Episode 83 - The Acts Series: Ready With Your Testimony (Acts 7:1-16)

Stephen is on trial, the room is tense, and he chooses a surprising strategy: he doesn’t start with self-defense. We read Acts 7:1–16 out loud and slow down to notice how Stephen builds a rock-solid foundation by retelling Israel’s story, beginning with Abraham. That opening isn’t filler. It’s a deliberate move to meet religious leaders on shared ground, lower defenses, and show that faith in Jesus is not a random break from the Torah but the fulfillment of God’s long-running promise.

From Abraham’s call and covenant to the meaning of “sojourner,” we talk through why Stephen’s “big overview” matters for anyone who feels lost in the Old Testament. Then the story turns toward Joseph, and we sit with a hard truth: God is with his people, and they still face real troubles. The patriarchs don’t get edited into heroes without flaws, and that “prickles and all” honesty is one reason the Bible feels like history instead of propaganda. We also name the ache of unanswered questions when suffering hits close to home, and why the Word gives us something firm to hold even when we don’t get explanations.

We end where the conversation gets intensely practical: Stephen was ready because Scripture was already stored in him. We challenge ourselves to practice our testimony, stay in the Word, and start memorizing verses for the exact places we struggle, including Isaiah 41:10 for fear and worry. If you want a Bible study podcast that blends careful reading, real life, and doable next steps, pull up a seat with us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs courage, and leave a review telling us what verse you’re memorizing next.

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Transcript

Be Ready To Share Faith

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Your testimony's gotta be ready. When you're given an opportunity to give it, practice it ahead of time. Be ready to say, this happened and this happened and this happened and this is why we can do this, and this is why we why we pray this way, and this is the plan of salvation, and that sort of thing. So Stephen was ready.

Welcome And Reading Acts 7

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hi everybody, my name is Cheryl, and you are listening to Healing Strongs Around the Word. It's me and a group of friends sitting around the table who love the Lord and we love digging deep into his word. Each episode, you'll hear us reading a Bible passage out loud. And we stop and start and discuss what we're learning from it right then and there. Today we're reading from Acts chapter 7, verses 1 through 16. So grab your coffee, grab your Bible, and join us around the Word.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Acts chapter 7, verse 1. And the high priest said, Are these things so? And Stephen said, Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you. Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land to which you are now living. Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. And God spoke to this effect that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.

Why Stephen Starts With Abraham

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Oh, that's a good right there. I mean, so he's starting off with uh well, think about his audience, right? Who's his audience that he's talking to right now?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

This Sadducees and Pharisees? Yeah. The rulers of the rulers.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah, high-ranking officials of the church, so to speak. Right. So I'm thinking they probably know some of the story already. Oh, I do think he's going back to the beginning again, going with Abraham.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

I think somehow he knows he's gonna preach his last sermon. I mean, he's it it he's starting from the beginning, assuming that many in his audience, we don't know how many people were there. I don't know why he just references brothers and fathers, but um, there's lots of people there, probably. And he knows that they may not all know the story. Right. Everything was just passed down by word of mouth then, mostly.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

I think it's also too because um, you know, Jesus being um a new new rabbi in town, um, in their minds, um, who had already been crucified. I wonder if this is his way of saying, hey, guys, I grew up with our our forefathers. We believe that too. This is now fulfillment of what they were promised.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So you you believe it was a reminder. Yes. Yeah, like going back historically and saying, remember, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

And that Jesus was actually fulfilling that all all those things.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

He likes common ground. Yeah, he's it's almost like he's saying, We've had common ground. We I believe the same thing you do about them. I have the same reverence for these people for Abraham, for and we'll read on Moses and stuff, but but I just want you to know we haven't thrown them aside. Right. You know, we still respect them, they are our forefathers. And that is what we're doing. This is building on that. That's what he taught as well. Plus, it shows that he's not just some random guy that's just suddenly f following some dude that has nothing to do with their beliefs, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:08

So maybe Stephen is trying to say we're on the same team.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Right.

unknown 4:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

I think a lot of people at the time, a lot of Jewish people did think that this man was preaching something other than the Torah, the law. And he was saying no. He he believed it and was a part of it as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Well, and when someone's telling you, uh whenever you meet someone and you're talking to them, don't you find your guard goes down when you find that you have common ground with them? Something universal that you both agree upon.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

So I don't know if he's trying to bring their guard down a little bit, you know, to then lead into Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

All right.

