Acts 7

Stephen, charged with speaking against the temple and the law, answers by retelling Israel’s story from Abraham to Solomon. His point is that God has always been bigger than one place, and that God’s people have often resisted the very leaders and prophets he sent. The speech ends with a vision of the risen Jesus and Stephen’s death, in which he prays for his killers as his Lord did.

Acts 7:1

The high priest asks Stephen whether the accusations are true. They were that he spoke against the temple and the law of Moses (Acts 6:13-14). Stephen does not answer with a simple yes or no. He lets the story of Israel answer for him.

Acts 7:2

Stephen begins with respect and with God’s initiative. God appeared to Abraham in pagan Mesopotamia, long before there was a temple, a land or a law. Salvation starts with God’s glory reaching out to a man who was not looking for Him.

BSA: glory (“divine splendor”): God shows Himself to Abraham in radiant majesty, so Abraham’s call begins with seeing God, not with a program.

Greek: ὤφθη (ōphthē, G3700) — “was seen, let Himself be seen.” The word shows God taking the step to make Himself visible. Abraham did not find God. God revealed Himself.

See also: Genesis 12:1.

Acts 7:3

God’s call has two parts: leave, and go to a land that is not yet named. Abraham is asked to give up family and security and trust a promise he cannot yet see. Faith here means walking forward on God’s word alone.

See also: Hebrews 11:8.

Acts 7:4

Abraham moved out of Ur and settled for a time in Haran. After his father died, he moved on into Canaan. Stephen reminds the council that the land they live in was first reached by a man who obeyed God’s word. It was never reached by temple or ritual.

Acts 7:5

Abraham never owned any of the promised land, except a burial plot. God promised it to him and his descendants when he had no child. Everything depended on God keeping His word, not on anything Abraham held.

BSA: inheritance (“property, possession”): Abraham held no property at all in the land, so he lived by promise rather than by ownership.

See also: Genesis 17:8.

Acts 7:6-7

God also told Abraham that his family would suffer long years as foreigners and slaves in another land. Then God would judge their oppressors and bring His people out to worship Him. Suffering was part of the plan, and God’s rescue was promised in advance.

BSA: worship (“serve, minister to”): The goal of the rescue is that God’s people would serve Him, not simply be free.

See also: Genesis 15:13-14.

Acts 7:8

God gave Abraham the covenant sign of circumcision. The line then runs from Isaac to Jacob to the twelve sons who became the tribes of Israel. Stephen speaks of the covenant with honor. His quarrel is with hearts that ignore what it stood for.

See also: Genesis 17:10-12.

Acts 7:9-10

Joseph’s brothers envied him and sold him into slavery. Yet God was with him, rescued him in every trouble, and raised him to rule Egypt. Stephen hints at a pattern: the one rejected by his own brothers becomes their deliverer.

BSA: jealous (“moved with envy, zealous”): Their envy was a burning feeling that drove them to harm their own brother. favor (“graciousness”): Joseph’s standing before Pharaoh was a gift of God’s grace, not his own achievement.

See also: Genesis 39:2; Genesis 41:41.

Acts 7:11-13

A famine struck Egypt and Canaan, and Jacob sent his sons to buy grain. On the first trip they did not recognize Joseph. On the second, Joseph made himself known to the brothers who had rejected him. Stephen hints that a rejected deliverer may be recognized only the second time.

See also: Genesis 45:1-4.

Acts 7:14-16

Joseph brought Jacob and the whole family to Egypt, where Jacob and his sons died. Their bones were later buried at Shechem in the land of promise. The Hebrew text of Genesis counts seventy persons, while the Greek Old Testament counts seventy-five. Even in death, the patriarchs looked toward the promise.

See also: Genesis 46:27; Joshua 24:32.

Acts 7:17-19

As the time for God’s promise drew near, Israel multiplied in Egypt. A new king, who did not honor Joseph’s memory, turned against them. He enslaved them and ordered their baby boys put out to die. Oppression came just when God’s rescue was near.

BSA: exploited (“dealt craftily”): The king’s oppression was cunning and calculated, not merely harsh.

See also: Exodus 1:8-10.

Acts 7:20

In that dark hour Moses was born. He was no ordinary child, and his parents hid him at home for three months. God often prepares His deliverer in the middle of the very trouble He means to end.

BSA: beautiful (“fair, handsome, acceptable”): Moses was a child pleasing to God, marked for a purpose from his first days.

