Sharing God’s News with Others
Series: BREAKOUT – God on the Move through the Book of Acts
Brad Bailey – May 6, 2012
Intro
Wherever you are on your process of knowing God…there have been some significant people who helped you along the way. God was doing a work within you… and used others to impart and interpret.
Today God calls us to embrace that essential influence for others.
We are continuing our series “Breakout”… Last week… persecution led to being scattered… embracing the opportunities wherever we are. One leader, Phillip….went to Samaria…and we pick up with a rather dynamic encounter.
Acts 8:26-38 (NIV)
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road--the desert road--that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27 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. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." 30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. 31 "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 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. 33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth." 34 The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. 36 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?" 37 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
Prayer – God…thank you for what you did in leading this beautiful sharing of good news…life-giving news. As we consider your love for this man from Ethiopia… and your leading of Phillip… may we open our hearts to that love and that leading.
As we saw last week…persecution began to break out and the followers of Christ were scattered to the neighboring regions. Philip went north about 35 miles to the region of Samaria and promptly began to share his faith with the people in a city there. [1]
Phillip had no formal Bible college or seminary… he had learned the Scriptures just as many of you have…through the means provided by his local community.
What becomes clear is that Phillip doesn’t have special designation or ability …but rather he was open to being used by God.
He has already been responding to God… in contrast to our tendency to presume that if God called me to a great task… we would certainly do it. The truth is that responsiveness is something we develop. As we focus in on Philip we see a man that finds nothing more exciting than participating in what God is doing in redeeming the world.
Now Philip leads a spiritually thirsty man to life-giving water…. And we can learn a lot from this process.
He is engaged in some way by an angelic messenger.
And the word…is “Go…” - “Get up and go South” (8:26)
“Get up and go” is a word that God seems to often begin with.
It is a word we hear God speak to those who will join Him…
“…the Lord said to Abram Go forth from your country, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house to the land I will show you.”
Jesus said:
Matt 28.19 “Go and make disciples of all nations”
Mark 16.15 “Go into all the world and preach”
What we must recognize here is that…
1. God Is Leading If We Will Listen
God is always at work.
John 5:17 (NLT)
Jesus said, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”
The Father is always at work around us.
Our challenge lies in what we are focusing on. What are we listening for? What is my heart drawn to….tuned into?
A very telling story describes how…
A Native American and his friend were in downtown New York City, walking near Times Square in Manhattan. It was during the noon lunch hour and the streets were filled with people. Cars were honking their horns, taxicabs were squealing around corners, sirens were wailing, and the sounds of the city were almost deafening.
Suddenly, the Native American said, “I hear a cricket.”
His friend said, “What? You must be crazy. You couldn’t possibly hear a cricket in all of this noise!”
“No, I’m sure of it,” the Native American said. “I heard a cricket.”
“That’s crazy,” said the friend.
The Native American listened carefully for a moment, and then walked across the street to a big cement planter where some shrubs were growing. He looked into the bushes, beneath the branches, and sure enough, he located a small cricket. His friend was utterly amazed. “That’s incredible,” said his friend. “You must have super-human ears!”
“No,” said the Native American. “My ears are no different from yours. It all depends on what you’re listening for.”
“But that can’t be!” said the friend. “I could never hear a cricket in this noise.”
“Yes, it’s true,” came the reply. “It depends on what is really important to you. Here, let me show you.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a few coins, and discreetly dropped them on the sidewalk. And then, with the noise of the crowded street still blaring in their ears, they noticed every head within twenty feet turn and look to see if the money that tinkled on the pavement was theirs.
“See what I mean?” asked the Native American. “It all depends on what’s important to you.”
In the same way… we should consider what we are listening for. Perhaps the reason we don’t sense God’s leading as often as we’d like… is because we are so tuned into what matters most to us…and hope God is tuned into what we feel is needed…that we just don’t have ears to hear what He is doing.
We don’t have to wait for a unique prompting….but it’s probably there if we listen.
