Study Desk

Then God gave to Abraham the ceremony of circumcision as a sign of the covenant. So Abraham circumcised Isaac a week after he was born; Isaac circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob circumcised his twelve sons, the famous ancestors of our race.

"Jacob's sons became jealous of their brother Joseph and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him

and brought him safely through all his troubles. When Joseph appeared before the king of Egypt, God gave him a pleasing manner and wisdom, and the king made Joseph governor over the country and the royal household.

"When the time drew near for God to keep the promise he had made to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had grown much larger.

(He thought that his own people would understand that God was going to use him to set them free, but they did not understand.)

‘I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Moses trembled with fear and dared not look.

"Moses is the one who was rejected by the people of Israel. ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?' they asked. He is the one whom God sent to rule the people and set them free with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush.

Moses is the one who said to the people of Israel, ‘God will send you a prophet, just as he sent me, and he will be one of your own people.'

So God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘People of Israel! It was not to me that you slaughtered and sacrificed animals for forty years in the desert.

It was the tent of the god Molech that you carried, and the image of Rephan, your star god; they were idols that you had made to worship. And so I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.'

"Our ancestors had the Tent of God's presence with them in the desert. It had been made as God had told Moses to make it, according to the pattern that Moses had been shown.

Later on, our ancestors who received the tent from their fathers carried it with them when they went with Joshua and took over the land from the nations that God drove out as they advanced. And it stayed there until the time of David.

He won God's favor and asked God to allow him to provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

"But the Most High God does not live in houses built by human hands; as the prophet says,

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw God's glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God.

"Look!" he said. "I see heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right side of God!"

and everyone in the city, from all classes of society, paid close attention to him. "He is that power of God known as ‘The Great Power,'" they said.

But when they believed Philip's message about the good news of the Kingdom of God and about Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

The apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had received the word of God, so they sent Peter and John to them.

So Philip got ready and went. Now an Ethiopian eunuch, who was an important official in charge of the treasury of the queen of Ethiopia, was on his way home. He had been to Jerusalem to worship God and was going back home in his carriage. As he rode along, he was reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah.