Hi @heartathome , @DownMoreThanUp , @Appleblossom , @ENKELI , @tyme , @AlwaysMyself , @MissGremlin , @REDLINEZ750 ,
Acts 6 (and then Acts 7 following - it's long but I think the chapters belong together)
- Disciples continue to increase in number.
- Dispute between believers - You're neglecting the Greek speaking widows when you distribute the food.
- The Twelve - we need to continue preaching the word of God.
- Seven men appointed to look over the distribution of food - of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom.
- Apostles laid hands on them.
- Word of God continued to spread.
- Disciples, including from the priests, added to their number.
- Stephen, one the seven, was performing great wonders and signs.
- People oppose and then set up false witnesses against Stephen.
- Stephen seized and taken to the Sanhedrin.
- Stephen's face like the face of an angel.
Acts 7
- Stephen answers the Sanhedrin:
- Starts with God calling Abraham to leave his country and relatives.
- God promises to give land to Abraham and descendants while Abraham still childless.
- Prophecy about Abraham's descendants suffering in a foreign country for 400 years and then that country being judged.
- Covenant of circumcision established.
- Abraham circumcises Isaac.
- Isaac becomes father of Jacob.
- Jacob fathers twelve patriarchs.
- Patriarchs sell Joseph into Egypt.
- God rescues Joseph and Pharaoh appoints him ruler over Egypt.
- Famine.
- Jacob's sons in Canaan go to Egypt for food.
- Second visit Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers.
- Jacob and all his descendants move to Egypt.
- Jacob's descendants multiply in Egypt.
- Eventually Egyptian leader who does not know Joseph mistreats the Israelites.
- Moses born about this time.
- Pharaoh's daughter rescues Moses - brings him up as own son.
- Moses educated in Egyptian wisdom.
- Moses at age 40 visits his own people, the Israelites. Attacks an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite.
- Moses thinks his people would understand that God was giving them deliverance through him.
- They don't understand. The death of the Egyptian is known. Moses flees.
- Moses has two sons in Midian.
- 40 years later - the burning bush - God calls Moses back to Egypt.
- Signs and wonders in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for 40 years.
- Moses prophesies God will raise a prophet like him from among their descendants.
- Ancestors unwilling to obey Moses.
- They make a golden calf to worship.
- God not happy with Israelite nation - exile beyond Babylon.
- Tabernacle to worship God in. Showed Moses the pattern - Joshua brought it when they dispossessed the nations - still there in days of David.
- Solomon built a house for God.
- "stiff-necked people . . . You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also."
- Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? Those who foretold the Messiah. And now you have betrayed the Messiah also.
- The Sanhedrin enraged.
- Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
- Stephen is stoned.
- Stephen calls out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"
- Stephen's last words, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!"
I have included almost all of Stephen's speech in Acts 7. It's a good summary of Abraham's calling and how his descendants came to be in Egypt and beyond.
Something that jumped out at me was that Moses before the exile thought he had a role in helping the Israelites. It came true 40 years later in a way I think Moses could not have imagined possible (including the plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea).