• God may lead with a clear word spoken to your inner spirit… or a divine compulsion.
Jesus often suggested a sense that he felt a divine prompting… a divine compulsion…that directed where and when he went places. In fact when he had traveled himself through Samaria he said they HAD to go that route (John 4:4.) And there he met the Samaritan women in what is clearly a divine appointment….something God was bringing together. [2]
And one thing we can expect…is that..
• God’s leading will often direct us beyond our natural sense or sensibility.
How do we know when the Spirit is actually speaking to us?
> It will often be something you might think is strange, or He is telling us something that we would not have naturally considered. It’s notable that…
He calls Philip at an unlikely time…He already had gone out and it was going really well.
To an unlikely place…
He is to go on the road to Gaza. This road between Gaza and Jerusalem is 50 + miles away.
This is a desert road. Between Jerusalem and Gaza, there is nothing but hot, barren land, which was not traveled during the heat of the day.
Phillip was called to leave the large group of lives that were responding around him… and travel over 50 miles south to a desert place…without any reason being given by God.
Phillip might have wondered:
“Lord, I have already gone to people who were far away… and things are going well. Why would you call me to the desert?” There isn’t anybody there?
We don’t know for certain what he thought. What we do know…is that Phillip went.
Verse 27 says that he arose and went. That verse should make us aware of Philip’s obedience to the Spirit. He could’ve argued the point that it was desert land but he didn’t, he just went. We can learn something from Philip.
> We too need to go into desert places…where there are thirsty lives.
And there he met and Ethiopian man who was a eunuch.
27 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.
“he met an Ethiopian eunuch” …that’s not a phrase you may hear often…
Who was this individual?
He was from Ethiopia
Most agree that this is not the same modern area of Ethiopia…but is a name that in ancient times was given to a large area of Africa south of Egypt…originally the whole region of the upper Nile, approximately from Aswan to Khartoum. [3]
He was “an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.”
Candace was a title similar to Pharaoh, or Caesar. It was the title given to the queen mother who held the real power. He was essentially the Secretary of Treasury or minister of finance.
He is referred to as a ‘eunuch’ [4]
You don’t hear the term eunuch often today. The meaning is a bit hard to think about….
The primary definition is that of “a man or boy whose testicles have been removed or do not function.” But the literal meaning of the word is not derived from the physical nature but the functional role that such lives served… which was that of serving as a guardian or official of royal women. The word come from the Greek meaning of ‘keeping watch over the bed.’ [3] Eunuchs were often employed to guard the women of a harem or as court officials.
Some note that the term was sometimes used for officials in this capacity regardless of any actual physical castration…but most likely due to his role of serving Queen Candice (and possibly other royal women) in private and intimate times he either was chosen because he had been born a eunuch or had been castrated in order to insure that there would be no question of impropriety when he was in private with the queen. (Wow…talk about a commitment to the job ! It certainly would limit the scandals.) Don’t know his full background…but as with eunuchs today… likely an element of being sexually and socially marginalized.
So here God is directing his work of redemption to a man from a far away land… with great influence and trust…who may have felt socially isolated. What does that tell us about God’s heart for us… and so many others? (Ethiopia also Cush in the OT, was known in ancient writings to be the ends of the earth. So God was fulfilling in Philip the command to go to the ends of the earth with the Gospel.)
What is most notable is how all this relates to his spiritual life…for …
He also was a religious man….a man seeking to know the true and living God.
27 ….This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet.
He was possibly what was known as a God-fearer, one who had become a convert to the Jewish faith. It is this area of Ethiopia from which the Queen of Sheba came in the days of King Solomon. In other words, there had already been a link between that area of the world and Judaism. The Queen of Sheba had been greatly impressed by King Solomon, and Solomon had certainly shared the Scriptures of the Jews with her. So he may have been following a long held draw to the God of the Scriptures.
But he could never find full acceptance in the religious culture of his day.
He was a Gentile.