See also: Hebrews 11:23.

Acts 7:21

When Moses could no longer be hidden, he was set out, and Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him. The very household that ordered Hebrew babies killed became the place where God raised up Israel’s deliverer.

Acts 7:22

Moses was trained in the learning of Egypt and became strong in word and deed. God used a lifetime of preparation for what came next. Stephen, himself a gifted speaker, shows Moses as a man of real ability.

Greek: ἐπαιδεύθη (epaideuthē, G3811) — “was trained, brought up as a child is raised.” The word covers a whole upbringing, with teaching and discipline, not only classroom lessons. Moses was shaped through years of formation.

Acts 7:23-25

At forty, Moses went to see his people and killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. He thought his people would realize God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. Good intentions did not make the moment ready, and he acted ahead of God’s timing.

BSA: deliver (“save, rescue, give salvation”): Moses was meant to be a savior for his people, though they did not see it.

See also: Exodus 2:11-12.

Acts 7:26-29

The next day Moses tried to make peace between two quarreling Israelites. The one in the wrong shoved him aside and asked who had made him ruler and judge. Israel rejected the man God would use. Moses fled to Midian, where he lived as a stranger and raised a family.

BSA: reconcile (“bring together, make peace”): Moses came as a peacemaker, yet his own people refused him.

See also: Exodus 2:13-15.

Acts 7:30-31

Forty years later, in the desert near Sinai, God appeared in a bush that burned without burning up. Moses turned to look, and then God spoke. After long years of obscurity, God’s call came when Moses was least expecting it.

BSA: forty (“a period of testing or trial”): The long wait in Midian was a time of testing and preparation.

See also: Exodus 3:1-4.

Acts 7:32-34

God announced Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Moses trembled. The ground was holy because God was there. This is not a holy place defined by a building. God said He had seen the people’s suffering, heard their groaning, and come down to rescue them.

BSA: holy (“set apart, sacred”): The ground was set apart by God’s presence, not by any building or ritual. groaning (“deep sighs, cries of distress”): God hears even wordless sighs of the oppressed.

See also: Exodus 3:5-10.

Acts 7:35

Stephen drives home the point. The very Moses whom Israel rejected, saying ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’, is the one God sent as ruler and deliverer. The people’s refusal did not cancel God’s choice. Readers will hear a quiet echo of how Jesus was treated.

BSA: redeemer (“one who pays a ransom, sets free”): Moses was a rescuer who set a captive people free, which points forward to a greater redemption.

Greek: λυτρωτήν (lytrōtēn, G3086) — “redeemer, liberator.” The word comes from the language of ransom. It is used only here in the New Testament, and it presents Moses as one who buys back and sets free.

See also: Exodus 2:14.

Acts 7:36-37

Moses led Israel out with wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and through forty years in the wilderness. He also promised that God would raise up a prophet like him. Christians see Jesus as that prophet.

See also: Deuteronomy 18:15; Acts 3:22.

Acts 7:38

Moses stood between God and the gathered people at Sinai. There he received living words to hand on to them. Stephen speaks of the law with respect, which shows that he is not attacking Moses.

BSA: living (“vital, life-giving”): God’s words to Israel were meant to give life, not merely to regulate behavior.

Greek: ἐκκλησίᾳ (ekklēsia, G1577) — “assembly, gathering of those called out.” This is the same word later used for the church. Israel in the wilderness was God’s called-out gathering.

See also: Deuteronomy 5:22-27.

Acts 7:39-41

Israel would not obey Moses. In their hearts they went back to Egypt. While he was on the mountain, they asked Aaron for gods to lead them, made a golden calf, and celebrated what their own hands had made. The failure was in the heart before it showed in the act.

BSA: turned back (“changed direction completely, returned”): Their hearts reversed course and went back toward the slavery God had freed them from.

See also: Exodus 32:1-6.

Acts 7:42-43

God let them go the way they chose. He handed them over to worshiping the stars, as the prophet Amos wrote, and warned of exile. Idolatry is a downward path, and God sometimes allows people to follow it. Stephen shows that Israel’s trouble with God was old.

BSA: gave them over (“handed them over, surrendered”): God released them to the consequences of their own choice.

See also: Amos 5:25-27; Romans 1:24.

