Acts Chapter 7

Acts Chapter 7

So the high priest asked these things are true?

Stephen tells them to listen.  The God of glory appeared to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he was in living Charran. The god of glory? Is that a different god that God we are used to hearing about? The God of glory told him to leave Mesopotamia and go to land he showed him.  Then left the land of Chaldaeans and dwelt in Charran, again, and then when his dad died he moved him to this land where you dwell. 

Thank you for that history lesson Stevie. Oh crap, it keeps going… and going.

His dad didn’t have an inheritance for him, no land but he had promised that he would have something for the children who would come after him.  Even though he didn’t have any kids yet.  God spoke wisely on this subject that his children would journey to a strange land and they would be enslaved and treated badly for four hundred years. Thanks God!

 And God will judge the nation who enslaves them, and they will come serve me in this place.  I assume he’s talking about the slaves at this point. And he gave him the gift of circumcision!  Abraham begat Isaac and on the eighth day circumcised him, and Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs, who were so jealous of Joseph that they sold him into slavery in Egypt.  But God helped him out of Egypt, and Joey became one of his favorites and God made him wise in the Pharaoh’s eyes, who in turn made him the governor of Egypt and his house. 

Now a famine came to Egypt and Chanaan and there was no food to be found.  When Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt he sent his sons to get some.  Well, they found out about Joey’s new position, and Pharaoh found about them.  Joey send for Jacob and his seventy five relatives.  So Jake came down to Egypt and dies, as did all of his brothers.  And they were carried to Sychem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought form the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem.    As the time of promise came near, just as God as sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt.  Until another king arose who didn’t know our pal Joey.

This guy wasn’t so nice, he had those guys, the descendants of Jacob abandon their young children to die.  Which is when Moses was born, and he was very fair and spend three months in his father’s house getting strong.  When he was cast out he was picked up by the Pharaoh’s daughter and she raised him as her own son.

So Moses learned all of the wisdom of the Egyptians and was might in word and deeds.  When he was fourty, he visited his brethren, the children of Israel. He saw one of them being wronged so he defended him and avenged him by smiting Egyptian.  He thought his brethren would understand that God would deliver them, but they didn’t understand. 

The next day he asked them, “Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?”  But that just kind of pissed off his neighbor who asked him “Who are you to judge us? Are you going to kill me like you did the Egyptian yesterday?”

Moses ran away when he heard that, and when to the land of Madian where he had two sons.  After another forty years he saw the angel of the Lord in a flame in a bush at Mount Sina in wilderness.  Well Moses thought that was pretty amazing, and went close to the burning bush and listened as the Lord spoke to him saying “ I am the God of your fahtes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Moses trembled at that.  The Lord continued “Take your shoes off, you are on holy ground.  I’ve seen how my people suffer in Egypt, I’ve come down to deliver them, by sending you to Egypt.  He was sending Moses, the guy they had refused earlier in this story, the ones who asked who made you judge?  Well I guess God did.

So Moses brought them out, showed them some wonders in Egypt, and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.  This is that Moses, who told the children of Israel that God will send you a prophet like me and you will hear him.  The one the was in the church in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sina, who receive the lively oracles to give to us.  The one who our fathers wouldn’t obey but pushed him away from them as their hearts turned back to Egypt.  They asked Aaron to make them gods to go before them, like Moses has who brough us out of Egypt, we don’t know what happened to that guy.  So they made a calf and offered a sacrifice to the idol and celebrated the idol. 

Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it’s written in the book of prophets, O you house of Israel, have you offered me animal sacrifices in those forty years in the wilderness? I don’t know, did they?  You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the start of your god Remphan, figures that you made to worship.  I will carry you away, beyond Babylon.   Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, as God appointed having told Moses how to make it.  Which our fathers who came after him brought in with Jesus into the possession of Gentiles, who God drove out before our fathers into the days of David.   Okay this chapter has descended form weird history of the bible to mere gobbledygook.

Whoever found favor before God, and wanted to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.  But instead Solomon build him a house.  How does God not dwell in the temples made by your hands, as the prophet said “Heaven in my throne, the earth is my footstool, what kind of house will you make me?  What is my place of rest?  Didn’t I make all of this?  You stiff necked and uncircumcised in the heart and easy, always resist the Holy Ghost, just like your fathers.”

Which of the prophets haven’t your father’s prosecuted?  And they have slain the ones who came before the Just one, who you betrayed and murdered. You’ve received the law by form the angels, but you haven’t kept it.

When they heard these thing they were hurt, and they bit Stephen with their teeth.  Serriously?  Are they animals?  Are they five years old?  But he was filled with the Holy Ghost and looked up to heaven and say the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  He told them as much.

Well that just pissed them off even more.  And they cried out loudly and blocked their ears, Is Steven being persecuted by five year olds for real? And they cast him out of the city, and stoned him.  The witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, who’s name was Saul.  Why would they give Saul their cloths?  And is there where Saul starts his obsession with peoples um… private areas begin?