He was a Eunuch… and under law eunuchs could never participate in the nation of Israel. They were completely excluded from participation in the life of Israel. (Deuteronomy 23:1) No matter how much this Ethiopian, wealthy man sought after God and loved God and wanted a relationship with God, to the Jewish people in his day, he could never be a full participant in the life of Judaism. Even when he went to the Temple, he could not ever go into the inner court by the Temple to stand with other Jews in worshiping God. He always had to stay in the outer court, the court of the Gentiles, kept at arm's length from God.
He feels stuck behind a spiritual wall. But God is breaking through.
He was a man of great influence and power….a man of wealth, status and prestige….but he must have felt within the lack of what such outward success could offer. Perhaps that describes you: You have many blessings in life and you've searched for fulfillment in the things money can buy, in personal companionship, in technology, or just trying to divert yourself with entertainment. But something inside still longs for more.
He had traveled a long way possibly over 200 miles to worship the one true God. (Another says ‘He had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, covering 1200 miles, up the Nile, along the desert sands of Sinai, and finally into the hill country of Judea.’ – need to get facts straight)
And though he was greatly intrigued by the God of the Jews, what he found in Jerusalem was a form of religion that had lost it’s true connection… that had not seen the fulfillment of it’s promises.
Now he is returning to home, still trying to make sense of faith, because he has come up empty.
He is still hungry for the Bread of Life and thirsty for the Water of Life.
The Spirit of God had been working on him to create a God-shaped vacuum in his heart that only God could fill.
This teaches us another vital truth…
2. God Is Already At Work In The Lives Around Us.
One of the biggest barriers we have in sharing God’s life with others is that we tend to feel as if we are salesmen….and we have to sell something to people who don’t seem to want it. We think God is like the sales manager who told us about the product and what he expects of our sales record…and then left.
That is radically contrary to what Jesus was doing – and we have to grasp the difference. Remember what Jesus said: “My Father is working…always working.”
God is already working. I have found how true this is more than ever in the recent years.
It’s not about going into some sort of strange evangelism mode.... it’s about naturally meeting the moment that is hand…of which God is supernaturally a part of.
Phillip wasn’t just trying to create a God thing…. He was participating in what was already a God-thing. We don’t take God anywhere. God is already active in our world and in our lives… inviting us to join him. He’s desiring to use us in people’s lives.
Florence Nightingale once said that all of Christianity could be expressed in 8 one-syllable words, four of which are spoken by God, and four spoken by us:
"Lo, it is I" (God's initiative) and
"Here I am, Lord" (our response).
First, "Lo, it is I." God is already present, has already picked the time and place for this remarkable meeting.
It's our work to help people hear God speaking in their lives, "Lo, it is I."
And it is our work to help people speak to God in reply, "Here I am, Lord."
What I realize is that I can discover God’s work… and what is going on in the other person…only when I get close enough to know what is going on in them.
Of course, that is what we see God lead Phillip towards.
The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it. Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. " - Acts 8:29-30
Now this was probably not the two wheeled speedy chariot we usually think of. The word can refer to what we would think of as a covered carriage… and was likely accompanied by a fairly large entourage.
As Phillip looked at this group… he could have reasoned within himself and said, “Now, wait a minute. He’s Ethiopian, and I’m Jewish. We’ve got a race problem here.” Or, he could have said, “Look, he’s rich, and I’m poor. There’s a socioeconomic problem here.” Or, he could have said, “He’s reading, and he may not want to be bothered,” and there could have been just sort of a…what’s the word I’m thinking of? Maybe, a manners problem. But he didn’t let race, riches, reading, or anything else come between him.
He ran to the chariot… and heard the man reading.
> He got close enough to discover what the man was pondering.
What this teaches us, is that…
3. Close Encounters Open Doors
God didn’t just tell him to go and speak…but to first go ‘stay near.’
We need to come alongside. We have a tendency to either relate as superior or inferior… and we need to transcend such tendencies… and learn what it means to come alongside.
Jesus came among us… alongside humanity. The way Jesus related to people led to him being accused of being ‘a friend of sinners.’
There are chariots around us that God desires us to come along side of… and to get close enough to explore how He may be working.
Why? Because close encounters open doors.
Then Phillip asked “Do you understand what you are reading?”. Vs. 29-30
Have you ever wanted to share the gospel message of Christ and never had the conversation turn to where you could share? If you learn how to ask the right questions, it opens the door to an invitation for further explanation. Phillip asked the man if he understood what he was reading, and he responds,
“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Phillip to come up and sit with him.
He earned the right to be heard.
Phillip sets a great example for us. Begin with the point of reference in the present conversation, he be used Isaiah as the springboard to sharing Jesus.
Phillip doesn’t have to keep chasing this chariot…he has been given an invitation to come and sit next to this man and further explain the passage he had just read. The door which had been open to share the Gospel came from a life experience the Ethiopian was having, not a conversation off the subject. If we want to be effective witnesses, we need to make sure the word we share develops through a persons life journey or we will never find that open door, just a wall.
4. The Right Questions Create Connections
The eunuch asked Phillip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Phillip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. Vs. 34-35
Phillip helps interpret the good news…the God-News.
This offers the final point God teaches us.
5. We Can Serve As Interpreters of God’s Call
Now few people today may be directly reading the Scriptures and have a question…but everyone is trying to understand life….the life that God is behind…the life that God is redeeming. In various ways, like Phillip…we can serve as interpreters.
It is not a matter of presuming we are smarter or better… but simply sharing what we have found as true. We are not called to be judges but witnesses… and a witness is one who shares what he has seen or experienced.
The truth is that which is rooted in God’s eternal Word… and that is what we do well to connect our experience to. [5]
Romans 10:17 tells us this – “… faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” This man heard the scriptures that day. The Scriptures tell us to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” 1 Peter 3:15
Preparation comes through our understanding of God’s eternal and living Word…which is why we find life in our study of he Scriptures…and gather in groups where we can learn together.
But even when we have learned only a little bit…we can share what we know. And even if we are asked questions that we are not prepared for….we can always express that we will explore more and get back with them.
Conclusion
Well Phillip knew that indeed the suffering servant who came to redeem us had come… and this man from was ready to accept Jesus as his savior. The eunuch found the true religion when he found the one that calls: "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely...Whoever comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out."
There is an interesting play on words here in the original Greek language.
The Greek word for treasure is "gaza."
Philip was a treasurer in charge of gaza.
He was traveling down the road from Jerusalem to a city called Gaza.
And along the way, he found true gaza.
This Ethiopian was in charge of treasure and went to the town called treasure and found a treasure worth more than all others.
Have you found the treasure worth more than all others? (Gospel invitation)
Are you sharing a treasure with others?
As inquisitive as we are, we wonder what happened to the Ethiopian after Phillip departed. One of the early church fathers, Irenaeus, writes that the eunuch became a missionary to the Ethiopians.
Christian tradition tells us the eunuch's first convert was the Queen Mother Candice, herself.
Years later, when the first missionaries arrived in Ethiopia, they found a thriving church started by this eunuch.
As we began, I noted that each of us have had people who served our journey in knowing God. As we close today, I’d like each of us to think about the people around us that we can influence for Christ. So that in a few years, they can look back at you and remember you as that person who came alongside their chariot… and shared that which helped make sense of their longings…and of what God was doing.
There are people travelling through the desert today.
PRAYER
A further potential closing word… I want to share a final word that reveals that what God led that day was always in his plans… on His heart. This man… was a foreigner.. and a eunuch… who was deemed forever outside of God’s favor. But listen to what God had spoken through the prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah 56:3-5 "Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, 'The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.' And let not any eunuch complain, 'I am only a dry tree.' For this is what the Lord says: 'To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant-to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. And to foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant-these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.' The Sovereign Lord declares-he who gathers the exiles of Israel: 'I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.'"
