Study Desk

So they talked some men into saying, "We heard Stephen say terrible things against Moses and God!"

Stephen answered: Friends, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he had moved to Haran.

God told him, "Leave your country and your relatives and go to a land that I will show you."

God didn't give him any part of it, not even a square foot. But God did promise to give it to him and his family forever, even though Abraham didn't have any children.

God said that Abraham's descendants would live for a while in a foreign land. There they would be slaves and would be mistreated four hundred years.

God said to Abraham, "Every son in each family must be circumcised to show that you have kept your agreement with me." So when Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him. Later, Isaac circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob circumcised his twelve sons.

These men were our ancestors. Joseph was also one of our famous ancestors. His brothers were jealous of him and sold him as a slave to be taken to Egypt. But God was with him

and rescued him from all his troubles. God made him so wise that the Egyptian king Pharaoh thought highly of him. The king even made Joseph governor over Egypt and put him in charge of everything he owned.

Finally, the time came for God to do what he had promised Abraham. By then the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased.

Moses thought the rest of his people would realize that God was going to use him to set them free. But they didn't understand.

"I am the God who was worshiped by your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Moses started shaking all over and didn't dare to look at the bush.

This was the same Moses that the people rejected by saying, "Who made you our leader and judge?" God's angel had spoken to Moses from the bush. And God had even sent the angel to help Moses rescue the people and be their leader.

Moses is the one who told the people of Israel, "God will choose one of your people to be a prophet, just as he chose me."

God turned his back on his people and left them. Then they worshiped the stars in the sky, just as it says in the Book of the Prophets, "People of Israel, you didn't offer sacrifices and offerings to me during those forty years in the desert.

Instead, you carried the tent where the god Molech is worshiped, and you took along the star of your god Rephan. You made those idols and worshiped them. So now I will have you carried off beyond Babylonia."

The tent where our ancestors worshiped God was with them in the desert. This was the same tent that God had commanded Moses to make. And it was made like the model that Moses had seen.

Later it was given to our ancestors, and they took it with them when they went with Joshua. They carried the tent along as they took over the land from those people that God had chased out for them. Our ancestors used this tent until the time of King David.

He pleased God and asked him if he could build a house of worship for the people of Israel.

And it was finally King Solomon who built a house for God.

But the Most High God doesn't live in houses made by humans. It is just as the prophet said, when he spoke for the Lord,