Study Desk

With great power the apostles were making it known to everyone that the Lord Jesus was raised from death. And God blessed all the believers very much.

Before you sold the field, it belonged to you, right? And even after you sold it, you could have used the money any way you wanted. How could you even think of doing such a thing? You lied to God, not to us!"

Peter and the other apostles answered, "We must obey God, not you!

You killed Jesus by nailing him to a cross. But God, the same God our fathers had, raised Jesus up from death.

Jesus is the one God honored by giving him a place at his right side. He made him our Leader and Savior. God did this to give all the people of Israel the opportunity to change and turn to God to have their sins forgiven.

We saw all these things happen, and we can say that they are true. The Holy Spirit also shows that these things are true. God has given this Spirit to all those who obey him."

But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them. You might even be fighting against God himself!" The Jewish leaders agreed with what Gamaliel said.

Then we can use all our time to pray and to teach the word of God."

The word of God was reaching more and more people. The group of followers in Jerusalem became larger and larger. Even a big group of Jewish priests believed and obeyed.

Stephen received a great blessing. God gave him power to do great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.

So they told some men to say, "We heard Stephen say bad things against Moses and against God!"

Stephen answered, "My Jewish fathers and brothers, listen to me. Our great and glorious God appeared to Abraham, our ancestor, when he was in Mesopotamia. This was before he lived in Haran.

God said to him, ‘Leave your country and your people, and go to the country I will show you.'

"So Abraham left the country of Chaldea. He went to live in Haran. After his father died, God sent him to this place, where you live now.

But God did not give Abraham any of this land, not even a foot of it. But God promised that in the future he would give Abraham this land for himself and for his children. This was before Abraham had any children.

"This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will live in another country. They will be strangers. The people there will make them slaves and mistreat them for 400 years.

But I will punish the nation that made them slaves.' And God also said, ‘After those things happen, your people will come out of that country. Then they will worship me here in this place.'

"God made an agreement with Abraham; the sign for this agreement was circumcision. And so when Abraham had a son, he circumcised him when he was eight days old. His son's name was Isaac. Isaac also circumcised his son Jacob. And Jacob did the same for his sons, who became the twelve great ancestors of our people.

"These ancestors of ours became jealous of their brother Joseph and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him

and saved him from all his troubles. Pharaoh was the king of Egypt then. He liked Joseph and respected him because of the wisdom God gave him. Pharaoh gave Joseph the job of being a governor of Egypt. He even let him rule over all the people in Pharaoh's house.