God is still gathering… and no one is locked out of the heart of God.
Resources:
Boice, J. M. (1997). Acts : An expositional commentary (130–134). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.
Jerry Vines - Criswell Theological Review 5.1 (1990) 83-92. ‘EVANGELISTIC PREACHING AND THE BOOK OF ACTS’
Some thoughts may have been drawn from messages on this text by Bob Briggs, Paul Decker, A. David Hart, Tom Lovorn, A. Todd Coget,
Notes:
1. Philip is only mentioned 3 times in the Bible. When we’re first introduced to him he’s being nominated by the church to help oversee the distribution of food to widows in the congregation. Acts 6 tells us that he - and the other 6 men who helped in this ministry - were required to be men “…known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom….” -Acts 6:3
2. Acts chapter 10 – God is clearly leading a man named Cornelius, who was a Gentile of the Italian band, together with Simon Peter, in a similar way.
3. Regarding the term and location of Ethiopia:
“Ethiopia” here refers not to modern-day Ethiopia but to ancient Nubia, the region from Aswan in southern Egypt to Khartoum, Sudan. Candace was a title given to the queen-mother, as Pharaoh was used of the king of Egypt. Governmental power rested in the hands of Candace, for the royal son, worshiped as an offspring of the sun, was therefore above such mundane activities as ruling over a nation. Rulership was therefore vested with the queen-mother. The fact that this eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship is interesting. The Law prohibited eunuchs from entering the Lord’s assembly (Deut. 23:1). However, Isaiah 56:3-5 predicts great blessing for eunuchs in the Millennial Age. Evidently this eunuch was a worshiper of Yahweh though not a full-fledged proselyte.
Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (Ac 8:27). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
Ethiopia is a name that in ancient times was given to a large area of Africa south of Egypt. Today that land is more limited; it is a smaller country to the southeast of Egypt. But in that day it referred to the whole region of the upper Nile, approximately from Aswan to Khartoum.
It is the area from which the Queen of Sheba came in the days of King Solomon. In other words, there had already been a link between that area of the world and Judaism. The Queen of Sheba had been greatly impressed by King Solomon, and Solomon had certainly shared the Scriptures of the Jews with her. Who is to say what may have happened?
Boice, J. M. (1997). Acts : An expositional commentary (141–142). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.
From ‘A Brief History Ethiopian Christianity’, By Boston Debre Selam Saint Michael, Ethiopian Tewahdo Orthodox Church, Mattapan, MA 02214
http://www.kidusmichael.com/EthiopianChristianity.htm
The name where the Septuagent translators rendered the Herbrew in Ps. 72:9 and 74:14. Cush is one of four sons born to Ham. He had at least six sons of his own, most of whom were listed as progenitors of different tribes (Est. 1:1). The word occurs in the ancient Greek literature, as the name of race to be found in the extreme East and in the extreme West. The descendants of Cush settled in Ethiopia and they got their names from Cush. Axum was named after him. Axum is the birth place of Ethiopian civilization.
Acts 8 - IVP New Testament Commentaries
Philip encounters an Ethiopian eunuch and his retinue. He is at once exotic, powerful and pious. Greeks and Romans were particularly fascinated with dark-skinned Africans (Martin 1989:111; Diodorus Siculus Library of History 3.8.2-3; Strabo Geography 17.2.1-3). Although Ethiopian was used generally for anyone with these physical characteristics, here it refers to an inhabitant of the ancient kingdom of Meroe, which covered what is now northern Sudan south of Aswan to Khartoum (see NIV marginal note; compare Youngblood 1982:193; Crocker 1986). This man is powerful, the chief treasurer of a kingdom wealthy from its iron smelting, gold mining and trading position. It was a conduit for goods from the rest of the continent. Candace, queen of the Ethiopians (better "Queen Mother, ruling monarch of the Ethiopians," since candace is a title, not a proper name), cared for the duties of state. The king was regarded as a god, "child of the sun," too sacred to engage in administration. The candace in this instance was Amanitare (A.D. 25-41; Wead 1982:197; Crocker 1986:67).
