Study Desk

They had them stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

Opposition arose, however, from some members of the Freedmen’s Synagogue, composed of both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, and they began to argue with Stephen.

But they were unable to stand up against his wisdom and the Spirit by whom he was speaking.

Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; so they came, seized him, and took him to the Sanhedrin.

They also presented false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking against this holy place and the law.

God spoke in this way: His descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, and they would enslave and oppress them for four hundred years.

I will judge the nation that they will serve as slaves, God said. After this, they will come out and worship me in this place.

He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn’t survive.

The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’

“This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge?—this one God sent as a ruler and a deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made.

Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, until the days of David.

Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.

When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him.

They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him.

They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

The crowds were all paying attention to what Philip said, as they listened and saw the signs he was performing.

They all paid attention to him, from the least of them to the greatest, and they said, “This man is called the Great Power of God.”