph, rose up in Egypt.
19 This one, encompassing our kindred, afflicted our fathers, so that they would expose their infants, lest they be kept alive.
20 In the same time, Moses was born. And he was in the grace of God, and he was nourished for three months in the house of his father.
21 Then, having been abandoned, the daughter of Pharaoh took him in, and she raised him as her own son.
22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And he was mighty in his words and in his deeds.
23 But when forty years of age were completed in him, it rose up in his heart that he should visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.
24 And when he had seen a certain one suffering injury, he defended him. And striking the Egyptian, he wrought a retribution for him who was enduring the injury.
25 Now he supposed that his brothers would understand that God would grant them salvation through his hand. But they did not understand it.
26 So truly, on the following day, he appeared before those who were arguing, and he would have reconciled them in peace, saying, 'Men, you are brothers. So why would you harm one another?'
27 But he who was causing the injury to his neighbor rejected him, saying: 'Who has appointed you as leader and judge over us?
28 Could it be that you want to kill me, in the same way that you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'
29 Then, at this word, Moses fled. And he became a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he produced two sons.
30 And when forty years were completed, there appeared to him, in the desert of Mount Sinai, an Angel, in a flame of fire in a bush.
31 And upon seeing this, Moses was amazed at the sight. And as he drew near in order to gaze at it, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying:
32 'I am the God of your fathers: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' And Moses, being made to tremble, did not dare to look.
33 But the Lord said to him: 'Loosen the shoes from your feet. For the place in which you stand is holy ground.
34 Certainly, I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning. And so, I am coming down to free them. And now, go forth and I will send you into Egypt.'
35 This Moses, whom they rejected by saying, 'Who has appointed you as leader and judge?' is the one God sent to be leader and redeemer, by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 This man led them out, accomplishing signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and at the Red Sea, and in the desert, for forty years.
37 This is Moses, who said to the sons of Israel: 'God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own brothers. You shall listen to him.'
38 This is he who was in the Church in the wilderness, with the Angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. It is he who received the words of life to give to us.
39 It is he whom our fathers were not willing to obey. Instead, they rejected him, and in their hearts they turned away toward Egypt,
40 saying to Aaron: 'Make gods for us, which may go before us. For this Moses, who led us away from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.'
41 And so they fashioned a calf in those days, and they offered sacrifices to an idol, and they rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
42 Then God turned, and he handed them over, to subservience to the armies of heaven, just as it was written in the Book of the Prophets: 'Did you not offer victims and sacrifices to me for forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?
43 And yet you took up for yourselves the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, figures which you yourselves formed in order to adore them. And so I will carry you away, beyond Babylon.'
44 The tabernacle of the testimony was with our fathers in the desert, just as God ordained for them, speaking to Moses, so that he would make it according to the form that he had seen.
45 But our fathers, receiving it, also brought it, with Joshua, into the land of the Gentiles, whom God expelled before the face of our fathers, even until the days of David,
46 who found grace before God and who asked that he might obtain a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
48 Yet the Most High does not live in houses built by hands, just as he said through the prophet:
49 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house would you build for me? says the Lord. And which is my resting place?
50 Has not my hand made all these things?'
51 Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you ever resist the Holy Spirit. Just as your fathers did, so also do you do.
52 Which of the Prophets have your fathers not persecuted? And they killed those who foretold the advent of the Just One. And you have now become the betrayers and murderers of him.
53 You received the law by the actions of Angels, and yet you have not kept it."
54 Then, upon hearing these things, they were deeply wounded in their hearts, and they gnashed their teeth at him.
55 But he, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and gazing intently toward heaven, saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God."
56 Then they, crying out with a loud voice, blocked their ears and, with one accord, rushed violently toward him.
57 And driving him out, beyond the city, they stoned him. And witnesses placed their garments beside the feet of a youth, who was called Saul.
58 And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out and said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
59 Then, having been brought to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he had said this, he fell asleep in the Lord. And Saul was consenting to his murder.
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