Luke does not identify the eunuch as either a proselyte, a Gentile convert to Judaism, or a God-fearer, a Gentile adherent to the Jewish monotheism, ethic and piety (compare Acts 2:11; 6:5; 10:2; 13:26, 43; Levinskaya 1990). He presents him only as pious according to the Jewish faith. The eunuch is returning to Meroe after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for one of the feasts, and he is sitting in his chariot reading Scripture. The chariot is probably a four-wheeled covered vehicle, like an oxcart, large enough to accommodate the eunuch, his driver, Philip and possibly another servant (who would be reading the manuscript aloud if the official is not doing so himself). The carriage is moving slowly enough to allow for reading and for Philip to approach it on foot. Reading aloud was the common practice in ancient times, and was especially necessary when words were strung together on a manuscript without spacing or punctuation (Bruce 1990:226).
Wikopedia –
The Ethiopian is described as a eunuch and a treasury official at the court of Queen Candace (Acts 8:27). D. A. Hubbard suggests that he may have been a proselyte,[1] though Paul Mumo Kisau argues that he was a Godfearer instead.[3] Scott Shauf suggests that the "primary point of the story is about carrying the gospel to the end of the earth, not about establishing a mission to Gentiles," and thus Luke "does not bring the Gentile status of the Ethiopian into the foreground." However, "the suggestion that the eunuch is or at least might be a Gentile in the story, by both his ethnic and possibly physical description, serves to tantalize the reader with the mystery of the situation."[4] The eunuch may have been from Nubia or the Sudan: David Tuesday Adamo suggests that the word used here (Αίθίοψ, aithiops) is best translated simply as "African."[5]
4. Regarding “Eunuch”
Word History: The word eunuch does not derive, as one might think, from the operation that produced a eunuch but rather from one of his functions. Eunuch goes back to the Greek word eunoukhos, "a castrated person employed to take charge of the women of a harem and act as chamberlain." The Greek word is derived from eun , "bed," and ekhein, "to keep." A eunuch, of course, was ideally suited to guard the bedchamber of women. - The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
The man was “an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians” (v. 27). The biblical use of the term Ethiopian implies that he was black (Jer. 13:23), and the term eunuch might be either a title given to all government officials or a reference to his being castrated.
Elwell, W. A. (1995). Vol. 3: Evangelical Commentary on the Bible. Baker reference library (Ac 8:26). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
The title “eunuch” can be used of a government official who is literally a eunuch, but also for an official who is not. Thus, we cannot know for certain whether or not this man was literally a eunuch. If he was, indeed, a eunuch, he would have been forbidden to enter the “assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:1).
http://bible.org/seriespage/ethiopian-eunuch-acts-826-40
Wikopedia –
Commentators generally suggest that the combination of "eunuch" together with the title "court official" indicates a literal eunuch, who would have been excluded from the Temple by the restriction in Deuteronomy 23:1.[6][7] Some scholars interpret the term "eunuch" more liberally. For instance, John J. McNeill suggests that this eunuch was "the first baptized gay Christian"[8] on the grounds that the word "eunuch" in the New Testament is not always used in a literal sense (as in Matthew 19:12, which he believes contains "the closest description we have in the Bible of what we understand today as a homosexual"[9]). Jack Rogers says that the Ethiopian "belonged to a sexual minority who was not fully welcome in the worship community of Israel,"[10]:132 and concludes that "the fact that the first Gentile convert to Christianity is from a sexual minority and a different race, ethnicity and nationality together form a clarion call for inclusiveness, radical grace, and Christian welcome to all who show faith."[10]:135
5. Remember what the first great missional life… the apostle Paul said…
2 Corinthians 4:5-7 (MSG)
“Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we're proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, "Light up the darkness!" and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ…. If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us.
