Acts, Chapter 7 - Stephen’s Defense

Outbless Weekly

Acts, Chapter 7 - Stephen’s Defense

7 The high priest said, “Are these things so?”

2 And he said, “Hear me, brethren and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’

- The high priest asks Stephen if the accusations made against him were true

- Notice Stephen’s response

o Hear me, brethren and fathers!

§ This implies relationship to his Jewish brothers and their mutual forefathers

o The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham

§ Notice Stephen gives God glory by calling Him The God of glory

§ Appeared to our father Abraham (notice Stephen’s reference to Abraham as “our father” again focusing on common faith and relationship

o When he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran

§ This is when Abraham still lived at his home town at the time

- And said to him

o Leave your country and your relatives

§ Leave everything and everyone that is familiar

- And come into the land that I will show you

o A land I will show you (He had not showed him where before leaving)

- Stephen is reminder this court of religious leaders of these facts

4 Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this country in which you are now living. 5 But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground, and yet, even when he had no child, He promised that He would give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him.

- Stephen reminds them Abraham received promises from God about his descendants even though Abraham had no child at the time

o Because God knows the future

- He promised that He would give it to him

o As a possession

o And to His descendants after him

- These bold promises were made when it didn’t seem possible to Abraham

6 But God spoke to this effect, that his descendants would be aliens in a foreign land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. 7 ‘And whatever nation to which they will be in bondage I Myself will judge,’ said God,

- But God spoke to this effect

o That his descendants would be aliens in a foreign land

o And that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years

o And whatever nation to which they will be in bondage | I Myself will judge, said God

o These are three amazing declarations

o About his descendants forced to become aliens in a foreign land

§ Their location would change

o That they would be enslaved and mistreated for 400-years

§ Their position would change form free to bondage for 400 years

o The nation responsible would be judged by God

§ The nation that causes this is going to be judged by God (they pay dearly)

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