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
7
Stephen’s Discourses. 1Then the high priest asked, “Is this so?” 2#Gn 11:31; 12:1; Ps 29:3. And he replied,#Stephen’s speech represents Luke’s description of Christianity’s break from its Jewish matrix. Two motifs become prominent in the speech: (1) Israel’s reaction to God’s chosen leaders in the past reveals that the people have consistently rejected them; and (2) Israel has misunderstood God’s choice of the Jerusalem temple as the place where he is to be worshiped. “My brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia,#God…appeared to our father Abraham…in Mesopotamia: the first of a number of minor discrepancies between the data of the Old Testament and the data of Stephen’s discourse. According to Gn 12:1, God first spoke to Abraham in Haran. The main discrepancies are these: in Acts 7:16 it is said that Jacob was buried in Shechem, whereas Gn 50:13 says he was buried at Hebron; in the same verse it is said that the tomb was purchased by Abraham, but in Gn 33:19 and Jos 24:32 the purchase is attributed to Jacob himself. before he had settled in Haran, 3and said to him, ‘Go forth from your land and [from] your kinsfolk to the land that I will show you.’#Gn 12:1. 4So he went forth from the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, he made him migrate to this land where you now dwell.#Gn 12:5; 15:7. 5Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but he did promise to give it to him and his descendants as a possession, even though he was childless.#Gn 12:7; 13:15; 15:2; 16:1; Dt 2:5. 6And God spoke thus,#Gn 15:13–14. ‘His descendants shall be aliens in a land not their own, where they shall be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years; 7but I will bring judgment on the nation they serve,’ God said, ‘and after that they will come out and worship me in this place.’#Ex 3:12. 8Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, as Isaac did Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.#Gn 17:10–14; 21:2–4.
9“And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into slavery in Egypt; but God was with him#Gn 37:11, 28; 39:2, 3, 21, 23. 10and rescued him from all his afflictions. He granted him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who put him in charge of Egypt and [of] his entire household.#Gn 41:37–43; Ps 105:21; Wis 10:13–14. 11Then a famine and great affliction struck all Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food;#Gn 41:54–57; 42:5. 12but when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there a first time.#Gn 42:1–2. 13The second time, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.#Gn 45:3–4, 16. 14Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob, inviting him and his whole clan, seventy-five persons;#Gn 45:9–11, 18–19; 46:27; Ex 1:5 LXX; Dt 10:22. 15and Jacob went down to Egypt. And he and our ancestors died#Gn 46:5–6; 49:33. 16and were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor at Shechem.#Gn 23:3–20; 33:19; 49:29–30; 50:13; Jos 24:32.
17“When the time drew near for the fulfillment of the promise that God pledged to Abraham, the people had increased and become very numerous in Egypt,#Ex 1:7. 18until another king who knew nothing of Joseph came to power [in Egypt].#Ex 1:8. 19He dealt shrewdly with our people and oppressed [our] ancestors by forcing them to expose their infants, that they might not survive. 20At this time Moses was born, and he was extremely beautiful. For three months he was nursed in his father’s house;#Ex 2:2; Heb 11:23. 21but when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.#Ex 2:3–10. 22Moses was educated [in] all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.
23#Ex 2:11–12. “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his kinsfolk, the Israelites. 24When he saw one of them treated unjustly, he defended and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. 25He assumed [his] kinsfolk would understand that God was offering them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26#Ex 2:13–14. The next day he appeared to them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you harming one another?’ 27Then the one who was harming his neighbor pushed him aside, saying, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us? 28Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29Moses fled when he heard this and settled as an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.#Ex 2:15, 21–22; 18:3–4.
30#Ex 3:2–3. “Forty years later, an angel appeared to him in the desert near Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush. 31When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look at it, the voice of the Lord came, 32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.’ Then Moses, trembling, did not dare to look at it. 33But the Lord said to him, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Come now, I will send you to Egypt.’ 35This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge?’ God sent as [both] ruler and deliverer, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.#Ex 2:14. 36This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert for forty years.#Ex 7:3, 10; 14:21; Nm 14:33. 37It was this Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you, from among your own kinsfolk, a prophet like me.’#Dt 18:15; Acts 3:22. 38It was he who, in the assembly in the desert, was with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living utterances to hand on to us.#Ex 19:3; 20:1–17; Dt 5:4–22; 6:4–25.
39“Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside and in their hearts turned back to Egypt,#Nm 14:3. 40saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will be our leaders. As for that Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’#Ex 32:1, 23. 41#Ex 32:4–6. So they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands. 42Then God turned and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:#Am 5:25–27.
‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
for forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?#Jer 7:18; 8:2; 19:13.
43No, you took up the tent of Moloch
and the star of [your] god Rephan,
the images that you made to worship.
So I shall take you into exile beyond Babylon.’
44Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the desert just as the One who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.#Ex 25:9, 40. 45Our ancestors who inherited it brought it with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out from before our ancestors, up to the time of David,#Jos 3:14–17; 18:1; 2 Sm 7:5–7. 46who found favor in the sight of God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.#2 Sm 7:1–2; 1 Kgs 8:17; Ps 132:1–5. 47But Solomon built a house for him.#1 Kgs 6:1; 1 Chr 17:12. 48Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:#17:24.
49‘The heavens are my throne,
the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house can you build for me?
says the Lord,
or what is to be my resting place?#Is 66:1–2.
50Did not my hand make all these things?’
Conclusion. 51“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors. 52Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.#2 Chr 36:16; Mt 23:31, 34. 53You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it.”#Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2.
Stephen’s Martyrdom. 54When they heard this, they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him. 55#Mt 26:64; Mk 14:62; Lk 22:69; Acts 2:34. But he, filled with the holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,#He…saw…Jesus standing at the right hand of God: Stephen affirms to the Sanhedrin that the prophecy Jesus made before them has been fulfilled (Mk 14:62). 56and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears,#Covered their ears: Stephen’s declaration, like that of Jesus, is a scandal to the court, which regards it as blasphemy. and rushed upon him together. 58They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.#22:20. 59As they were stoning Stephen,#Ps 31:6; Lk 23:46. he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”#Compare Lk 23:34, 46. 60Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and when he said this, he fell asleep.#Mt 27:46, 50; Mk 15:34; Lk 23:46.
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