Acts 7:1-51 \/ 1-3 \u00a0<\/b>–\u00a0Then the high priest asked Stephen, \u201cAre these charges true?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
2\u00a0To this he replied: \u201cBrothers and fathers,\u00a0listen to me! The God of glory\u00a0appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.\u00a03\u00a0\u2018Leave your country and your people,\u2019 God said, \u2018and go to the land I will show you.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201c<\/span>Then the high priest asked Stephen, \u201cAre these charges true?\u201d<\/i>\u201d Just as the trial of Jesus was illegal and improper from the start, so was the trial of Stephen. A defendant had a right against self-incrimination yet the first question asked of Stephen was \u201cAre these charges true,\u201d thereby asking Stephen to incriminate himself.<\/p>\n Another breaking of their own rules is that the testimony would be by two or three first hand witnesses of the crime (Deuteronomy 17:6, Deuteronomy 19:15<\/b>) and those witnesses were to be thoroughly cross-examined (Deuteronomy 19:16-20<\/b>) to assure the truthfulness of the testimony of the witness.\u00a0 This is another right that Stephen was denied.\u00a0 His accusers were paid-for liars. \u00a0We see that these worried and jealous men were not interested in a fair trial, they were only interesting in rushing to a pre-determined judgement of their design.\u00a0 They wanted to get rid of this person who was causing people to see the evil in what they had done to Jesus and therefore these leaders were denying the people their Messiah that they longed for.\u00a0 This was all very evil.\u00a0 The Sanhedrin did not want the truth but instead wanted to kill anybody who was the purveyor of it.<\/p>\n \u201cTo this he replied: \u201cBrothers and fathers,\u00a0listen to me! The God of glory\u00a0appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.\u00a03\u00a0\u2018Leave your country and your people,\u2019 God said, \u2018and go to the land I will show you.\u2019<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 Stephen began his defense not of himself, but of the validity of Jesus as the Messiah.\u00a0 He was not concerned about the possible death sentence facing him.\u00a0 He did not back away from witnessing about Jesus.\u00a0 No, instead he rightly saw his situation as a God given opportunity to say to that court, its officials and the witnesses there the Truth of the Gospel.\u00a0 Stephen\u2019s life was given to the Gospel and his Savior Jesus and Stephen would not relent, would not soften the truth to save his own life.\u00a0 Truly a hero of the faith!<\/p>\n It is worthy to note that throughout most of Stephen\u2019s testimony he refers to father Abraham and the pillars of the faith as \u201cour father.\u201d\u00a0 In the belief of the Old Testament scriptures Stephen was rock solid. When referring to these righteous fathers of their ancestry, those used by God, he said they were \u201cour fathers.\u201d\u00a0 These were those who obeyed the call of God.\u00a0 Later on we will note the contrast when he refers to disobedient ancestors as \u201cyour ancestors. (V51<\/b>)\u201d\u00a0 Family, our eternal family in the faith also goes back to Abraham.\u00a0 We know that we are related to Abraham as his descendants in the faith of God.\u00a0 We know that Abraham was never obedient to any of the written law, as he lived before Moses received the Ten Commandments.\u00a0 Abraham heard the call of the Lord, had faith in Him, and obeyed Him.\u00a0 We are called just as Abraham was called.\u00a0 God calls us and those who walk in the faith believe in God and then, out of love for Him, obey Him.\u00a0 Our faith ancestry of followers of God begins not with the Apostles, but with Abraham.\u00a0 Praise God!\u00a0 Now knowing that we should understand how we should love and stand with Israel, they are the ancestors who faithfully safeguarded the Holy Words of God. \u00a0They have been those chosen by God to do so.\u00a0 Praise God for the beauty and awesome wonder of the implementation of His plan of Salvation for the Jew and also for us.\u00a0 Praise God!\u00a0 He is so amazing!\u00a0 Praise God!<\/p>\n Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acts 7:1-51 \/ 1-3 \u00a0–\u00a0Then the high priest asked Stephen, \u201cAre these charges true?\u201d 2\u00a0To this he replied: \u201cBrothers and fathers,\u00a0listen to me! The God of glory\u00a0appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.\u00a03\u00a0\u2018Leave your country and your people,\u2019 God said, \u2018and go to the land I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[82,1872,94,17],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-acts","tag-deuteronomy","tag-micah","tag-psalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1481,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}