Introduction
If you were here last week you saw that Christ set this whole thing in motion and one of the last things he told his followers was, ‘you guys need to go into the whole world and tell people about this salvation, this good news that is now available, and that it would spread from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, the surrounding country-side and even to the ends of the earth.’ In spite of all this talk about going all these different places, at this point, the church is looking pretty homogenous. Everybody is Jewish, it is the same characters, basically, from the gospels. They have barely gone more than a stone’s throw away from the temple at this point, almost every scene has been right there next to it. But, as we saw last week, all that changes in Acts 7. A new character, Stephen, who is more of a Greek Jew, comes onto the scene. He is put in charge of this food distribution program, his ministry grows and expands and before he knows it, he is on trial. We saw his fiery speech last week about how God is not a God who is bound to the temple or, for that matter, any geographical region. Holy ground is where God is choosing to act at any given time. His speech was so powerful, rebuking ideas that had grown up around their tradition. They did not like what they were hearing, and they got so angry that they stopped in the middle of the trial, dragged him out of the city, and executed him right there on the spot., That is where we pick up the scene in Acts 8.
And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.
We read this guy Saul, who would later change his name to Paul, was right there for this whole thing holding the coats for the people who went to kill Stephen. As we said last week, he is right on the cusp of becoming a major player in the book of Acts. We will study his story next week. And it says,
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
This great persecution breaks out. It scattered, probably not the whole church, because we see that there is still a presence there along with the apostles. It is possible that this might have been more targeted at the Greek Jews, they were more easily identifiable, Stephen was one of them. This might have been some of that racism or prejudice coming through. So finally, all these different groups that were enemies of Christianity, Stephen’s speech and the growth of the movement was enough to bring them all together in a united front against this common enemy and go after them. They viewed this threat as so dangerous that they had to put aside their differences and go after that. It’s like if someone wants to listen to country music, no matter what kind of music you like everybody is going to unite to take down this threat that is more serious than any single faction within that alliance. No matter how much they hated each other, this had to go. Notice though, it says that this persecution broke out against the church of Jerusalem and they were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. What Luke is giving us here is a geographical check point. Think about where we have seen this language before. It was in Acts 1:8 where Jesus says,
Acts 1:8--You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.
You have the exact same words. They were in Jerusalem and now they are in Judea and Samaria. The Holy Spirit has come upon them, they were his witnesses in Jerusalem (chapters 2-7) and now they are moving into all of Judea and Samaria. Luke told us this outline upfront and now he is giving us literary markers along the way. They tell us that he is moving on into a new phase. We are gearing up after this for a journey to the remotest part of the earth. Well it says,
Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.
They begin having these raids on their house church meetings. Imagine sitting at HC and all of a sudden, a group of men burst through the door and they start dragging men and women out and off to prison. He says later not only did he imprison them, but he beat them and cast votes to have them killed. He views himself as a murderer and a blasphemer as a result of this phase in his life, later when he converted to Christianity, and realized how wrong he was. Saul vaults to this prominent role as head of this Jewish Inquisition, tracking down and stamping out this ‘heretical cult’ and they felt like they were doing God’s will the whole time. Things just got a lot tougher for the early church. Things weren’t that good when their leaders were warned and flogged, but now this has trickled down and no one is really safe at this time. This could have looked pretty bad, at the time when all this went down. Think about it; Stephen is dead, people they knew are being randomly seized and taken to jail, beaten (men and women), now a lot of them have fled for the hills, running from this armed unit led by Saul of Tarsus. Things are hard.
This will happen from time to time in our Christian walk. It’s pretty easy to follow God when we are in Acts 2, when there is a sense of awe, when there is favor with all the people, when it seems like nothing can go wrong. It’s pretty easy to follow the Lord at that point, it’s easy to serve your brothers and sisters, it’s easy to be patient with the people around you. But when things like this come up; there were probably some people at this point who decided “never mind” and were no longer interested in this ‘cult.’ They probably turned on them when they saw that this was going to be hard, when they experienced this persecution. This is a danger. But we see here that God was working this for good. God wanted them to go out into Judea and Samaria and it almost seems like they were reluctant to do that. God actually used this to send them out into the next phase of his plan. This must have been pretty frustrating for God’s enemy (Satan). He got Christ killed and realized later that was exactly what God wanted him to do, and then he energized this persecution and realized it was exactly what God wanted to do to begin with. So, he is just playing right into God’s hands.
