The Apostles' Acts

The Abraham Promise

For Abraham God's promises provided one trial of faith after the other. Before he had a son, God told him that his descendants would be enslaved in a strange land, where they'd be kept for 400 years.

However, there was comfort for Abraham in that God promised to condemn the masters, in order to bring God's people out to serve God in Jerusalem.

God gave to Abraham the covenant and clipping. When Isaac was born, he was clipped. In due course, Jacob was begotten, and the 12 patriarchs.

The Jacob Death

Joseph's brothers were jealous of the favor in which his father held him, and sold him to the Midianitea and so, via them, into Egypt.

Here again, God was with Joseph, saving him out of his misfortunes, which befell him also in his bondage's land, and giving him favor before Pharaoh. The Hebrew slave was made Egypt's ruler and the manager of the king’s house.

Then came the famine, striking Canaan, and causing suffering, making scarce food made of corn.

Jacob sent his sons to Egypt the first time. At their second coming Joseph made himself known to his brothers, which made Joseph's origin known to Pharaoh. Twas then that Joseph sent to fetch his father to Egypt and his kin.

☆ Stephen here follows the Septuagint, which is thus substantiated by the Spirit. ☆

For by taking the number 75 the text follows the Genesis account's manner, and includes Manasseh's two sons and Ephraim's two sons and grandson.

Jacob died in Egypt, and his sons there too. Jacob's body was taken to Canaan and buried in a cave. This cave Abraham had bought from Ephron the Hittite. Jacob had purchased land from Emmor. There Joseph was buried, and Jacob's other sons too.

The Moses Start

The life of Israel's children in Egypt was pleasant for centuries. The people grew in Egypt. This growth was in accord with the promise given to Abraham by God. This continued until a different Pharaoh arose in Egypt. A new dynasty was established.

The new Pharaoh didn't care about Joseph, caring more about the Israelites' growth. So he brought to them afflictions, whose culmination was the order to cast into the Nile the boys that were born to the Israelites, so that they might not be preserved alive.

Twas at this point that Moses was born, in conformity with God’s plan, as Stephen's word indicate, for he was fair, in God's judgment. Mental endowment's indications were favorable.

For months his mother kept him hid and nourished him, gave him the care that a child should have.

When she exposed him, it was, by God's direction, at a place where Thermuthis, Pharaoh's daughter, found the child, took him up from his vessel, and nourished him to be her own. She adopted him.

In his capacity as the princess' son, Moses enjoyed advantages. He was raised, taught in the Egyptians' wisdom, attending their schools corresponding to our universities, so receiving a training which was second to none in the world of those days.

☆ This training afterwards stood Moses in good stead, for twas true then as it's now that all the arts and sciences in the world will serve theology. ☆

The result, in Moses' case, justified all efforts made in his behalf, for he was mighty. He was full of vigor in carrying forward any project, even if he may have been lacking in expression's facility. What he lacked in grace he more than compensated for by depth.

☆ Moses is a model for all whom God has placed in leadership positions in God's Church. ☆

The Moses Call

After Moses had lived 40 years in Horeb, an experience befell him. God's angel, the pre-incarnate Christ, appeared to him in a flame of bush's fire, in a bush aflame.

The phenomenon caused Moses to draw nearer to consider the matter.

God's voice came to him from the bush, designating himself as Abraham's, Isaac's and Jacob's God. God bid Moses first to remove his shoes, since he was standing on holy ground. Then came God's call itself, "I've seen my people's affliction in Egypt, and I've heard their sighing, and I've come down to free them. Now, come here, I'll send you into Egypt."

What Moses had tried to carry out without success in his own power, was now to become a fact by God‘s will, according to God's promise, so of God’s power to back up the call.

With God’s call to rely upon, servants of God may set out with trust in their venture's assured success.

The Moses Deliverance

Stephen represents the nation as having refused to acknowledge Moses as a ruler and a judge. But God had now made more than a judge
God'd sent him as their deliverer, with God's Angel to help him.

Moses had done his work as deliverer. He had led the Israelites forth from Egypt, after having done signs there, as a judgment upon Pharaoh, as he kept doing them at the Red Sea and during the journey through the wilderness which lasted 40 years.

The person whom the Israelites had delivered up into Pharaoh's hands to be slain was the one by whom they were redeemed from their bondage.

The application to Jesus' parallel case of Jesus, which Stephen had in mind, may be made.

The Jews Disobedience

With his defense's progress, the fervor of Stephen’s arguments increases. He's preaching the Law, and he doesn't intend to soften its blows by any circumstances until he has made his point.

It was Moses, he again reminds, that prophesied concerning another prophet, like unto himself, demanding that they should yield obedience to him. It was Moses, again, who, alone enjoyed the intimacy of God's Angel, and who now, as God, spoke to the people group. It was Moses, again, that received God's words to give to the people.

The Israelites rejected Moses, and turned their hearts toward Egypt. They demanded Aaron to make them gods who might so be considered their rulers, for Moses tarried so long on the mountain that they didn't know what might have overtaken him. So they made a calf's figure, and brought offerings before their idol and rejoiced in their works.

