Acts 8 tells us about the ministry of Philip, one of “the Seven” who was chosen to help serve the Greek-speaking Jewish widows who otherwise were being neglected. But like Stephen, who was also one of “the Seven,” we don’t get much detail about how that particular ministry went for Philip. We presume it went well, but what we are told is that having been authorized for ministry by the apostles, Philip, again like Stephen, ends up being known for some other types of ministry. Philip goes off to Samaria and shares the gospel there and is widely received. And then God sends him to share the gospel with a certain Ethiopian official who was making the long journey back to his country from a recent visit to Jerusalem. Again, he is well received.

Philip is known then for his evangelistic work. First to large numbers of Samaritans, and then to one solitary Ethiopian. In both cases, once his ministry is complete and his message is received, Philip disappears from the scene and moves on. He is a gifted evangelist. He shares the good news about Jesus and people find him convincing. They believe his message.

Last week we studied Philip’s effectiveness in Samaria. Today we turn our attention to this interesting story of Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian Eunuch. As we reflect on these episodes, we would do well to ask ourselves what it is we think Luke is wanting us to see. There are lots of interesting things to notice and to consider. But what is the larger point? Why does Luke tell us these stories?

Once again we remember the words of the resurrected Jesus at the beginning of Acts, which Luke seems to have communicated to his readers as something of an outline for how the book of Acts unfolds. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,” Jesus told his disciples. “And you will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Acts 8 in and of itself gives us that whole picture. As the early church began to face persecution in Jerusalem, they were “scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1) where they “went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Philip himself went to Samaria, and now, Luke wants us to see, Philip was able to preach the word “to the end of the earth.”

What’s the message? Maybe it’s this: the triune God will not be stopped in his mission of bringing salvation to the ends of the earth. And it will not only be proclaimed; it will also be productive. It will not always be in precisely the way we might expect it to be. As the Apostle Paul himself observed, this gospel “is bearing fruit and increasing” in the whole world (Col 1:6). He said that even as he himself languished in prison (Col 4:3).

Today let’s see how it happened, how the good news about Jesus bore fruit as Philip encounters a certain man from Ethiopia. How does God’s mission in the world go forward? It goes forward because of the worship of God, the proclamation of Jesus, and the movement of the Spirit.

The Worship of God

First, the mission of God goes forward in the world because of the worship of God. That is to say, the good news about Jesus provides the answer to the deepest question and concern of all humanity. We are searching for worship, looking for the right God to worship. And the good news about Jesus will be most effective when it is heard as the answer to that question.

An Ethiopian

When Philip obeyed the Lord’s directions and headed out, travelling “the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza,” he had no idea why the Lord had directed him to take this trip. But in verse 27, Luke says that Philip “rose and went” and then he said, “Look!”[1]  An Ethiopian man. What a surprise! This is not exactly someone Philip probably thought he would see.

Ethiopia in Luke’s day referred to the land just to the south of Egypt, in modern-day Sudan. There was considerable interest in these lands, and in these people, who had distinct ethnic and racial features. They were not viewed with suspicion, animosity, or racial prejudice, but rather with fascination and even admiration. Luke’s readers would have considered the sight of an Ethiopian to be a positive encounter.[2] Their distinctive appearance was part of the fascination, but so also was the location of their homeland, so far away. In Homer’s Odyssey, he describes the Ethiopians as “the farthermost of men.[3] For Luke’s original readers, the Ethiopians were the people who lived at the ends of the earth.

An Ethiopian Official

But this wasn’t just any ordinary Ethiopian either. He was “a eunuch.”

Luke doesn’t make much of the fact that this man was a eunuch, but it does fit with what we know about the ancient near east. The 5th-century BC historian, Herodotus, tells us that eastern countries viewed eunuchs “as being specially trustworthy in every way.”[4]

Obviously, this man was. He had charge of all the queen of Ethiopia’s treasure.

