Actschapter 7

Speaks with:Exodus 3×6 Exodus 1×5 Acts 7×5 John 18×4 Acts 22×3 Genesis 12×3

Summary

Chapter summary

Stephen's defense. Salvation history from Abraham to Moses to David to Solomon to the prophets: 'ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears.' The first martyrdom, Saul consenting. 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit … Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.'

Context

History · Luke — Acts overview

A. 1–16 Stephen's Defense Begins: Abraham, Joseph, and the Promise
B. 17–43 Moses, the Exodus, and a People Who Would Not Obey
C. 44–53 Tabernacle, Temple, and Stiff-Necked Resistance
D. 54–60 Stoned, He Sees the Son of Man Standing

The outline

A.Stephen's Defense Begins: Abraham, Joseph, and the Promisevv. 1 to 16
Read vv. 1 to 16 →
B.Moses, the Exodus, and a People Who Would Not Obeyvv. 17 to 43
Read vv. 17 to 43 →
C.Tabernacle, Temple, and Stiff-Necked Resistancevv. 44 to 53
Read vv. 44 to 53 →
D.Stoned, He Sees the Son of Man Standingvv. 54 to 60
Read vv. 54 to 60 →

The world behind this chapter

Acts 7

When

The first Christian martyrdom · c. AD 32–35

Where

Jerusalem — the Sanhedrin chamber, then a place outside the city wall where Stephen was stoned.

Who first heard it

Theophilus and Gentile readers, watching the movement's break with the temple establishment become fatal.

The history

Stephen's long speech is a retelling of Israel's own history, and every episode he picks happens outside the promised land: Abraham called in Mesopotamia, Joseph in Egypt, Moses in Midian, the tabernacle in the wilderness. He is dismantling the assumption that God is tied to one building on one hill.

Stoning was the biblical penalty for blasphemy, and the Law required the witnesses to throw the first stones. That is why they strip off their outer cloaks — the heavy garment worn over the tunic — and pile them at the feet of a young man named Saul, who is minding them.

Whether the council had legal authority to execute anyone is doubtful; Roman governors normally reserved capital punishment. Scholars still debate whether this was a formal sentence or a lynching that the authorities allowed. Luke describes a rush and a shout, which reads more like the second.

What it meant to them

To early readers this was the hinge. Stephen dies praying almost exactly what Jesus prayed — receive my spirit, do not hold this sin against them — and the parallel says that following this Lord may mean sharing his death.

His speech also gave the church its answer to the deepest charge against it. The God of Abraham had never lived in a house made by hands; a movement that met in homes and travelled the roads was not abandoning Israel's God but following him.

Sources cited

F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (NICNT)
Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Acts 7. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 30 · The New Testament on this appearing

'The angel of the LORD appeared in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush' then 'God called'; Stephen retells it (Acts 7:30-35) naming the bush-speaker both angel and the Lord/God.

Exodus 3:2→

There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from within a bush. Moses saw the bush ablaze with fire, but it was not consumed.

Exod 3:2-6; Acts 7:30-35

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

Study this chapter

Exodus 36 verses
- Exodus 3:1Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
- Exodus 3:3So Moses thought, “I must go over and see this marvelous sight. Why is the bush not burning up?”
- Exodus 3:5“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
- Exodus 3:6Then He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
- Exodus 3:7The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.
- Exodus 3:12“I will surely be with you,” God said, “and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, all of you will worship God on this mountain.”
- Read Exodus 3 →
Exodus 15 verses
- Exodus 1:5The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all, including Joseph, who was already in Egypt.
- Exodus 1:6Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
- Exodus 1:7but the Israelites were fruitful and increased rapidly; they multiplied and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.
- Exodus 1:8Then a new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
- Exodus 1:9“Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become too numerous and too powerful for us.
- Read Exodus 1 →
Acts 74 verses
- Acts 7:6God told him that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
- Acts 7:28Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
- Acts 7:35This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be their ruler and redeemer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
- Acts 7:38He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us.
- Read Acts 7 →
John 184 verses
- John 18:10Then Simon Peter drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
- John 18:19Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about His disciples and His teaching.
- John 18:25Simon Peter was still standing and warming himself. So they asked him, “Aren’t you also one of His disciples?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”
- John 18:37“Then You are a king!” Pilate said. “You say that I am a king,” Jesus answered. “For this reason I was born and have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.”
- Read John 18 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Acts 223 verses
- Acts 22:1“Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense before you.”
- Acts 22:16And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on His name.’
- Acts 22:20And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’
- Read Acts 22 →
Genesis 123 verses
- Genesis 12:1Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.
- Genesis 12:4So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.
- Genesis 12:7Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
- Read Genesis 12 →
Hebrews 113 verses
- Hebrews 11:8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.
- Hebrews 11:23By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after his birth, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were unafraid of the king’s edict.
- Hebrews 11:24By faith Moses, when he was grown, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
- Read Hebrews 11 →
Joshua 243 verses
- Joshua 24:3But I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates and led him through all the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his descendants. I gave him Isaac,
- Joshua 24:18And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because He is our God!”
- Joshua 24:32And the bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up out of Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the plot of land that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of silver. So it became an inheritance for Joseph’s descendants.
- Read Joshua 24 →