Acts 8: 26 - 40
Just Go, Will Ya?
26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” 34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” 37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” 38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
A statement we have all heard most likely from our parents is, ‘"I hope your child turns out just like you" You were told to do something and of course you want to know the reason why. What is the answer you get from the parents? - Because I told you so.?
So, I guess I inherited the gift of annoying people by asking questions that pricked nerves. Here are a few of my search for answers that did not get the response I had hoped for;
. At the Police academy I frustrated the instructor by asking ‘why do I have to tell a street mime I arrest that he has the right to remain silent? Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections? Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways? Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour? At the crime scene if a smurf gets chocked what color does it turn?’ What do they call male meter maids? How can they arrest someone for being 'legally drunk'? If it's legal, why is there a problem? If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing? Why aren't lawyers sworn in during trials?
At the airport I asked if the black box always survives a crash why they don’t make the whole plane out of the black box metal. Do the security guards at airports have to go through airport security when they get to work?
. At the grocery I seem to irritate the workers by asking ‘why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons. Why is there an expiration date on my sour cream container? Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with? Why do they call the little candy bars "fun sizes". Wouldn't it be more fun to eat a big one? How can something be "new" and "improved"? if it's new, what was it improving on? If parents say, "Never take candy from strangers" then why do we celebrate Halloween?
At my bank I asked the teller, ‘Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM? How did a fool and his money get together in the first place? If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?
I think my philosophy professor had to go get some intense counseling when I kept on asking why question to him such as,’ If all is not lost, where is it? If man evolved from monkeys, how come we still have monkeys? Can you daydream at night? If pro and con are opposites, wouldn't the opposite of progress be congress? Can a short person "talk down" to a taller person? If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME stuff, why didn't he just buy dinner? Why do people say "heads up" when you should duck? If one man says, "it was an uphill battle," and another says, "it went downhill from there," how could they both be having trouble? Why is it "a penny for your thoughts", but you "put your two cents in"? If quitters never win, why do they tell us to quit while we're ahead? If there's an exception to every rule, is there an exception to that rule?
Today we are going to look at a man whom the Lord picked to go and do something. Philip did not put up any ‘why’ questions. He didn’t need to be told ‘go now, will ya.’. He obeyed and went as instructed without knowing the reasons on what he was to do once he got there.
In our last study our Holy God dealt with a whole area in Samaria now He calls Philip elsewhere to where there is a lonely searching soul. It was to a man, and a very important one, who had been visiting Jerusalem but was still unsatisfied and confused. He held a high position under the queen of ‘Ethiopia’ (Nubia), and was at the minimum a God-fearer, a man who respected the Jewish Law and worshipped in the local synagogue along with the Jews. He may even have been a proselyte or a true-born Nubian Jew. If he was a God-fearer this would be the first known overt example of a Gentile coming to Christ, an indication by God of what was to come.
This is not just to be seen as an interesting account of an unusual conversion. It is an integral part of the depiction of the spreading of the Good News as a result of the persecution. It is made clear that, through Philip, God, having worked through him to the north of Jerusalem among Samaritans, now purposed through him to bring the Good News to North Africa, to the south of Jerusalem (‘to Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth’
As the Ethiopian high official travelled he was reading the book of Isaiah. To possess such a document demonstrated both how devout, and how wealthy and influential he was. And his heart was taken up with the description of the Servant of God that he found described there (Isaiah 53), a description which he found very puzzling, so that he looked to God for help. But there was no one who could explain it to him. Until from the desert a man came, almost like an angel from Heaven. Luke undoubtedly wishes us to see here that the Temple and all the glory of Jerusalem had been able to accomplish nothing, while light and truth came to him from the wilderness, just as Stephen had said. And as he went back to Nubia his thoughts were now not on the Temple at Jerusalem, but on the Messiah to Whom he had been introduced in the wilderness.
26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert.
The ‘angel of the Lord’ tells Philip that he must rise and go south towards ancient Gaza. It was on the road from Jerusalem to Egypt. And on the way which led there, in a place where the land tended to be deserted, he would learn what he must do. The description ‘the bit which is desert’ probably indicated a well know place on that road at the time. That the man was to be found there indicated pictorially the thirst that possessed his soul. The man’s soul needed ‘water’ and that his salvation would come from the wilderness, as had the living oracles and Tabernacle of old.
27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.
Obediently Philip arose and went. And there in the place described he found a large and richly laden caravan travelling along the road, with, included within it, a splendid chariot or covered ox wagon, carrying someone who was clearly of great importance. He was to learn that the man came from Nubia, where he had overall control of the ‘Ethiopian’ treasury on behalf of the queen. He was her Minister of Finance. And he had visited Jerusalem in order to worship there.
Many such God-fearers sought at some time to make the trip to Jerusalem where they could be at the very heart of the religion that they respected and adhered to. To many it would be the trip of a lifetime, and they would remember their first glorious view of the Temple, the richly garbed High Priest, and the high emotional and religious atmosphere for ever. But it had probably not fulfilled all his expectations. Being the influential person he was he would probably have had personal contact with the hierarchy and may well have been shocked by their worldliness and political ambitions, having dreamed of meeting men of deep spirituality. He had had such hopes. He might well have been disillusioned. Thus as he left there he had in his heart a yearning for something more, and hungry of soul he was reading the Scriptures. Little did he realize that soon there would approach him a refugee fleeing from the High Priest, but who was the representative of the Angel of the Lord, and he would get to the root of his dilemma.