Stephen's is intentional, since one of his charges is that the Jews of his day also trusted externals and expected to be saved by observing customs, many of which they'd invented.

There's danger in a long-established church, of a dead orthodoxy, of a clinging to forms although life's departed.

The People Rejection

Stephen supplements the Pentateuch's account with a passage from Amos.

After disobedience's exhibition, God turned from God's people. It was a form of God's judgment that God let them go on in idolatry. It was a curse upon their heart's hardness that God gave them up to star-worship as it was practiced in Egypt.

Of this Amos had written, "Did you really offer beasts to me for the 40 years in the wilderness?" As though God would say, "How could they've been real, as long as the people's affections were bound up in idolotry?" So God answers God's question Godself.

While the Israelites pretended to be interested in the true worship only, God's Tabernacle became to them Moloch's. So also the Israelites served figures like that of the god Remphan. Such figures they served, giving to them the worship due God only.

So the punishment of God's rejection came upon them, who'd them carried away, taken into exile, beyond Babylon.

The God Location

Stephen takes up the recital of worship's houses to show that the dependence upon external worship's forms are vain without heart's true faith.

That advantage Israel's children had: they'd the witness' Tabernacle, where God Godself witnessed unto Godself. They'd made it as God'd shown. Moses had seen the tent's plan and so it was made.

And this same Tabernacle, they brought along with them when they occupied the Gentiles' former possession. For the latter God expelled. At David's time the country's conquest was completed.

David then asked to build a tabernacle to God. If the Temple had been of the value placed upon it by the later Jews, it might've been expected that God would've given God's consent.

Stephen wants his hearers to remember that God's presence isn't confined to any building. The first Temple's builder had confessed as much. The Prophet Isaiah had written, "Heaven's my throne and earth's my footstool. What manner of house will you build to me, says God, or what place for my resting? Hasn't my hand made all this?"

The Jews' foolishness in pinning their faith to the Temple which had taken the place of Solomon’s, and upon the city in which it had been placed, couldn't have been brought out with greater force than in these words. The Jews' worship had degenerated to become a forms' observance, without life.

Stephen had sketched the situation with fitting words, in order to honestly present it to his judges' eyes.

The Sanhedrin Obstinacy

Stephen’s indignation reaches its culmination at this point of his recital.

He tells his judges that they're obstinate. In addition to that, they're uncircumcised. These were reproach's terms, placing the Jews' leaders in a class with the apostate Jews.

This denunciation Stephen corroborates by the charge that they were resisting the Spirit, throwing themselves against her, thus shutting off the working of her grace in them.

The Spirit wanted to convert also these foes of Jesus, she was giving them every evidence of her will toward them by having the Gospel preached before them for so long time. But they refused to listen to her call. Herein they were following their ancestors, of whose obstinacy Stephen cited cases.

Every one of the prophets the Jews had persecuted, and those that proclaimed in advance concerning Jesus' coming they'd killed. The prophets foretold Christ's cominh, and their reward was death.

These ancestors' spirit was yet alive, for the Councillors had become Jesus' murderers. Stephen declared that the Law they hadn't kept. MSo Stephen, in eloquence's burst, preached the Law to the Sanhedrin's hypocrites, to work in them s knowledge of their sin which might lead to faith.

☆ Stephen's sermon admonishes us Christians to be mindful of God's blessings under the new dispensation, lest we also resist the Spirit's work. ☆

The God Glory

Stephen's hearers didn't let him conclude in such a way as to bring Jesus into prominence. For the accused's words cut the judges to the heart.

Stephen was here given a grace, a manifestation of the Spirit's power, which caused him to forget his surroundings, and a revelation of God’s glory. He fixed his eyes upward to heaven and there saw God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand, as though he were making ready to receive his servant.

In ecstasy's burst, Stephen testified to that which his eyes beheld by God's grace. Jesus, who has gained a redemption for all.

☆ Jesus is ready to receive those that rely upon the salvation earned by Him. Where he is, there'll also his servants be. He wants to receive them into his kingdom that they may see his glory and God's glory. Thus the believers are taken to their heavenly home. ☆

The Stephen Stoning

Stephen's judges cried out, rushed upon him, threw him from the city and stoned him.

This proceeding didn't have even right's show. Twas against the Jewish criminal law's rules. It can in no way even be called an execution. It can be described only as murder, committed by a mob, in law's violation.

Yet the mob retained enough sanity to observe some Law forms, such as taking the prisoner from the city and also needing the witnesses to begin the stoning.

It is stated that the witnesses, in making ready for their attack, laid down their outer clothes at the feet of a youth named Saul.

As for Stephen, he died a martyr's death. While the stones were flying around him, he called upon God, in Jesus' person. His first prayer was that Christ would receive his spirit. Then, he let his last sigh be an intercession for his killers. Sinking down, he cried out, "God, don't charge to them this sin." Then he died in Christ. So Stephen became the Church's first martyr.

