Here in chapter 8 of the book of Acts we are finally introduced to this Pharisee named Saul. Perhaps no other religious person in Israel had more of a zealous hatred for Christ and Christians. Let’s pay close attention to the very first verse of Acts chapter 8: “Saul approved of his (Stephen’s) execution”. He was probably smiling as he watched an innocent man be pelted to death with big rocks.
Now we see that he wasn’t the only one, an angry mob ensued. “And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.” Hallelujah we’re all homeless!
Do you understand what that’s saying? We established last week that the church in Jerusalem had grown to between 5 and 10 thousand families, all of whom lived in and around Jerusalem. They had homes, probably jobs/farms, belongings, and so on. All of them except the twelve apostles fled to other places, and as we will see, Saul chased after them with permission slips from the religious leaders, so that he could bring them back to Jerusalem bound, so they could be imprisoned or executed. Praise the Lord, thank you Jesus!
We know that by the time Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD probably most of the apostles were elsewhere too, and we know that around 70 AD, many Jerusalem believers had fled to the caves near Pella knowing the prophecies that Jesus gave them in passages such as Luke 21.
Why am I giving hallelujahs to all these horrible events? Because of verse 4, “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word”. I beat this one to death last week, but there it is again. We hear about this preaching 5 or 6 times in chapter 8. They didn’t set up soup kitchens and homeless shelters, they were probably homeless themselves, they preached the word, they proclaimed the good news of Jesus death, and resurrection.
Why is this so important? Because I can just imagine what would have happened if the church stayed in Jerusalem, they convert everybody who can be converted, the apostles die, the church starts getting comfortable, the signs and wonders dramatically slow down, they build some big worship centres, and pretty soon they’re no threat to anyone and the church shrivels up. Does that sound familiar?
That has eventually happened in every flourishing Christian culture since the first century, just take Turkey for example. And we are currently in the middle of it here in North America. Just quietly going about their business singing songs, reading about the past, and continuing on with their everyday activities in the culture where the majority of people don’t believe what they do, but are willing to put up with them if they stay in their place and keep quiet.
You and I owe our salvation to Jesus yes, but also to this persecution that Jesus himself prophesied, and we especially owe a lot to the zealous hatred of Saul. We owe him even more when he becomes Paul. Stephen died for us and all those thousands of people were displaced ultimately for our sake. That is why we can be thankful for what we read in this passage.
Next we hear about the former waiter turned evangelist, Phillip. The crowds that gathered around his preaching down in Samaria paid attention with one accord.
They were seeing Phillip cast out evil spirits and healing people so that there was much joy in that city.
Now they probably hadn’t seen much of this stuff since Jesus was with the woman at the well. But that was a few years ago now and they probably figured that was all they were going to get. So they must have been extremely thankful to see that this Jesus thing had not come to an end, and they were being included as the outcasts of both the Jews and non-Jews.
I’ll talk more about what happened in Samaria but first I want to look at the continued adventures of Phillip. Clearly God was pleased with Phillip, and Phillip must have been so grateful, first of all to still be alive and free, but also that even though he wasn’t an apostle, he was given all the power of the Holy Spirit and was seeing many people believe in Jesus because of him.
So in verse 26, he must wonder what’s going on Let’s watch….
An angel of the Lord comes to him and says, “Hey Phillip go walk down the dusty road to Gaza.” Phillip must have been thinking, “What? Have you seen my ministry here in Samaria, man I am singlehandedly taking this city for you Jesus, let me set up a church here. I don’t really want to go wander off into the bleak desert, what are you going to do with me out there? This is the thanks I get?”
But that wasn’t his reaction. It says he got up and went. He was so amazed by what God was doing in and through him that all of his doubts about God were gone, and he totally trusted God. This didn’t seem like a reward but it was as we will see. But more importantly the message here is that we are not in ministry for ourselves, to glorify ourselves. We are given these gifts and abilities to serve God and him alone, and Phillip following this one command without question, causes the gospel to be spread to a different continent and a different race of people.
It’s the Ethiopian Eunuch, not crowds of people, but one person, and not the most appealing person either. He had probably been emasculated because he was a court official of the Queen. They would do this to the men so that there could be no hanky panky between the workers and the Queen. But he was also a person of influence as he was in charge of all the Queens treasure, and he knew of this God as he had come to Jerusalem to worship.
As a Eunuch he would not have been allowed into the temple courts and the fact that he was reading Isaiah is significant as it was in Isaiah 56 that Isaiah talks about the promises God makes to Eunuchs. God said he would give the faithful Eunuchs a name in His house and within His walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.
Now Phillip sees that this person is reading from Isaiah and let’s pay special attention to the interaction they have.
First, the Spirit in him guides him to go over close to the chariot so he could hear what was being read. Look what he asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
This is a great question for us as we witness to others. Most people outside of the church and frankly many in the church, do not really understand what the true gospel is about. Most people are rejecting something other than Jesus and the gospel, and our asking questions is the best way to find out where a person is at, and when they say something that rejects church or Jesus we can simply ask them, do you really understand what you are rejecting? That can open a conversation and often we will find that they don’t have much of a clue.
The eunuch’s response is also perfect and true, “How can I understand unless someone guides me.” I don’t care who you are, nobody who picks up the Bible and just starts reading it for the first time is going to understand much without help.