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”
It was quite normal for solitary travelers to join themselves up with a travelling caravan for safety reasons, and so Philip’s approach would neither be resented nor suspected. Others would be walking with the caravan. But Philip knew that God had sent him here for a purpose, and sensing the prompting of the Spirit, he recognized that he had to approach the man himself. Thus he attached himself to his cart and ran alongside.
30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
The man was following the usual practice of reading aloud. And when Philip gathered that he was reading a well known passage in the prophet Isaiah he asked him whether he understood what he was reading. This was clearly intended to give the impression that he could help. Such a high personage would not expect some stranger to come up just for a chat.
31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.
When the man saw that he was a Jew, and assumed from what he had said that he was also a teacher in the Scriptures who was offering assistance, he expressed his own helplessness and his need for a guide. And he asked Philip to join him in his chariot and explain it to him.
32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”
The passage he was reading came from Isaiah 53, the main chapter about the Suffering Servant. In context the picture expressed here is of One spoken of as being led like a sacrificial lamb to His death, having been wrongly judged, but silent like a sheep before his shearers in the face of his humiliation, with the result that His life was taken from the earth. And in the context this both refers back to His sufferings on behalf of ‘us’ (53.4-5) and His having laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53.6), and forward to His being made a guilt offering for sin (Isaiah 53.10).
34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”
The eunuch was neither the first nor the last to be puzzled by these verses. But he was astute enough to recognize that the words were about some individual. But who? That was what he wanted to know. Was it the prophet himself, or was it speaking of someone else?
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
Then Philip took the chapter he had been reading and applied it to The Lamb of God our Lord Jesus Christ, and his explanation on this chapter is stated to have been only the ‘beginning’. We do not know how long his explanation went on for, but he had plenty of time in which to tell him of the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, and to draw attention to how it fulfilled the Scriptures, applying it all to Isaiah 53 and other Old Testament Scriptures. The man was on a long and wearisome journey and Philip, having been sent here by God, had all the time in the world.
36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
The eunuch accepts Philip’s explanation, given by the power of the Spirit, as convincing and seeing an abundant spring of water with its surrounding pond he asks why, in that case, he might not be baptized since Philip’s explanation would have included reference to baptism.
37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” 38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.
We run into some controversy here. Does an Acts 8 verse 37 belong in the Bible? Why is this passage regarding the Ethiopian eunuch in some translations including the KJV [ King James Version] and not in others such as the NIV or [Nearly Inspired Version – I mean - New International Version]?
As you know we just finished studying about Simon Magus. He was responsible of being one of the founders of Gnosticism and the sect of the Simonians.
The disciples of this godless movement were called Gnostics. They were the forces at work "ripping" verses right out of the text to suit their devious purposes: This is why the Gnostics would have ripped verse 37 out of the circulated scrolls it out of the text, simply because they did not believe that God, being good, could dwell in a sinful, corrupted human body. They did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God only a good human being, plus that He only became Christ at His birth without pre-existence..
Gnostics undeniably had an extremely distorted view of God, beliefs that permeated their writings and distorted who our Lord and Savior Jesus Was and Is. Yet corruption of an existing text was not their primary modus operandi, rather they commonly wrote new works (so-called "lost" gospels) that they tried to pass off as Scriptures. You see TV specials sometimes doing a show regarding these ‘lost’ gospels. These were not subtle alterations; rather they were typically blatant in expressing their distorted views. If an existing work was to be altered by Gnostics, they would have consistently altered the entire account to bring it in line with their world (and otherworld) view. Simply put, it's a spurious claim that Gnostics made alterations to the text by removing a few words or passages in some isolated places throughout Scriptures - as if this would alter the message of the whole.
Acts 8:37 is another testimony that Jesus Is the Son of God. By the Ethiopian Eunuch using the word "Is" (present tense in Greek) instead of "was" he was stating a fact that Jesus is alive. His resurrection was doubted by many but here the Scripture is stating that He is alive plus it is another scriptural testimony of Jesus being the Son of God, a title of Divinity. This is why the Gnostics would have ripped it out of the text.
These envisioned Gnostic perpetrators, professedly having the power to snip text at will and have others accept and use their alterations, were obviously blind and deceived. They left in the beginning of the book of Acts, a passage that clearly states that Jesus is alive. Would not removal of a clear passage make more sense that clipping out one that hinges on the tense of a verb?
39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Knowing that God had specifically sent him here, and seeing and hearing the man’s response, Philip could see no objection. So the conveyance was brought to a halt, and climbing down they went into the water and Philip baptized the eunuch.
The baptism completed it is made clear here that Philip was seen as having fully accomplished his mission. He was ‘snatched away’ by the Spirit. The verb is used in the New Testament to signify ‘take by force’ The snatching away follows the pattern which happened to Ezekiel might be seen as supported by the unusual phrase ‘Spirit of the Lord’ with its Old Testament connotations, rather than just the term ‘Holy Spirit’.
Philip now moved on to the third phase of his ministry. He had established the work of God among the Samaritans; he had converted a man who would evangelize Ethiopia, now he moved back into Judaea and evangelized among the Jews, preaching the Gospel ‘to all the cities’ from Azotus (formerly Ashdod) along the coast to Caesarea. These cities would include Jamnia, Joppa, and Apollonia. On arrival at Caesarea he probably made his base there, for that was where he was later found as an evangelist as we learn in chapter 21.8. It was of mixed Jewish and Gentile population and the seat of Roman government, and presented great opportunities for evangelism.
