Acts · chapter 7 of 28
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Acts 7 records Stephen's speech before the council: he reviews the history of Abraham, Joseph, Moses and the temple to show that Israel has always resisted God's messengers, and that now they have betrayed and murdered the Righteous One. When he says he sees Jesus standing at God's right hand, he is dragged out of the city and stoned, dying as he prays for his killers' forgiveness, with Saul present.
In Acts 6 Stephen was accused of speaking against Moses and the temple. His answer is the longest speech in Acts, and it is not a personal defense: it is a reading of Israel's history that shows God working outside the temple and the people rejecting their deliverers. His death is the first Christian martyrdom in the book and the point where Saul appears.
The high priest asks whether the charges are true, and Stephen begins with Abraham: God appeared to him in Mesopotamia and told him to leave for a land he would show him, gave him the covenant of circumcision and promised that his offspring would be enslaved in a foreign land for four hundred years. Then he tells how the jealous patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him and made him governor; then Jacob and his family went down to Egypt.
As the promise draws near, the people grow in Egypt and a new king oppresses them. Moses is born, raised in Pharaoh's house, and at forty tries to defend a fellow Israelite, but his own people reject him and he flees to Midian. Forty years later God appears to him in the burning bush in the wilderness of Sinai and sends him to Egypt. Stephen stresses that this same Moses, whom they rejected, God sent as deliverer. In the wilderness, however, the fathers refused to obey him, made the golden calf and turned back to their idols.
Stephen recalls the tent of witness and that Solomon built the temple, yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, and he cites Isaiah. He moves to direct accusation: they are stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart and ears, always resisting the Holy Spirit as their fathers did. Their fathers killed the prophets who announced the coming of the Righteous One, and now they have betrayed and murdered him, and have not kept the law.
Hearing this, they are furious and gnash their teeth. Stephen, full of the Spirit, looks to heaven, sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at his right hand, and says so. Then they cry out, cover their ears, drive him out of the city and stone him, while the witnesses lay their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. Stephen prays, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and cries out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Then he dies.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Stephen begins by saying that the God of glory appeared to Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia. From the start he shows that God works outside Jerusalem and the temple, and that his initiative comes before every religious structure.
Stephen accuses his hearers of being stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, always resisting the Holy Spirit just as their fathers did. The accusation follows a thread through the whole speech: Israel rejected Joseph, Moses and now Jesus.
Stephen, full of the Spirit, sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at his right hand. Elsewhere Jesus is seated; here, standing, he seems to receive and vindicate his witness.
Stephen commits his spirit to the Lord Jesus and asks that this sin not be held against his killers. His death echoes Jesus's: he entrusts himself to God and forgives.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Abraham, to whom God appeared in Mesopotamia. — Acts 7:2
Answer: Out of jealousy they sold him into Egypt, but God was with him, rescued him from his troubles and gave him favor before Pharaoh. — Acts 7:9-10
Answer: In the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. — Acts 7:30-34
Answer: That he does not dwell in houses made by hands. — Acts 7:48-49
Answer: The glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. — Acts 7:55-56
Answer: That the Lord Jesus receive his spirit and that this sin not be held against his killers. — Acts 7:59-60
Stephen teaches us to read history with the eyes of faith: God is faithful even when his people are faithless, and we sometimes reject just what he sends. In your group, ask what you resist of the Spirit in your own life and whether religious habits have taken the place of living obedience.
He also shows how to die and how to live: with eyes on Jesus and forgiveness toward those who do harm. Ask whom you find hard to forgive and pray together for the grace to pray for that person as Stephen did.
Acts 7 ends with Stephen dead and Saul looking on, approving of his death. Acts 8 will tell how this persecution scatters the believers and how the gospel reaches Samaria through Philip, whom we met among the seven.
Because the charges said he spoke against Moses and the temple. Stephen shows that God called Abraham and Moses outside the temple and that Israel always rejected its deliverers, just as they have now rejected Jesus. It is a defense of the gospel more than of himself.
Elsewhere in the New Testament Jesus is seated at the Father's right hand. The text does not explain why he stands here; many understand it as a gesture of welcome or of defending the martyr, confirming that Jesus is the exalted Son of Man.
He is a young Pharisee who watches over the witnesses' garments and approves of Stephen's death. Later Jesus will call him and he will become the apostle Paul.