Acts 7


Acts 7 is the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the address of Stephen before the Sanhedrin and his execution outside Jerusalem, and introduces Saul. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek and is divided into 60 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
This verse has been studied extensively by theologians because the speech of Stephen seems to contradict Genesis:

Stephen's death (7:54–60)

The reaction of the audience to Stephen's speech reached a dramatic high point in verse 54 and heightened even
further Stephen's description of his vision in verses 55–56. Stephen's vision of God's glory has a continuity with his speech on Abraham and Moses, but now extends to the open
heaven with the figure of Jesus himself positioned 'at the right hand of God' denoting the highest
place of honor and confirming Stephen's claim that the rejected savior is in fact God's 'Righteous One'. Stephen as 'the prototype for Christian martyrdom' dies 'calling on the name
of the Lord' expecting the exalted Jesus to receive his spirit and then cries out 'in a loud voice' for forgiveness that echoes the prayer of.

Verse 55

The Pulpit Commentary notes Stephen's words in Acts 7:59 as a 'striking acknowledgment of the divinity of Christ: only he who gave the spirit could receive it back again'.

Verse 60

Alexander MacLaren noted that this verse contains 'the only narrative in the New Testament of a Christian martyrdom or death'.