We have promises like this in the bible. When things get hard, you can run, you can quit, but if you stick it out you’ll have a promise from God that he works all things for good for those who love him and for those who are called according to his purpose. For those who stick with God, no matter what trial comes up in your life, God wants to use that for good and that’s exactly what he does here. He took something that could have been really bad, but it turns out to be one of the best things that ever happened to the church in Jerusalem. They might have been happy to hang out where they were for a whole lot longer. We need to resolve that even if things are good now, a time is coming or may already be here, when your life is going to get a lot harder. It’s not going to be easy; you’re going to catch flack, things aren’t going to feel good, it’s going to start to encroach on other areas of your life. You’re going to have to decide at that point; am I just going to undo my decision to follow God? You could make up some flimsy excuse as to why you are following God and not suffer at all for it, or are you willing to stick in there and be faithful and see: How is God going to work this for good? It says there were a lot people who were faithful.
Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.
Kind of like scattering seed out into the countryside, they go out there and they start telling the good news to anyone they run into. Luke goes on to tell us an example of one such individual,
Philip and the Samaritans
Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there.
Who was Philip? There was an apostle named Philip, but this wasn’t him because it says that the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. This Philip is one of the seven men (down to six since the death of Stephen) that were selected to oversee that food distribution plan in the city of Jerusalem. Just like Stephen, Philip was not just a busboy. This guy was a pretty powerful preacher. He later on gained a nickname “Philip the evangelist” and we are going to see why in this story right here.
It says he went down to a city in Samaria, why would he go to Samaria? If you are familiar with the history of this time you know that Samaritans and Jews did not get along at all. They did not like each other, they had hostilities going back a long way, about 700 years by this time. The northern part of the country had been conquered by Assyria. At that time the Assyrians brought in other nations and deported some Jews. The Jews who were left intermarried and as far as the people from Jerusalem were concerned, they became half-breeds and, in their opinion, an abomination. Here is a typical comment, the Jews talking to Jesus,
John 8:48 – The Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
That is about as highly as they thought of Samaritans, those were basically synonymous with one another. They had been on different sides of wars, attacking each other. The Jews had destroyed the Samaritan temple about 150 years before this. This was not friendly, and they lived right next to each other. If you think about the current Jewish/Palestinian conflict, it isn’t quite that bad as that but there are a lot of similarities to the hatred that these two groups had for one another. A lot of hatred and racism that went both ways. So, Philip ends up in Samaria, I’m not sure why, maybe he thought it was a good place to hide out from Saul. Maybe he was just running and that was where he ended up as he ran from the inquisitors. But he ends up in Samaria and while he is there, he decides to proclaim Christ, the Messiah, the savior. And it says,
When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said.
They saw that this guy was different, and they began to listen to him, paying close attention to what he was teaching.
With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city.
There was physical healing as well as some spiritual healing (casting out of demons). It seems like this city is embracing the message of Christianity, the message of Christ in much the same way as the early church swept through Jerusalem. Everyone was into this and everyone was believing as a result of this. But as we saw in Jerusalem, the religious leaders who were there already, they didn’t like this too much. As we will see in this city in Samaria, there is a religious presence in Samaria that is going to respond with the same bitterness and jealousy that both church in Jerusalem and Christ had received.
Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great,
He was some sort of a magician, some sort of Shaman. It’s hard to tell exactly what, but he practiced sorcery. He was a celebrity. He amazed all the people and boasted that he was someone great.
and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is the divine power known as the Great Power.”
That’s pretty high praise. You can see where he would feel pretty hurt when all of a sudden this praise dries up and they all focus their attention on this new guy in town, Phillip with all of his “magic” that apparently was better than his magic, as far as Simon could tell.
They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Men and women were both undergoing this ritual of water baptism. When Simon sees this, he decides to get on board as well,
Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
You can tell he is dumbfounded by this guy. It’s almost like he is studying his “spells” or something like that. He has a magic lens on this whole thing, almost like he is trying to imitate him. It really bothers him; this new guy has come along and he is better than him. He is just astonished by the signs and wonders.
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.
Word gets back to Jerusalem and they decide to send in their two biggest guns, Peter and John. They cross enemy lines and into Samaria to find out what is going on in this city. And the reason they sent them, it tells us right here,
When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
This is pretty weird. If you have read the rest of the New Testament, you’ll see that this is different. Something is not quite right here. Everybody is believing, everybody is getting water baptism, and no one has got the Holy Spirt. It’s like there was some sort of a block. They had to call in these guys from Jerusalem to come in a figure out what is going on here.
Two Stage Conversion?
