The Great Speech

Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7:1–53) is the longest discourse in Acts: a retelling of Israel’s sacred history from the call of Abraham, through Joseph and the descent into Egypt, to Moses and the wilderness, the tabernacle, and the building of the Temple under Solomon — which turns, at its climax, into a searing prophetic reproach of his hearers. This file follows the speech in its movement and shows how its three modes — historical recital, sermon, and indictment — work as one.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Protomartyr)

“Are These Things So?”

The high priest’s question — “Are these things so?” (Acts 7:1) — invites a plea, and Stephen answers not with a denial but with a history. The speech that follows (Acts 7:2–53) does not directly refute the charge of speaking against the Temple and the Law; it reframes the entire question by retelling the story of God’s dealings with Israel in such a way that the charge collapses and rebounds upon the accusers. It is the longest single speech in the book of Acts, and its form — a recital of salvation-history modulating into accusation — has its closest models in the historical psalms (Ps 78, 105, 106) and in Old Testament covenant-lawsuits (Barrett, Acts, ICC, 1994, 1:335–340; Fitzmyer, Acts, AB 31, 1998, 364–367).

The Patriarchs: Abraham and Joseph

Stephen begins where Israel’s story begins: “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran” (Acts 7:2). The opening note is already pointed: God’s glory appeared to Abraham outside the land and before there was any Temple — God meets His people on the move, in Mesopotamia, in Haran, in a land “not yet his to possess” (Acts 7:3–5). The speech traces the promise to Abraham, circumcision, and the twelve patriarchs (Acts 7:8). It then dwells at length on Joseph, sold by the patriarchs out of jealousy yet raised by God to save them — “the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him” (Acts 7:9). The Joseph story introduces a theme that will govern the whole speech: the one whom God sends to save is rejected by his own brothers, and yet becomes their deliverer (Acts 7:9–16). The pattern is set early and quietly, to detonate at the end.

Moses: The Deliverer Rejected

The largest single block of the speech is given to Moses (Acts 7:17–43), and here the theme of the rejected deliverer becomes explicit and insistent. Moses, “mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7:22), comes to his brothers supposing “that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand” (Acts 7:25). When he intervenes between two of them, the wrongdoer thrusts him aside: “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?” (Acts 7:27, quoting Exod 2:14). Stephen drives the point home: “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ — this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer” (Acts 7:35). The very Moses whom the council accuses Stephen of dishonoring becomes, in Stephen’s mouth, the supreme type of the rejected savior — and Moses himself prophesies another: “God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers” (Acts 7:37, quoting Deut 18:15). Yet “our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt” (Acts 7:39), making the golden calf and offering “sacrifice to the idol” (Acts 7:41). The wilderness generation, the very recipients of “living oracles” (Acts 7:38), are shown as idolaters from the beginning — and Stephen cites Amos against them: God “gave them over to worship the host of heaven” (Acts 7:42–43, quoting Amos 5:25–27).

The Tabernacle and the Temple

From Moses the speech moves to the dwelling of God among His people — and here it engages the charge most directly. Stephen recalls “the tent of witness in the wilderness,” made “according to the pattern” Moses had seen (Acts 7:44), brought into the land under Joshua, kept until David, who “found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob” (Acts 7:45–46). “But it was Solomon who built a house for him” (Acts 7:47). Then comes the speech’s most famous and most contested sentence: “Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands (cheiropoiētois), as the prophet says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord… did not my hand make all these things?’” (Acts 7:48–50, quoting Isa 66:1–2). The word cheiropoiēton, “made with hands,” is the word the Greek Old Testament uses for idols — and to apply it to the Temple is a startling stroke (Barrett, Acts, ICC, 1:373–375; and see The Temple and the Law). The history of God’s dwelling, on Stephen’s telling, runs from the movable tent to the fixed house — and the prophet himself declares that no house can contain the Most High.

The Turn to Reproach

Here the recital breaks off and becomes indictment. Without transition Stephen rounds on the council: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered” (Acts 7:51–52). The whole foregoing history is now revealed as the prosecution’s brief: a people who rejected Joseph, rejected Moses, made the calf, persecuted the prophets — and have now, in their generation, betrayed and murdered the Christ to whom all those rejected deliverers pointed. The final word is the sharpest: “you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it” (Acts 7:53). The man accused of dishonoring the Law ends by accusing his judges of having received it and broken it. The speech is thus a single, mounting movement: historical recital that is all the while a sermon on the rejected savior, resolving into an indictment that names his hearers the latest and worst of the rejectors (Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts 17; NPNF I/11; Barrett, Acts, ICC, 1:384–387).

Defense, Sermon, and Indictment in One

The genius of the speech — and the reason it has provoked so much debate — is that it operates in three modes at once. As defense, it answers the charge of speaking against Moses and the Temple by showing Stephen’s profound reverence for Israel’s history and by turning the prophets’ own words against a Temple-theology that would bind God to a building. As sermon, it preaches Christ typologically through Joseph, Moses, and “the Righteous One,” the prophet like Moses whom the fathers foretold. As indictment, it convicts the council of standing in the line of those who always resisted the Spirit and killed God’s messengers. The three cannot be separated, and the response is immediate: the hearers are “enraged” and “ground their teeth at him” (Acts 7:54) — for they have understood that the prisoner has made them defendants. What follows is no longer trial but lynching (see The Vision of the Son of Man and The Stoning). The questions of where this speech came from and how it relates to the rest of Acts are taken up in The Historical Questions.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible — Exod 2:14; Deut 18:15; Ps 78; 105; 106; Isa 66:1–2; Amos 5:25–27; Acts 7:1–54. Cited by book chapter:verse.
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 15–17. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 11. (The structure and reproach of the speech.)
  • Barrett, C. K. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Vol. 1. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994. (Acts 7:1–53.)
  • Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Acts of the Apostles. Anchor Bible 31. New York: Doubleday, 1998. (The speech of Stephen.)
  • Simon, Marcel. St. Stephen and the Hellenists in the Primitive Church. London: Longmans, Green, 1958. (The theology of the speech.)