7\u00a0<\/span>Then the high priest asked Stephen, \u201cAre these charges true?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n 2\u00a0<\/sup>To this he replied: \u201cBrothers and fathers,\u00a0listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.<\/span>\u00a03\u00a0<\/sup>\u2018Leave your country and your people,\u2019 God said, \u2018and go to the land I will show you.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n 4\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cSo he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.<\/span>5\u00a0<\/sup>He gave him no inheritance here,\u00a0not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land,\u00a0even though at that time Abraham had no child.<\/span>6\u00a0<\/sup>God spoke to him in this way: \u2018For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated.<\/span>\u00a07\u00a0<\/sup>But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,\u2019 God said, \u2018and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.\u2019<\/span>\u00a08\u00a0<\/sup>Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision.\u00a0And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth.\u00a0Later Isaac became the father of Jacob,and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.<\/span><\/p>\n 9\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cBecause the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph,\u00a0they sold him as a slave into Egypt.\u00a0But God was with him<\/span>\u00a010\u00a0<\/sup>and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.<\/span><\/p>\n Stephen’s speech is a familiar rhetorical tool that was often used by the prophets. They would recount all the deeds that the Lord has done in the past regarding the Israelites and then provide a vision of the present. This day, Stephen is planning on doing the same thing. If the mind of the early Christian, the story of God and His chosen people fits right in with this savior we call Jesus. The only question is whether or not people could see the connection.<\/p>\n Also notice that when Stephen is asked whether the charges against him are true, he does not respond with a yes or a no. Instead, he uses the opportunity to defend the gospel, not himself. He could have easily refuted the accusations and even lied in order to preserve his life. However, he chose to take the road that would likely end in suffering. This is the same road that went before him and the same road that many Christians since then have gone.<\/p>\n No one is promised a life without persecution. Jesus told his disciples that they would be hated. We should expect also that we too will eventually draw the ire of many.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stephen’s Speech To The Sanhedrin (The Patriarchs) Acts 7:1-9 7\u00a0Then the high priest asked Stephen, \u201cAre these charges true?\u201d 2\u00a0To this he replied: \u201cBrothers and fathers,\u00a0listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.\u00a03\u00a0\u2018Leave your country and your people,\u2019 God said, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12227,"featured_media":15488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2280,7611],"tags":[7682,7614,7683,7684],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dustoffthebible.com\/Blog-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nComments and Reflections<\/h3>\n
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