Acts 6:8–7:53

6:8
Now Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and
miraculous signs among the people.
9
But some men from the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), both
Cyrenians and Alexandrians, as well as some from Cilicia and the province
of Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen.
10
Yet they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he
spoke.
11
Then they secretly instigated some men to say, “We have heard this man
speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.”
12
They incited the people, the elders, and the experts in the law; then they
approached Stephen, seized him, and brought him before the council.
13
They brought forward false witnesses who said, “This man does not stop
saying things against this holy place and the law.
14
For we have heard him saying that Jesus the Nazarene will destroy this
place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”
15
All who were sitting in the council looked intently at Stephen and saw his
face was like the face of an angel.
7:1
Then the high priest said, “Are these things true?”
2
So he replied, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory
appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he
settled in Haran,
3
and said to him,
‘Go out from your country and from your relatives,
and come to the land I will show you.’
4
Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran.
After his father died, God made him move to this country where you now
live.
5
He did not give any of it to him for an inheritance, not even a foot of
ground, yet God promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his
descendants after him, even though Abraham as yet had no child.
6
But God spoke as follows:
‘Your descendants will be foreigners
in a foreign country,
whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years.
7
But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ said God,
‘and after these things they will come out of there and worship me in this place.’
8
Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the
father of Isaac and circumcised him when he was eight days old, and Isaac
became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
9
The patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt.
But God was with him,
10
and rescued him from all his troubles, and granted him favor and wisdom in
the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and
over all his household.
11
Then a famine occurred throughout Egypt and Canaan, causing great
suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.
12
So when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors
there the first time.
13
On their second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers again, and
Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.
14
So Joseph sent a message and invited his father Jacob and all his
relatives to come, seventy-five people in all.
15
So Jacob went down to Egypt and died there, along with our ancestors,
16
and their bones were later moved to Shechem and placed in the tomb that
Abraham had bought for a certain sum of money from the sons of Hamor in
Shechem.
17
“But as the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had declared
to Abraham, the people increased greatly in number in Egypt,
18
until another king who did not know about Joseph ruled over Egypt.
19
This was the one who exploited our people and was cruel to our ancestors,
forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.
20
At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful to God. For three months
he was brought up in his father’s house,
21
and when he had been abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought
him up as her own son.
22
So Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful
in his words and deeds.
23
But when he was about forty years old, it entered his mind to visit his
fellow countrymen the Israelites.
24
When he saw one of them being hurt unfairly, Moses came to his defense and
avenged the person who was mistreated by striking down the Egyptian.
25
He thought his own people would understand that God was delivering them
through him, but they did not understand.
26
The next day Moses saw two men fighting, and tried to make peace between
them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why are you hurting one another?’
27
But the man who was unfairly hurting his neighbor pushed Moses aside,
saying,
‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?
28
You don’t want to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’
29
When the man said this, Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of
Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30
“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert of
Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.
31
When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and when he approached to
investigate, there came the voice of the Lord,
32
‘I am the God of your forefathers,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob .’
Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look more closely.
33
But the Lord said to him,
‘Take the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34
I have certainly seen the suffering of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning,
and I have come down to rescue them.
Now come, I will send you to Egypt.’
35
This same Moses they had rejected, saying,
‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’
God sent as both ruler and deliverer through the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36
This man led them out, performing wonders and miraculous signs in the land
of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37
This is the Moses who said to the Israelites,
‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’
38
This is the man who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the
angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors, and he
received living oracles to give to you.
39
Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him, but pushed him aside and turned
back to Egypt in their hearts,
40
saying to Aaron,
‘Make us gods who will go in front of us, for this Moses, who led us out of
the land of Egypt – we do not know what has happened to him!’
41
At that time they made an idol in the form of a calf, brought a sacrifice
to the idol, and began rejoicing in the works of their hands.
42
But God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of
heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices
forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel?
43
But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch
and the star of the god Rephan,
the images you made to worship,
but I will deport you beyond Babylon.’
44
Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as
God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he
had seen.
45
Our ancestors received possession of it and brought it in with Joshua when
they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors,
until the time of David.
46
He found favor with God and asked that he could find a dwelling place for
the house of Jacob.
47
But Solomon built a house for him.
48
Yet the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands, as the
prophet says:
49
‘Heaven is my throne,
and earth is the footstool for my feet.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is my resting place?
50
Did my hand not make all these things?’
51
“You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always
resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors did!
52
Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those
who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and
murderers you have now become!
53
You received the law by decrees given by angels, but you did not obey it.”

One thought:

Did you notice the point? Stephen shows them how they have a history of rejected God’s prophets, will they not listen now?

Three questions:

Why do people reject Jesus?

In what way/s would someone say you are resisting Jesus?

Read the whole passage if you just skimmed over it – What a brilliant summary of Israel’s history with God and their trend of resisting Him.

Prayer:

Give thanks that God softened your heart of stone.  Ask God to soften the hearts of the people in your life. Ask God to reveal to you areas where you still resist Him.

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