Since his time thousands of Christians have been martyred for Christ. Their death teaches a lesson, namely, that of sacrificing for Jesus' sake. In the end we gain all that mercy's reward can bestow upon us, heaven itself.

☆ God stands by us if we trust in God. Death isn't death to us who believe. We have the whole Gospel pictured here in this account. ☆

Summary: Acts 7

Stephen's defense angers the Sanhedrin's members who then cast him from the city and stone him.

The Saul Hatred

The youth Saul had been a witness of Stephen’s stoning, and had considered it an honor to watch the men's clothes. It's here stated that Saul consented to Stephen’s death. He felt satisfaction.

His feeling was shared by his fellow Pharisees, who now started a persecution which involved the church, determined to exterminate Christ's Church.

The result was disciples' scatterinng to Samaria's regions. It wasn't death's fear which caused these first disciples to flee, but Jesus' command,.

Only the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. The church's remnant that had to stay in Jerusalem consisted of such as had the need of the Word's comfort. For a pastor to leave their post in persecution's time amounts to unfaithfulness.

Before the disciples' scattering took place, Stephen's burial was attended to. Fellow believers carried him to his last resting place and attended to his burial, They then made a lamentation over him, beating their breasts and their heads in their grief's token.

Tis pleasing to God if Christians bury their dead, and the lamenting over loved ones' deaths has been hallowed by Christ's tears at Lazarus' grave.

But all these facts made no impression upon Saul. He became all the more furious in his enmity toward Jesus and the Church. He laid waste to the Church. He entered into every house belonging to a Christian. People he found at such times he dragged forth, he haled them out, and committed them to prison, with the authorities' consent.

This persecution was the first test to which the church's members were subjected. The storm was to test the young plant's strength.

The Disciples Mission

The disciples that were driven from Jerusalem were mindful of Christ's command. They journeyed everywhere; and wherever they came, they brought the Word's message, the Savior's Gospel.

☆ The people that went out at this time weren't the church's teachers, yet they brought the Gospel wherever they went. Every Christian should testify to their faith, and so try to gain souls for the Savior. ☆

In these endeavors Philip's work stood out. He was one of the seven officers elected by the church. He became an evangelist. He trekked to Samaria. His preaching's topic was Jesus, the world's Savior.

This preaching concerning the Messiah had its effect. It received a better reception than in the Jews' case.

Those that gathered about Philip heard what was spoken by him, and were of one mind.

His work convinced numbers of them. For demoniacs were freed, though the spirits protested when they were driven out, and paralytics and others were healed.

☆ There's a distinction made here between demons' driving out and sick people's healing. Dr. Luke’s description shows that he was acquainted with afflictions, and that he distinguished with a reason. ☆

These events' consequence was that there was joy in that city. Twas blessing's time.

Philip didn't use preachers' tricks to excite the masses. Twas Jesus' preaching that brought about the condition, the miracles serving for confirmation.

The Magician Conversion

A man named Simon had practiced magical arts and had had the region's people impressed to stupefaction's point with his tricks. He advertised himself as being great. He practiced the charms so employed by sorcerers, that are able to do feats that have miracles' appearance, by the devil's aid.

So impressed were the people that they regarded Simon as divine power's manifestation in human form. So they called him “God's Great Power,” one that was divine, having powers which are peculiar to God. This the Samaritans had done, because Simon had bewitched them with his tricks. They'd believed him.

This was changed with Philip's coming. For when he preached the Gospel concerning God's kingdom and of Christ, when he brought to these people the message which could give them mind's peace and salvation's assurance, the Samaritans believed, faith was wrought in them, and they sought and received the Sacrament which seals to people sins' forgiveness gained by Jesus.

When Simon lost his following, he went to hear Philip, and was himself brought to faith. He was baptized and God's promise thus sealed to him. Simon's conversion was a proof of Christ's power and divinity. Simon was here overwhelmed with stupefaction when he became a spectator of the signs which were done before his eyes.

☆ The devil may succeed in seducing people by his tricks, but whenever God's power looms up via contrast, he and his servants are brought to shame before God. ☆

The Spirit Gifts

The apostles wanted to establish faith's unity in all congregations, no matter where they might be established.

Twas s point in Christianity's progress that people outside of the OT covenant should receive the Gospel and be added to the Church.

So when the apostles got the news that Samaria had received the Word, that its people had professed allegiance to Jesus, they sent Peter and John as their representatives to find out the report's truth and to establish unity's bonds.

The report's fact being certified to, Peter and John transmitted to these new converts the gifts which they themselves had received.

The Samaritans now were equipped with gifts, with the power to do signs to speak in tongues, to prophesy, and to give other evidences of the Spirit.

Now these powers were transmitted to them by the laying on of hands, for it was a part of God's plan in the Church to use signs to confirm the Gospel.

Such gifts' design is set forth by Paul in 1 Corinthians.

These gifts served a temporary purpose until the new covenant was committed to writing by inspired people.