Sojourners And Covenant Promises

SPEAKER_00 4:51

So Acts 7, verse 6. And God spoke to this effect that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others who would enslave them and afflict them 400 years.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

For those that don't know what a sojourner is, what is a sojourner? My my my version says stranger. Yeah, strangers.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah. Living in another land, basically, for 400 years, and there's another number. But I will judge the nation that they serve, said God. And after that they shall come out and worship me in this place. And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Again, this is all stuff that they should know. Definitely. They don't, I don't think they doubt any of this. This they come from the twelve tribes, they know which tribe they come from. They know about the eighth day and circumcision. They know all of this is their customs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

So maybe Stephen is just letting them know he knows all the things that they know. Right. Yeah. I believe in the same God.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

We're cut from the same cloth, guys.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, that's that feels right.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah.

Joseph And God In Troubles

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Okay, because verse 9, because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace. Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit. On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family. After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, 75 and all. That's pretty key. They started with 75 when they got there.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

And then later they're going to be like thousands.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Okay. Keep going. Then Jacob went down to Egypt where he and our ancestors died. Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamar at Shechem for a certain sum of money. I saw you circling something earlier, uh, Angie.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Well, yeah, I did. I was just noticing that, you know, everybody's got plenty of problems. Um, you know, the scripture back in it was when you were reading verse 10 referencing Joseph, but God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. Uh lots of troubles. Wow, did he have lots of troubles? So everything doesn't go smoothly. And in fact, most things don't go smoothly for all these characters. If you think back to what Abraham went through, if you think about what Moses went through, Jacob, what he went through.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son. Yeah. His promised his promised son. And he didn't have a son. Yeah. For the longest time. Doing a little sidestepping there with Hagar. And then he would lie.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

We have right several recordings of him lying.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

That's why I believe the the scripture is true. Because if you're trying to write your patriarchs and your ancestors as amazing people, you're certainly not going to tell their faults. Right. Think about it. The Egyptians, whenever we're looking at hieroglyphics or hieroglyphs of their their famous kings, they're rarely ever saying how the king failed or the king did a terrible job, or this king lied and did this. Right. It's only my king won, or my king did this, or they conquered everybody. Blot out the bad stuff. It's about a lot of propaganda.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

This is the truth because it really happened. Yeah. God's word is true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And it comes with troubles, prickles and all. Yeah. Prickles and all. Yeah. And our and our shortcomings, he still can do what he's still going to achieve his purposes. Yeah. Even when we mess up. So in spite of us, it's good. Yeah. Now that we can mess up and he's still going to, he can still use us.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

So

God Works Through Human Mess

SPEAKER_02 9:31

I think what I think is interesting here is, or first of all, if you're a person that doesn't know much of the history of the Old Testament, like you haven't really had a chance to read Genesis, Exodus, and all of those. Leviticus, Deuteronomy. All of it. Yeah. You're getting the biggest cliff notes version right here in Stephen's sermon. Right. It is the biggest overview of some of the key players. Yes, he's not talking about Noah. He doesn't go that far back, but he's talking about Abraham because they believe Abraham was the father of all nations. That was the first covenant. Yes, that was the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant. Yes. So he knows that that's important to these priests, these uh religious leaders is Abraham. So that's I feel like that's why he's probably going to him and then he's going forward from there. Right. Because Abraham and all of his kids and and the promises and all that stuff. So if you're a listener that doesn't really know Abraham's story, or you don't know Joseph, these are great. And by the way, we have some Bible plans on the U Version Bible app, one on Joseph in particular, uh, starting off in Genesis uh chapter 30. That's when we really see uh the major portion of his story come on the scene. And you might want to check it out. It's called Trusting God's Plan in the Waiting. And like you're saying earlier, Angie, uh Joseph himself suffered a ton. Yeah, like a ton. He didn't have like a great life for the first part. It was very hard. His brothers sold him. Yeah, we were just having this discussion before we started recording about not quite always understanding why some people have to like go through suffering. Uh, we lost someone in the Healing Strong family recently, and it's just we're all scratching our head and we don't have the answers. This is one of those people that you're like, if you're talking to God, you'd be like, Well, you we need to keep this one around. This one's doing amazing stuff right now, right? So, why is this one not with us anymore? Right. You know, so and we don't always have answers. That's why we're sitting around the table trying to learn from him and understand.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Exactly. Yeah. And Joseph, before that, and like his whole family, we talk about that at the beginning of that study. Um, Jacob and being married to the yeah, the all the women, yeah. He had like four wives, they argued, they you know, fought over having babies, and then he had a favorite. So yeah, God's not afraid of a mess.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Right. So if you feel like you've got a mess, you are in the right place. You're in the right place at this table. Right. Yeah, we all have messes. We have misses. We're messy, we're just humans. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

But I love learning from these people because they had messes, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

You know, so I love that and we can learn from mistakes just as well as we can learn from the good things they did, actually, because help us, Lord, not to make those same mistakes and to see what caused them to do these things so that we can avoid some things, hopefully.

