The high priest, probably Caiaphas (he served in this capacity until A.D. 36; see 4:6), the Sanhedrin's presiding officer, asks Stephen whether the charges of blasphemy are true.

Stephen begins with respect (brothers and fathers; compare 22:1), yet commandingly: listen to me! (2:22; 3:22-23/Deut 18:15-16, 19). He describes the call of Abraham, how the God of glory appeared to him in Mesopotamia (the land of the Chaldeans [Acts 7:4], the southern region of modern Iraq). God's glory, pointing to his transcendence, begins and ends this episode (7:55; compare Lk 2:14; 19:38). God's appearance outside Palestine and apart from a tabernacle (contrast Ex 40:34-38) and temple (contrast Ezek 43:5) makes it clear that God's presence is not tied exclusively to a particular land or building. God called Abraham to participate in the same independence. He was to leave land and family and come to a land God would show him. Free of all human roots, he became totally dependent on God to provide his future, his inheritance.

Abraham obeyed in steps, proceeding with his immediate family to Haran, a flourishing city in the upper Euphrates valley at the intersection of important trade routes. After his father Terah's death, God "resettled" (NIV sent) him in Canaan, a location that Stephen relates directly to his audience (Acts 7:4). He may be indicating that their very presence in the land shows the fulfillment of the promise (Marshall 1980:135), or he may be relating Abraham's pilgrimage to the experience of the Hellenistic Jews, some of whom came from Mesopotamia (2:9).

There are both comparison and contrast here, for Stephen holds up Abraham as a model of faith in God's promise alone over against religious effort that finds security in the tangible. And today we too must be willing to say no to our dependence on religious effort and say yes to the God who calls us to follow him alone.

Abraham experienced fulfillment deferred. God did not give him the land, not even so much as could be paced off in one stride (see Deut 2:5). And he did not give him a child during the natural childbearing years. This was not so much to show that the covenantal relationship with God was to be cherished more than the promised inheritance (contra Longenecker 1981:340), though that may have been a part of it. Rather, God wanted to demonstrate to his covenant people that the tangible fulfillment of the promise is all God's doing, whether in the miraculous birth of an heir or in the miraculous deliverance from Egypt, which led to entry into the Promised Land.

Stephen now recounts how God in his mercy bolstered Abraham's faith in three ways. First, God frequently repeated his covenant promise (Gen 12:7; 13:15; 15:2, 18; 17:8; 24:7). Stephen alludes to the covenant renewal in the giving of the covenant of circumcision (Acts 7:5/Gen 17:8). In it God again promised to give the land to Abraham and to his seed for a possession. The NIV's he and his descendants . . . would possess the land is not accurate here; it also obscures the emphasis on God's active role in giving the land as a possession to Abraham and his seed.

Second, God gave a prophecy concerning what would happen to Abraham's family before they fully occupied the land. Quoting Genesis 15:13-14 (Acts 7:6-7), Stephen reports God's foretelling of sojourn, slavery and suffering during four hundred years in another country. But God also foretold deliverance: he would "judge" (NIV punish) that nation, and the nation would come out and worship God in this place, the land. This promise does not shift the focus from inheriting a land to being delivered out of Egypt and gaining the opportunity to worship (as Lake and Cadbury 1979:72). It continues the theme that God will provide the inheritance through a deliverance and highlights the purpose of the inheritance: to have a place where one may worship God. True worship becomes inextricably bound up with living in a covenant relationship with God and knowing the fulfillment of his promises (compare Lk 1:73-75).

Finally, there was an outward covenant sign: circumcision (Acts 7:8; Gen 17:1-16, especially vv. 9-12). Though circumcision was practiced at puberty, if not infancy, by most of the nations that had dealings with Israel in patriarchal times, only for Israel did it have covenantal significance (Bruce 1988:135). It was to be administered to one's sons, the next generation. Interestingly enough, this covenant sign was given before the birth of Isaac. Again, it was all God's doing. God took the initiative. Abraham simply had to receive the gift of the covenant sign and obediently apply it when the son of promise was born.

Stephen does not let us miss the covenant dynamic at work here. After mentioning the gift of the covenant of circumcision, he continues with what necessarily followed, introduced by "and so" (kai houtos; NIV does not render houtos): And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. This was not just a matter of covenant obedience (as Kistemaker 1990:243). It was a matter of God's covenant faithfulness. Stephen is no blasphemer. He approves of God's covenant ways.

And today we have the Scriptures, in which we may read God's covenant promises over and over again (Rom 15:4). We have biblical prophecy, which tells us enough of coming events to support our faith (Lk 21; Acts 1:6-7; Rev). We have a covenant sign, baptism, which we may take to ourselves (and as some believe, to our children) as a mark of God's covenant of grace (Col 2:9-12).

Stephen now lays the groundwork for the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the nation's sojourn in another country (Acts 7:6). In the process he continues to unfold the dynamics of God's covenant relationship with his people. Further, there may be some typological parallels drawn to Stephen as the representative Christian of Jewish heritage opposed by his countrymen (see Richard 1979 on the polemical character of the Joseph episode). In jealousy the patriarchs sold their brother Joseph as a slave into Egypt (v. 9; Gen 37:11, 28). God was with him (see Gen 39:2-3, 21, 23) and rescued him from all his troubles (see Reuben's failed rescue plans, Gen 37:21-22 LXX, and the brothers' articulation of guilt, 42:21 LXX). Christians too face trouble (Acts 11:19; 14:22; 20:23).

God gave Joseph "grace and wisdom before Pharaoh" so that he was given responsibility over Egypt and all Pharaoh's palace. Contrary to the NIV rendering of 7:10—which must change the Greek word order in order to clearly present its chosen meaning for charis (NIV goodwill)—the words "grace" and "wisdom" should be taken together as indicating "divinely inspired skill in the reading of dreams" (Haenchen 1971:279; Gen 41:37-40).

Similarly, Stephen himself, full of wisdom and grace, has been made responsible for food distribution for God's people (Acts 6:3, 5, 8). Though Joseph's brothers and Stephen's opponents meant their attacks for evil, God is not thwarted, for he can turn it to good. In Joseph's case, God protected his chosen preserver of the covenant people, preparing the way for the survival of generations.

Famine struck Canaan as well as Egypt. Jacob and his family were on the point of starvation (heurisko [NIV could not find, 7:11] in the negative imperfect points to "lasting inability"—Kistemaker 1990:249), and the covenant promises were on the verge of dying out in the fourth and fifth generations. Then they gained relief by sending to Egypt for food (see Gen 41:54, 57; 42:2, 5). Not only did Joseph preserve them alive, but on the second visit he revealed himself to them and effected a reconciliation (Acts 7:13; Gen 45:1-16).

Stephen concludes this portion of Israel's history with the note that Joseph sent for Jacob and the whole family, seventy-five souls, and so they settled in Egypt (Acts 7:14). He tells us of the patriarchs' deaths and their burial in Shechem in Canaan. So God's purposes—both his eternal covenant with Abraham to build a great nation and his prophecy that there would be a sojourn in another country—were being accomplished. Though trouble and exile from the land of promise seem to put the fulfillment of the promise even further away, the patriarchs had faith. Their final instructions were to have their bones buried in the land. And this their sons did in hope.

The constants of a covenant relationship, now as then, are God's word of promise and his powerful working to fulfill it, his presence in every place, and the necessity of obedient faith to lay hold of the promise.