Why the delay? There is this delay between when they believed and when they received the Holy Spirt. Some people would read this and would say, “well two stage conversations are normal, this is the way it should be.’ It’s tricky when you are reading a narrative because it just tells you what happened, it doesn’t tell you what’s supposed to happen. A lot of time it doesn’t interpret what happened, it just narrates. It is kind of left up to us to interpret this narrative. Some would say two stage conversions are normal. Theologians that are kind of a catholic persuasion would say that you are baptized at one point and then later on, some kind of representative who descended spiritually from Peter himself has the power to impart the Spirit to you. Others who are more of a Pentecostal influence would argue that you have your initial conversion and then later there is a point when you actually receive the Holy Spirit through spirit baptism like we talked about in Acts 2.
The problem with these perspectives is that there is a lot of explicit teaching that teaches just the opposite. It’s not like you believe and then some time later you receive the Holy Spirit, but it is supposed to happen at the same time. Think about Acts 2,
Acts 2:38 – Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
He just says, ‘you do this, you get that.’
Rom 8:9b – And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
Paul lays it out really clearly. Again, if you don’t have the Spirit you are not a Christian, you are not converted, nothing has happened. And if you belong to Christ, you have the Spirit of Christ.
Eph 1:13b-14a – And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee…
The Spirit is the guarantee, it is what God gives us at the moment we become Christians; the moment we turn and place our faith in Christ alone for our salvation, that we forsake any other means of gaining merit before God and we say, “God I need a handout, I need your mercy.”
I don’t think we can take this view here that two stage conversions are normal, these are just a few verses, there is a lot of other weight in this direction, but many other examples. Other people will say, ‘this wasn’t really a two stage conversion, maybe they didn’t really believe at first, maybe they didn’t believe correctly and Peter and John had to come explain it to them, maybe they got it at first but that they got later was just a further experience of it.’ But again, that’s difficult to see, you read this passage and it says they believed his message about Christ and the kingdom of God. This is remotely possible, but I think, pretty unlikely.
The Jews and the Samaritans
I think we have to come up with another explanation here. The explanation that this was an abnormal occurrence, that the reason for this is a pretty serious one, and the reason for this occurrence was actually racism. Let me explain that point. Like I have already explained, Jews and Samaritans hated each other, and they hated each other for a long. What had been happening for 700 years at this point is that they had each been running their own separate versions of Judaism, like there was a giant iron curtain between the two. The Samaritans had their own version, the Jews had their own versions, they had their own temples and did their own things. They justified their hatred of each other theologically, like religions often do. You can see a typical example of an interaction here, this is from the ministry of Christ,
Luke 9:52—He sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village. But the people of the village did not welcome Jesus. When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, “Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?”
You would have bet the early church would have used this as a reason to hate the Samaritans, for turning away Christ. They didn’t practice any hospitality and turned him away. You can see the disciples had their hand on the trigger at all times. That seemed to be the solution to the problem, that the city needed to be a crater. It’s pretty bad. You can see the hatred here. The danger at this point is that the church is going to start in Samaria, and you are going to have the exact same situation, two tracks of Christianity not meeting together at any point. They will just start their own Samaritan church and it will be fine. There is a real threat to the unity of the body of Christ.
What if the apostles went to witness to these cities? What do you think would have happened? Do you think the Samaritans would have listened to anything they had to say? They turned them away last time they tried to show up in one of these towns. It would have been hard for them to gain a hearing. It’s not even clear that the Jerusalem church would have wanted to do that anyways, they would have just found reasons to go anywhere else besides Samaria because of that underlying prejudice. But the fact that Philip was sent made it a totally different story. Philip could kind of relate to them, he too had just been rejected by Jerusalem (although for different reasons), he had the outcast thing going on, he was more of a Greek Jew, he was able to get a hearing with them and they saw the power of Christ and they began to believe in the message of Christ.
