GOSPEL MEDITATION # 28
Acts 8:26-40
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
- Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or chant the Jesus Prayer.
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
- The “deacon” Philip serves as an evangelist, now is sent by the Holy Spirit of God away to a desert place, near Gaza, to the road that leads south to Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
- He comes across an official of the government of Ethiopia (Cush in the O.T., also Nubia centuries before) that is ruled by a Candace (Kandake) the mother of the king. He is returning from Jerusalem (probably a God-fearer like Cornelius the Roman centurion-Acts 10).
- The Eunuch is in a chariot, covered wagon type, and is reading the scroll of Isaiah, in fact, reading the passage about the suffering servant of Israel, Isaiah chapter 53.
- Philip shows him the passage is about Jesus, which would go to the heart of the Gospel message. The eunuch believes.
- Quite apparently part of Philip’s message had to do with baptism, something Jesus has commanded to be done as in Matthew 28:19-20.
- As a eunuch he would not have been able even to enter the Temple (see Dt.23:1) but as Isaiah 56:3-5 shows, nothing prevents the eunuch from being baptized.
- Verse 37, as found in the KJV, is not original to Acts and rightfully does not appear in the ESV as also most others.
- Philip and the eunuch go down into the water and Philip baptizes him. Here we see that others than apostles baptize.
- In a way which we do not understand, the Spirit carries Philip away, and the eunuch continues home rejoicing—thus Luke showing a genuine conversion.
16. Philip continues to his home-Caesarea. (Acts 21:8-9.)