Luke also calls him “a court official,” which might sound rather mundane to our ears. But the word this translates describes “one who is powerful.”[5] So Luke has come upon a very interesting and powerful person indeed. What in the world was he doing up here in these parts?

A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Luke tells us. “He had come to Jerusalem to worship.”

Now this, too, is a surprise. Why had he come all this way to worship? Because this man who from one perspective had a whole lot going for him was in search for something else to satisfy him.

Humans are worshipping creatures, and even when they don’t consciously or even unconsciously worship any kind of god they are all involved in the adoring pursuit of something greater than themselves.[6]

That must have been true for this man. The only question was if he had found what he was looking for while he was in Jerusalem. Had he found there anything greater than himself or at least anything greater than what he could find back home?

That’s where our story today begins, but before we proceed any further we should take note that the good news about Jesus which Philip is about to explain to this Ethiopian man must have been the answer to what this Ethiopian was seeking. It was the reason he had come to Jerusalem. It was all about worship.

But by “worship” we aren’t talking about a subject that is there for those who might be interested in that sort of thing. The post-Enlightenment attempt is to relegate “worship” to the optional category of religion. Today the question “Are you religious?” is sort of like asking if someone has any particular interest in football or fine wine. But in Luke’s day, one’s religion, indeed one’s worship, was concretely “bound up with ordinary life, culture, and politics.”[7] Whether or not a person today considers themselves “religious” is irrelevant. What the Ethiopian was seeking was something that everyone is seeking. That is why he had come to Jerusalem.

The Proclamation of Jesus

And now he was returning. Whatever had happened to him in Jerusalem, he still had questions. Fortunately, Philip had answers. As Philip interacts with this Ethiopian official, he proclaims Jesus to him. “He told him the good news about Jesus,” verse 35 says. Don’t miss this point; this is how God’s mission advances in the world. It is always through the proclamation of Jesus.

The Worship of Israel’s God

The circumstances that surround the proclamation of Jesus are always different, but the missional task is to see how “the good news about Jesus” is relevant to every single person.

We’ve already observed that this particular man had a lot going for him, but he was still in search for something more. He was looking for something, something he was missing. The fact that he had come to Jerusalem to worship suggests to us that he was intrigued by something about Israel and Israel’s God. One commentator helps us think about how unusual this would have been. An Ethiopian. A eunuch. An elite member of his society. But also on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and someone intrigued by Israel’s worship and sacred texts. “He was certainly a rare bird.”[8]

One interesting thing to note here is that this person would have found out quite soon enough that, because he was a eunuch, he would have been barred from ever becoming a full member of Israel’s community. Deuteronomy 23:1 was quite clear: a eunuch could not “enter the assembly of the LORD.” He who was a powerful person in his own country would be on the outside looking in when it comes to his relationship with Israel.

Reading Isaiah

So, it is intriguing to me to consider what it was about Israel, Israel’s God, and Israel’s worship that had caught his attention. A clue might be found in the passage he was reading. We are told “he was reading in the prophet Isaiah,” and in verse 32 we are told that at the time Philip approached him, he was reading in Isaiah 53.

But I imagine that this was not this Ethiopian’s first read-through of Isaiah. Just three chapters after Isaiah 53, we read this:

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” (Isa 56:3-5)

It seems quite possible that the reason this Ethiopian eunuch had been so drawn to Israel was because, although he at present could not become a member of the “assembly,” of the people of God, here in Israel’s own scripture there was the promise that that would all be reversed. And the promise was of something far, far greater than the eunuch could find anywhere else. The promise was better than compensation for what his physical situation had deprived him of. And the promise was eternal in nature, good news that would never end.

So, I imagine this eunuch is now going back through Isaiah, trying to figure out not so much what exactly this promise is but how in fact it might all come to pass. And he was now looking quite intensely at this passage in Isaiah 53, which is cited for us here in Acts 8:32-33.

“Do you understand what you are reading?” asks Philip.