Acts 7:44-46

In the wilderness Israel had the tent of the Testimony, built to the pattern God showed Moses. It came into the land with Joshua and stayed until David. David wanted to build God a permanent dwelling. Stephen honors the tent, but he is moving toward a larger point.

See also: Exodus 25:9; 2 Samuel 7:1-2.

Acts 7:47-50

Solomon built the temple, but the Most High does not live in what human hands have made. Heaven is His throne and earth His footstool. Stephen says what the prophet Isaiah said: no building can contain God, so the temple cannot be treated as if it did.

BSA: footstool (“a rest for My feet, a symbol of dominance”): The whole earth is only a place for God’s feet to rest, so no building could hold Him.

Greek: χειροποιήτοις (cheiropoiētois, G5499) — “made by hands.” The word is often used of idols and man-made things. Stephen is saying that God is not something people can build a house around.

See also: Isaiah 66:1-2; 1 Kings 8:27.

Acts 7:51

Stephen’s tone changes sharply. He calls his hearers stubborn, with hearts and ears that are not open to God, and says they are doing what their fathers did: resisting the Holy Spirit. He is not hating them. He is naming the real problem, which is a heart closed to God.

BSA: resist (“oppose, strive against”): They are not merely ignoring the Spirit but pushing against Him.

Greek: ἀπερίτμητοι (aperitmētoi, G564) — “uncircumcised.” Circumcision was the sign of belonging to God. Stephen says a person can have the outward sign and still lack the inward reality.

See also: Jeremiah 6:10; Deuteronomy 10:16.

Acts 7:52-53

Every generation, Stephen says, persecuted the prophets, including those who foretold the Righteous One. Now they have betrayed and murdered Him. They received the law through angels, yet did not keep it. Their sin is not lack of knowledge but disobedience.

BSA: ordained (“given or appointed”): The law was a gift handed down with God’s authority.

See also: Galatians 3:19; Matthew 23:29-31.

Acts 7:54

The council was furious and gnashed their teeth at him. They were cut to the heart, but not in the way that leads to repentance, as at Pentecost. Hearing the truth can soften a person or harden him.

See also: Acts 2:37.

Acts 7:55-56

Full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen looked up and saw God’s glory and Jesus standing at God’s right hand. He called Him the Son of Man. Jesus is often pictured seated there, so standing may suggest He rose to welcome or stand with His servant. The heavens opened for a man who was about to suffer.

BSA: looked intently (“with focused attention, gazing up steadfastly”): Stephen fixed his gaze steadily upward, undistracted by the angry crowd around him.

Greek: ἀτενίσας (atenisas, G816) — “gazing fixedly.” The word means looking with eyes locked on one object. Stephen’s attention was fully on Christ.

See also: Daniel 7:13-14; Psalm 110:1.

Acts 7:57-58

The council would not listen. They covered their ears, shouted, and rushed at him. They dragged him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul, who would later become the apostle Paul.

Greek: μάρτυρες (martyres, G3144) — “witnesses.” This word later gave us ‘martyr.’ Here the witnesses are those who testified against Stephen, while Stephen himself becomes the true witness to Christ.

See also: Leviticus 24:14; Acts 22:20.

Acts 7:59

As the stones fell, Stephen prayed to Jesus directly: ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ This is very like what Jesus prayed on the cross. Stephen trusts that death is not the end, and he places himself into the hands of the Lord he has just seen.

BSA: receive (“to accept, welcome”): Stephen asks Jesus to welcome him as a guest into His presence.

Greek: ἐπικαλούμενον (epikaloumenon, G1941) — “calling upon.” This is the language used for calling on the Lord in prayer and worship. Stephen treats Jesus as God.

See also: Luke 23:46.

Acts 7:60

Kneeling, Stephen cried out that the Lord would not hold this sin against them. These are the words of Jesus on the cross again. His last act was mercy toward his killers. He died as he had lived, and he ‘fell asleep,’ the Bible’s gentle word for a believer’s death.

BSA: fell asleep (“to sleep or fall asleep, sometimes used to describe death”): Death for a believer is pictured as rest, with waking to follow. sin (“missing the mark or falling short of God’s standards”): Stephen names what his killers did as real sin, yet asks that it not be charged against them.

Greek: ἐκοιμήθη (ekoimēthē, G2837) — “fell asleep.” This is the word Christians used for death, because for them it was a sleep that ends in waking.

See also: Luke 23:34; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14.