What does acts 7 1-8 mean?

Answer 1

"But the high priest said: “Are these things so?” He said: “Men, brothers and fathers, hear. The God of glory appeared to our forefather Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, before he took up residence in Haran, and he said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your relatives and come on into the land I shall show you.’ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and took up residence in Haran. And from there, after his father died, [God] caused him to change his residence to this land in which you now dwell."
And yet he did not give him any inheritable possession in it, no, not a footbreadth; but he promised to give it to him as a possession, and after him to his seed, while as yet he had no child. Moreover, God spoke to this effect, that his seed would be alien residents in a foreign land and [the people] would enslave them and afflict [them] for four hundred years. ‘And that nation for which they will slave I shall judge,’ God said, ‘and after these things they will come out and will render sacred service to me in this place. He also gave him a covenant of circumcision; and thus he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve family heads."

-->Acts 7:1-8

Men had falsely accused Stephen of blaspheming God, the temple in Jerusalem, and Moses, among other things. If it was proved true, he would be under the penalty of death. Stephen started his speech/answer with these first eight verses talking about the patriarch Abraham and points out that he didn't have any building or special place to go to for worshiping.

The rest of the chapter includes the rest of Stephen's answer and the Sanhedrin's reaction. His whole point was that, no in fact, he wasn't being blasphemous; he was pointing out that the Jews around him were "mired in reverence for that lovely building in Jerusalem and for the customs and traditions that had grown up around the Mosaic Law [and they] had missed the whole purpose behind the Law and the temple! Indirectly, Stephen’s speech raised the vital question: Do you not honor the Law and the temple best by obeying [God]?" -Bearing Through Witness About God's Kingdom, 2010