“How can I, unless someone guides me?” the Ethiopian answers. And the question he wants answered is, “Who is the prophet talking about here? Who is this one who is led to the slaughter like a sheep?”

Now as Christians, it’s tempting to say, “Well, duh!” Clearly this is about Jesus! And, of course, it is about Jesus. But we should also understand why so many Jews have not been convinced. By the way, you may have heard that Isaiah 53 is a “Forbidden Chapter” in the Jewish synagogues, but that is just not true.[9] There are plenty of good reasons why so many Jews reject the Christian reading of Isaiah 53.

The Interpretive Key

Now of course we Christians do think Isaiah 53 is about Jesus. Philip starts with this passage and begins to tell the Ethiopian “the good news about Jesus.” Jesus is the interpretive key to unlocking and understanding the whole of Israel’s story and scriptures.

What is this good news, then, about Jesus? Wouldn’t you like to have heard Philip’s exposition? Wouldn’t you like to know how he explained to the Ethiopian the substitutionary atonement for sinners that Jesus accomplished on the cross?

And perhaps he did do that. But perhaps that also was not the main point. Perhaps the main point, working from the irony of the selected verses that Luke cites for us, is how a “tragic, unjust death, which looked as if it had resulted in all being lost, in fact resulted in everything being gained.”[10]

The “good news about Jesus,” then, would not simply be a concession to bad news. Sometimes Christian explanation of the good news comes across that way. “You’re a sinner. Life is terrible. You’re going to die. The world is going to hell. But Jesus died for you so that you can escape the sinking ship and go to heaven when you’re dead. Just believe in Jesus and hang on until then and hope for the best in this otherwise miserable life.”

Whatever kernels of truth might be found in that kind of “gospel” explanation, it simply does not fit how this story goes. And that’s because that way of telling the gospel misses one more important point about how God’s mission advances.

The Movement of the Holy Spirit

What it misses is the completion of the trinitarian scope of the good news. It often leaves out the movement of the Holy Spirit.

The Ethiopian Eunuch Is Baptized

Although we don’t know much about what Philip said to the Ethiopian, how he told him the good news of Jesus, starting from that passage in Isaiah, we can see that Philip’s message was well received. We go from Philip’s teaching in verse 35 to the Ethiopian’s response in verse 36: “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” The story moves quickly. In the very next verse, Philip baptizes him. And that’s that.

A few observations are in order here.

First, you may notice there appears to be, in most modern English versions, a missing verse. The ESV goes from verse 36 to verse 38, noting that there are some ancient manuscripts that insert these words in-between: “And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he replied, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’” But most of our oldest and best manuscripts do not contain this material, and it is virtually certain that they were not part of what Luke originally wrote.[11]

It seems that Luke is also not so interested in telling us here how baptism is to be administered, so we can’t use this story to insist that the Bible urges spontaneous baptisms or that it hereby forbids the baptism of infants, or that the proper mode of baptism is by immersion. (We can have a proper debate about such things from other passages, perhaps. But if we want to argue that this story proves that baptism should be administered by immersion, we will have to adjust our practice still, since the text says that “both” Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and that they both then “came up out of the water.” As the Lutheran pastor R. C. H. Lenski quipped, “Total immersion if you prefer, but for both.”[12])

But the important point Luke seems to be making about this baptism of this Ethiopian eunuch is found in verse 36 when the eunuch says, “What prevents me from being baptized?” The word prevents is an important one, given its occurrence in a similar context in Acts 10:47. When “the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles,” Peter announces, “Can anyone withhold [same word] water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Peter rehearses this event again in chapter 11, saying that if God has given the same gift of the Holy Spirit to believing Gentiles, “who was I that I could stand in God’s way” (again, same word). Nothing can stand in God’s way. Nothing can stop the movement of God’s Holy Spirit when the good news about Jesus is proclaimed.

Philip the Evangelist Moves On

Even Philip the Evangelist is moved! As soon as the baptism was over, “the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.”