A Trial That Becomes A Sermon

SPEAKER_02 12:38

So, again, uh back to what is happening here, Stephen is just telling this overview to these important people that he's he's basically being put on trial right now for his life. And he's got one big audience. Uh and what is he doing? Instead of saying, Hey, you got it wrong, I should be let go, he's not defending himself, he's talking about the foundation.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, this is the foundation, and the promise was that through Abraham, the lives of all of them would be saved. And that's what he's going to come to at the end, I guess. Jesus was fulfilling that purpose.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah. So he's really, from an oratory perspective, he's really laying a great foundation right now, something that they can't they can't come back at him and say, I disagree with what you're saying. Right. They absolutely believe what he's talking about right now. Right. Right now, at this point.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Right. You know, that

Memorizing Scripture For Real Life

SPEAKER_01 13:39

reminds me, I'm I'm so impressed, I guess, that Stephen just all of a sudden, they're like they gather him and like put him under arrest. Uh, I guess that's what it looks like to me. And he knows his history so well that he can just start spouting it off under that kind of pressure. Um, that that encourages me. I mean, you gotta be ready. Your testimony's gotta be ready when you're given an opportunity to to give it, practice it ahead of time. Be ready to say, this happened and this happened, and this happened, and this is why we can do this, and this is why we why we pray this way, and this is the plan of salvation, and that sort of thing. So Stephen was ready to go, and he had the Holy Spirit, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

His face literally looked like an angel. Right. And they were looking intently at him, so he had their ear. Yes, he had their ear, but he had the anointing on him to speak boldly.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

And Jesus told them that that uh don't be worried when you get arrested and when you're being held to trial, because I will give you the words to say. So very well could have been the Holy Spirit speaking through Stephen as well. I mean, he was ready as our advocate prepared, but the Holy Spirit is doing that, he's preparing our hearts.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

But Stephen had to have uh that foundation in his heart. He, I bet he was in the Torah, reading the word, binding it to his heart, like it says, so that in the time of need, he could recite it back. Right. And that's what we all have to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

That's why it's so important to be in your word. Like David said, I'm hiding your word in my heart so that I might not sin against you. Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

And that I'm ready to memorize it, engraft it, put it in there because you can pull it out just like you pull out your credit card or whatever, but you pull it out when you need it, but you also it's your encouragement when you have a thought that's opposite of what God would say. Yes. Then what do you do spiritually ready? That's exactly what Jesus did when he was tempted in the desert when the the devil was coming at him. He just threw the the scripture right back at the devil.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Because the enemy twists it.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

He he knows it too. And so that's why we need to know it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like what they say with the bank tellers they know a real $100 bill because they've seen so many of the real $100 bill. Yeah. If they don't study the fake ones, right. They get they study the real ones. So I know this one isn't real because it doesn't have that thing on it. Yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Well, Steven's the real deal, and we get to see more about how he's laying the foundation when he starts talking about Moses and then later Jesus in just our next episode. So stay tuned. We'll see what happens with Stephen next. I hope you were encouraged to find a Bible verse and start memorizing it today. Or if you have an area in your life that you know that you need some help from the Lord on, then look for Bible verses that are about that topic and start memorizing them. For me especially, I sometimes struggle with fear. And my church was uh having a conference where one time they gave us these little booklets about engrafting the word into your heart. So basically memorizing the word. And they had them broken out into different topics. And one of them was fear, fear of man, worry, all these different kinds of topics. And so there are some verses that I have been trying to commit to memory about fear. Like, let's go with Isaiah 41.10. Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Boom, mic drop. Yes. I have to keep saying it over and over again until it gets into my heart, and then I believe it. And that's what I hope you will do today. So go look for the verses that you need to help you with the problem that you had and get that word in your heart. And thank you so much for joining us for Healing Strong's Around the Word. I hope you were encouraged to get in your word, get some friends around the table, and start discussing

Closing And Community Invitation

SPEAKER_02 17:57

it. And if you like what we're doing at Healing Strong, check out our website. Go look, see our mission, check out all the stuff about our community groups, and see if there's a group near you that you can get involved with. That's it for this episode. But remember, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.