And yet, what if they had received the Spirit though Philip? What if they had received the Spirit just like Acts 2? Again, there is that real danger that the churches are never going to get together. You also have the concern that the people back in Jerusalem aren’t going to believe what happened. As we see in Acts 10, Peter himself goes to the first non-Jewish convert and they don’t even believe Peter. He has to argue his case for about 25 verses before they finally believe that the Gentiles can be Christians too. You don’t get much more reliable than Peter at this point, do you think they are going to believe Philip? They might have even turned on him. This was a dangerous situation. God was acting both in the interests of reaching out to people who were outsiders and preserving the unity of the church. This whole phase in the book of Acts, this is a transitional period where the gospel is breaking through cultural barriers, it’s an initial special circumstance. I think we have to argue that God did something different here and he had a very specific reason for doing that. God can work however he wants, who are we to tell him what he is not allowed to do. I like how this guy says it,
[A]t this turning-point in the mission something else was required in addition to the ordinary baptism of the converts. It had to be demonstrated to the Samaritans [and I think to the Jerusalem Jews] beyond any shadow of doubt that they had really become members of the church, in fellowship with the original “pillars” [they were not second class]. … An unprecedented situation demanded quite exceptional methods’
Geoffrey Lampe in The Seal of the Spirit, as quoted in John Stott, The Message of Acts, 158
I think that is right on and fits best with the teaching of the rest of the Bible. Another thing we have to keep in mind here is this whole idea of Peter and the ‘keys to the Kingdom.’ Peter had a special role that was given to him by Christ. Christ describes this in Matthew 16,
Matt 16:18-- I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven
Peter means ‘little rock,’ and when Jesus says rock, he means ‘big rock’ probably referring to himself. So, there is something in the building of the church where Peter has a significant role. He is holding the keys and has to unlock doors at certain times. This is what Jesus was talking about, that Peter was the official apostolic representative trained by Christ himself to verify and validate the expansion of the gospel into different areas at key times. They didn’t have their new Testament written down, none of it had been written at this point. There had to be some way to ensure purity of doctrine and Peter was that guy. He was kind of like the mayor cutting the ribbon at the big ceremony. Peter was the guy who was the official representative who needed to be there at certain times. That is what, I think, is going on here.
To sum up this little argument, God sent Peter and John to confirm that (1) the true gospel had gone to the Samaritans; eyewitness testimony (two witnesses) and (2) to combat the latent racism and to preserve the unity of the church that was really in danger at this point, and (3) we have to remember that he sent them in only this one particular instance. There is no record that they were sent to any of the rest of the Samaritan cities or really anywhere else so that they could receive the Holy Spirit. This is really a unique instance.
So, the people who had believed had finally received the Holy Spirit, their conversion is completed, but apparently Simon hadn’t. Simon is observing this whole thing.
Pseudo-Conversion
When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
He’s like, ‘how much money would it take for me to get that ability right there.’ He is kind of a wheeler-dealer. He didn’t want the Holy Spirit, he just wanted the ability to cast that spell on people, to impart the Holy Spirit to them. He figured, it’s probably a pretty good investment, he would reclaim a lot of his fame, that’s how the apostles were getting all of their fame, apparently. He could probably make his money back in no time. He is offering them money for this ability.
Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God.
Peter says, ‘Go to hell with your money.’ Buy the Holy Spirit? What? What is starting to come to light here is that Simon was never really a part of this. It was a surface level thing. Peter makes a couple of interesting points, for one, eternal life cannot be purchased, it is not something that can be sold to the highest bidder. There is actually a term for this now, the term is ‘simony’ which comes from this passage right here, which means to try and buy an office in the church. Eternal life cannot be purchased, it isn’t for sale, it is a gift. He is trying to buy a gift! That is the thing about gifts, they are given freely. They are not given to people who pay for them. That is called a purchase. He completely misunderstood the whole message and teaching of grace, thinking that he can somehow, by his deeds or money, could buy his way into the kingdom of God. Peter says that this is a matter of the heart, and that his heart is not right before God. This is a deeply inward and personal matter. He thinks he can earn his way into his presence. Peter says, ‘You have no idea how messed up you are and how perfect God is, that you really need a hand out and that alone is what can get you into the presence of God and can enable you to receive the gift of eternal life.’ He says,
Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
Not that God won’t forgive him, but perhaps, ‘I really wonder if you are even willing to pray this prayer,’ the chances of that are slim. What Simon really needed is the forgiveness of God, and that is really what is going to make you right before God. Peter can see right through him. He can see the bitterness that was oozing out of this guy. It’s not clear who he was bitter towards, maybe it was towards Philip for his initial entry into the city and taking away his glory. Maybe he is bitter towards the apostles who came along with something even greater, maybe he is bitter toward God because he expected that things were going to be one way and it turns out that it isn’t about building his own kingdom, but it is about building the kingdom of God and his true heart is being exposed for everyone to see. Peter says, ‘It’s so sad! Why can’t you just turn to God and receive his grace and the freedom that comes with that?’
Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
He won’t even pray. This guy wanted the power of God, but he didn’t really want any kind of a personal relationship with God. Simon’s big problem here was pseudo conversion. Sometimes the bible tells about people’s conversions from God’s point of view, but we can’t really see people’s hearts so sometimes it narrates things just from the perspective that we can see, what they said and what they did. It’s possible for people to say the words and yet, really, deep down they don’t believe this at all, they have some other agenda, they have some other reason they are saying this, they are pretending. A lot of times it is because there is something in this for them that they are trying to get out of this. When you follow God, he does say that your life will be blessed, it might not be in the way that you think it will, but it is the best possible life. There are people who come along who look like they believe but in reality, they don’t. Even the demons have belief.
James 2:19 – You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
The demons are terrified of God, they know God is more powerful than them, they are strict monotheists, they know there is no other God, and it makes them mad and bitter, really captive to the same pride as their leader. In the same passage James says, ‘let me show you my faith by what I do, by the works that faith produces in my life, not that I need those works to be saved.’ I get pretty worried when someone makes a profession of faith by then goes back to their life. You have to wonder what is going on there internally, whether they really got it to begin with. That was Simon’s problem, never really a believer to begin with and exposed for all to see.
And so, when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, and were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.
Isn’t that pretty cool. Remember that John was one of the guys that wanted to call down fire. He got a nickname, they called him one of the ‘sons of thunder,’ he and his brother. To see that much of a change to where they are stopping in every city and telling them the good news about Jesus Christ. Imagine flipping on the news and to see Jews and Palestinians hugging one another and weeping and loving one another, think of the kind of power it would take to overcome that kind of racial prejudice. That is the kind of power that is being unleased before our very eyes on the pages of the New Testament.
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
Philip may have been with them, heading back to Jerusalem, when all of a sudden he gets a call, a call from God,
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”
Philip’s services are needed elsewhere and is called to the middles of the desert. I don’t know if you have ever been on a desert road, not inside a comfortable air-conditioned car, that’s not an easy duty. It would have been pretty easy for Philip to ignore this call, let that one go to voicemail and maybe get it later. This was down toward Egypt which led down into Africa.
So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.
Candace was not a person’s name, but it was a dynastic name. It was the term for the queen mother who would perform certain services for the king. This guy was wealthy, he was a high ranking official in that court. It says that he was a eunuch. They needed certain people to work in the palace, he was spending a lot of time with the queen, with the women in the king’s royal court, and they didn’t want to have to worry about the royal bloodline being tainted by the hired hands. Castration was a requirement for this job so there was nothing to worry about. A pretty high price to pay, but a pretty good job to get.
This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship,
He might have been a Jew, he was apparently a fearer of the God of the Jews, enough that he made a long journey to Jerusalem to worship there. Eunuchs could only go so far into the temple; they couldn’t go as far as other people. They were not allowed to become full converts to Judaism which is probably just as well because full conversion would have required circumcision, and let’s face it, this guy has been through enough for one lifetime. It says,
and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet.
This guy was a spiritual seeker, he was pursuing God. It says that God is always looking over the earth to find those whose hearts are devoted to him. He sees people who are looking and, when possible, when he chooses to, he will send someone their way to give them some more insight because he knows that they are going to believe. They are primed and ready and eager. He would have been reading this out loud because back then everybody read out loud, you didn’t read to yourself.
The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
He tells Philip to walk up to this complete stranger, this complete royal procession and just hang out there. This is a pretty tall order, risky and uncomfortable.
Then Philip ran up to the chariot
Philip doesn’t just mosey up to the him, he sprints up to this chariot.
and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
He is reading Isaiah. This is one of the longest books in the Old Testament, it has some of the most detailed predictive prophecy about Jesus Christ, about the suffering he would undergo, about how he would die to pay for the sins of the whole world. As it turns out, this eunuch is going to be reading that passage. You have to think, what luck for Philip the evangelist to stumble upon this, this is like slow pitch softball for this guy. He is getting pretty excited at this point.
“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”
Who is this innocent man led like a sheep to the slaughter? The verse before says that, ‘he was pierced for our sins, he was crushed for our transgressions, that the sin of us all falls on him, but it is by his wounds that we are healed.’