What does it mean that “the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away”? We might imagine that Philip vanished, that he was raptured, and this may well be so. But the text doesn’t require us to see it that way. The verb that is used here means “to take away quickly or forcefully,” and it doesn’t have to refer to some supernatural event. In Acts 23:10, we read of Paul being taking away by force (same verb) to prevent him from being killed.

The important point is not precisely how the Spirit moved Philip along but why he did so. Because Philip in chapter 8 is an evangelist. His job is to proclaim the good news and baptize those who believe that good news. And then his work is done. He moves on. Others will come and complete the work that he has started. As in Samaria, so here: the work of gospel ministry is a team effort.

He was moved by God at the beginning of the story. He is moved again here at the end.

The Ethiopian Eunuch Returned to Ethiopia

What about the Ethiopian? He saw Philip no more, we are told, not because Philip instantly vanished (though, again, he might have). The Greek text makes it plain that the reason the Ethiopian saw Philip no more was because he went on his way.[13] In other words, he didn’t go looking for Philip. Like two travelers who meet briefly at the airport during a layover but on their way in completely opposite directions, Philip is moved on northward until he comes to Caesarea. The Ethiopian continues his journey southward, back to his home country presumably.

We don’t know what happened to him. Several early church fathers say that he successfully evangelized his home country, but of this we cannot be certain. More certain is that Luke wants us to see in this story how God will not be stopped in advancing his mission in the world one way or the other. “The human leaders of Christianity in Jerusalem could only try to catch up with the plan of God, which was operating often apart from and quite beyond their control.”[14] This, then, is truly exciting stuff, this good news about Jesus. May we regain excitement and hope for how we might be swooped up in it together in our own day, in our own place.

The Joy of the Holy Spirit

The only detail we are told here is that as the Ethiopian returned home, he did so rejoicing. He had not been disappointed with his pilgrimage to Jerusalem after all. He had found what he was looking for, and it was all in the “good news about Jesus.”

So, he goes home rejoicing, no doubt the joy which filled his heart was the joy given by God’s Holy Spirit.[15]

If we are allowed to venture a guess on what happened to him next, we might say this. When he went back, he went back still as a hometown hero, a powerful figure that he already was there. But now that he is baptized, he is a new person, and he is now responsible to live out this new identity that he had been given in Christ. He would have to learn to use his power and authority in fresh ways. Rejoicing now, but cross-shaped realities and perhaps even humiliation lay ahead of him, as they do for all of us to this day.

Jesus himself had spoken about this kind of path, as one that not everyone would be able to receive. Some would be forced to go down very hard paths—Jesus calls them “eunuchs who have been so from birth,” while others will choose to go down them, those “who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:11-12).

Choosing to follow Christ means you and I are on a different path. Not everything is going to be easy. But “the good news about Jesus” is that nothing we lose along the way will be eternally lost. There is far, far more to be gained than any of us could ever imagine.

Let’s entrust ourselves to God as we receive this good news about Jesus. And then we’ll see where the Spirit moves us.

_____

[1] The Greek word is untranslated in the ESV.

[2] Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Ethiopian Eunuch,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 2:667.

[3] Homer, Odyssey, 1.24.

[4] R. J. A. Sheriffs, “Eunuch,” New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. D. R. W. Wood (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 347.

[5] Walter Grundmann, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964), 2:286.

[6] N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 36.

[7] Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 35.

[8] C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary, ed. J. A. Emerton, C. E. B. Cranfield, and G. N. Stanton (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 1:426.

[9] See Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, “Debunking The Isaiah 53 ‘Forbidden Chapter’ Conspiracy,” available online at www.jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/debunking-the-isaiah-53-forbidden-chapter-conspiracy.

[10] Darrell L. Bock, Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Robert W. Yarbrough and Robert H. Stein (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 344.

[11] Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2^nd ed. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), 315–16.

[12] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1934), 347.

[13] The Greek conjunction is gar.

[14] Ben Witherington, III (The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998], 301) says that there is no evidence of a first-century Ethiopian church.

[15] F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 178.