The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”
He says he doesn’t understand. This question, ‘tell me please.’ This is the question of a seeker. This is the question of someone who is desperate to know the truth. I would be willing to bet that there are people right here, people in your life, people who live less than a few miles away from you that are just like the eunuch, that are seeking, that are desperate for answers, that are wondering, ‘why and I here? Who is God? What is God like? Why am I so lonely? What is my purpose in life? Why do I feel this constant sense of guilt? What is going to happen when I die? What is going to happen to my friend, my relative, my mom, my dad, that just died?’ They are desperate for answers, and they cry, they might not bring it up, we might need to be the one to bring this up to them, ask them what they are thinking about God. What I have found is that people are less likely to bring up spiritual conversations, but they love talking about it because they have so many questions. This question that the eunuch asked Philip, I wonder if there are people in your life, that if you just struck up a conversation they would be pretty eager to hear some answers to some keep questions that they have been thinking about for a long time.
Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
Philip is ready and he preaches Christ, the message of life, grace, truth, and hope. He says, ‘this is who Jesus was. He was that servant, he was perfect, he died and the sins of all of us fell upon him. He was crushed for our iniquities and yet by his wounds we are healed. He is the meaning of life, he is God and he is the way to heaven, the only way to eternal life.’
As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” …
Apparently, Philip had even explained baptism to him. He is so eager, the eunuch is really the one driving this whole thing, actually God is the one driving this whole thing. God brought Philip there while he was reading Isaiah, there are so many factors converging here because God love people, he loves people who are far away, people like this eunuch who lived on the outskirts of the known world at this point, as far as these people were concerned.
And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
Some of your bibles have vs 37, that ‘if you believe with all your heart you can be baptized.’ That was not in the earliest manuscripts which is why we skipped it. Although I am sure that Philip made pretty sure that this guy was a believer especially after the whole debacle with Simon the magician before baptizing him.
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
Hard to tell if that is some miraculous transportation, or if is just because the Spirit said, ‘let’s go now, can’t hang around.’ Regardless, he took off right after this even happened and the eunuch never saw Philip again. We never hear about the eunuch again in scripture. It is pretty interesting though; this may have had a bigger impact than we realize here. This might not have just been this one guy. He had a copy of the scriptures, at least the scroll of Isaiah. The church in Ethiopia can be traced back to very ancient times. It started no later than the 300s AD. A lot of people trace this all the way back to the Ethiopian eunuch who would have showed up with the scripture, with some power, some voice to tell people about what he found when he went to Jerusalem to meet God, and how he actually met God. It’s pretty cool that Philip may have been the guy who brought the gospel to this entire race after bringing the gospel to the entire Samaritan race.
Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
He just worked his way up the coast to a town called Caesarea where he ends up settling down and making his home there. Pay attention to that little detail, we will be back there in Acts 10 where the first non-Jew, the first Gentile, becomes a Christian. I don’t think it is coincidental that is in Philip’s hometown. You have to wonder if he had a hand in that as well.
Conclusions
Let’s summarize what we have found here.
First of all, sometimes God will send you into uncomfortable, even painful situations. Following God, sometimes it feels really good and sometimes it’s a lot harder. It doesn’t feel as good, hard things start to happen; persecution, painful things happening in the lives of your friends. In their case they had really painful things happening with friends of theirs. This whole thing with the Ethiopian eunuch, that was not a comfortable situation. To go out and to follow God to who knows where, because God knew he had something planned there. This is just a part of following God. This is really what will separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls. It will test us, and if we are willing to persevere it is going to purify us. We are going to see our bad motives come to the top. This is where we wrestle with those doubts that don’t really come up when things are fine. Sometimes this is just going to happen and if you are willing to stick it out, what you are going to see is that God promises that he will ‘work all things for good for those who love him and those who are called according to his purpose,’ and you will get to experience for yourself that sweet truth.
We see God use Philip to reach the first Samaritans and the first Ethiopian, and maybe he had a role in the first Gentile as well. Philip in and of himself was nothing special. He was appointed by the church to help widows get their food and within maybe a few short months all of a sudden, he is doing incredible things for God, things that I doubt he ever expected he was going to be able to do. He got sent somewhere and he tried to be faithful where he was at, and God started using him in all these amazing ways as a beacon of hope for a lot of people.
This is not just restricted to Philip. Philip is a great example of what it means to be Christ’s witness, but that promise that Christ made to his disciples, ‘you’ll be my witnesses’ that did not stop with them. It extended to Philip and Stephen, it extended to a lot of other people who weren’t there. It applies to us today as well. The question is, instead of decided to who is worthy and who is not worthy and what we feel like doing, are we willing to allow God to direct our lives, willing to allow God to direct our ministries? If we’re willing to be a faithful witness with who God places in our lives, I think you’ll be surprised at the incredible, exciting results that come as you begin to impact people’s lives for all of eternity.