But in this case its even worse, he is reading from a prophet who is indirectly talking about Jesus in Isaiah chapter 53, but even though Jesus has now come and gone, this guy has probably never heard of Jesus in Ethiopia, and none of the New Testament was written yet.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. He asks whom the prophet is talking about. He doesn’t ask what is it that I’m supposed to believe, but it is whom we are to believe in. So Phillip starts with Isaiah 53 and finishes the story from what he had witnessed, and immediately this guy wants to be baptised. Notice that was the very first thing he wanted to do after he heard about and believed in Jesus.
After he baptises this guy, Phillip receives what I think is a real cool reward. He doesn’t have to walk down that dusty desert road again, but he gets carried away by the Spirit of God and finds himself in a completely different place. Don’t you wonder what that ride must have been like? That was a distance of about 30 miles that he didn’t have to walk through the desert.
Wouldn’t it be cool to go speaking around the country at conferences but you didn’t have to fly on an airplane, the Spirit just zapped you to each place. Maybe Star Trek is more real than we think.
I’m thankful that Phillip was obedient and was probably part of Africa now becoming one of the strongest Christian continents on earth at the time. But they still need teaching today because there are not many people trained in the Bible there, and they tend to combine their animistic traditions with Christianity. They still need understanding. I’m thankful for the Desrosiers and Neufelds and Jelsmas for doing their work in Africa.
Now I’m not really going to go into the story of Simon the magician in verse 9, other than to say that him and the other Samaritans were enemies and outcasts of both Jews and Gentiles, and yet they could now become brothers and sisters. I think we need to keep this in mind when we think about Muslims, Buddhists, criminals, foreigners, and sinners of all types.
We should be grateful when God brings them into our midst because he is giving us an opportunity to bring them into the Kingdom of God where they will be just like us – saved children.
And one more thing about that passage. I am thankful above all things for the Holy Spirit. As we see from verses 14-17, we are not complete in Christ without the Holy Spirit.
We see starting in verse 14 that the big guns Peter and John hear about what’s happening in Samaria and they come down to pray for all these new believers so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. It’s interesting why they did this. These were clearly believers in Jesus and they were even baptised in his name. But we are told by Jesus to baptize them into the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now Phillip would have known this so why did he not baptize them in the Holy Spirit?
Now again we need to understand what that word “receive” means and what is actually going on here. Remember the Holy Spirit is given to believers for what purpose? To witness about Jesus. We read that in Acts 1 and 2. We also learned that this word “receive” means to literally “take hold of something in order to use it”. And remember to be “filled” is the same word as “to be influenced by”.
So these apostles come essentially to commission these new believers for service. Just as they did with the seven deacons in chapter 6. This was also not a standard for receiving the Holy Spirit because many believers received the Holy Spirit without the apostles laying their hands on them. Phillip didn’t baptize them in the Holy Spirit because this was to be a special witness in this specific instance to show that even the Samaritans can receive the Holy Spirit and be full, spirit filled members of the church.
Phillip waited until the big apostles came with their full authority, so that there was a full confirmation to the Jews, Gentiles, and Samaritans that there was to be no distinction between them. This happens again later with Peter and some Roman gentiles to accomplish the same thing.
I find this so interesting. These people did not know the Holy Spirit, they were only baptised into Jesus and likely no one taught them that when they believe, they are given the Holy Spirit. I think the passage is telling us that they already had the Holy Spirit but didn’t know it, and when the apostles laid their hands on them, they “took hold” of the Holy Spirit in order to use His power. It says they received the word, they took hold of the word to use it. But they did not have the power to use it or put it into practice until the Holy Spirit was activated inside them.
Remember most of the time the Holy Spirit will not take you over and make you a robot. We have to use the Holy Spirit, allow Him to work. Remember the passage about quenching the Spirit? Apparently it’s possible for us to do that. Even if we are given the Spirit of God at our conversion, it does not mean we will walk in the Spirit. We walk in the Spirit by faith that God himself gives us. So if these people didn’t even know about the Spirit, it would be hard to walk in Him. I wonder if today we need some apostles to come lay their hands on us.
How does anybody know that the Holy Spirit is in them? What do we see in Scripture? They did something under the power of that Spirit, whether it was preaching, healing, prophecy, dreams, visions, speaking in another language. They confirmed the presence of the Holy Spirit by doing something, or having an experience empowered by Him.
But notice it isn’t just miraculous powers that the Holy Spirit gives us. Yes Phillip was doing signs and wonders, but look at verse 29, it says that the Spirit told Phillip to go over to the chariot.
The Spirit may just quietly guide us, and when we obey, He accomplishes something for God through us. In this case the conversion of an Ethiopian to open the gospel to a completely new culture. Those kinds of things also confirm that the Holy Spirit is in us, if we receive and use the instructions he gives us, partly through helping us understand the Word.
One more little thing here. The video didn’t really represent this well. We know that this was a very dry desert road. Very little water anywhere to be found. They just happen to come across some kind of watering hole big enough to baptise this man right at the moment he has been converted. Notice he exclaims “here is water!” maybe because he didn’t expect to see any and was surprised to see it. He had certainly come to Jerusalem by the same road and clearly didn’t see water there on his way in.
I can’t substantiate this, but based on the text I think God miraculously put this water there, and I would be surprised if the next person along that road saw any water there.
I think maybe God provided the water in the desert so this man could be baptised before returning to Ethiopia, where at the time there probably wouldn’t have been anyone there to baptise him. And now he was able to baptise those in Ethiopia who came to believe because of his testimony. And unlike the Samaritans he would now know how to baptise in the name of all three members of the trinity, including the Holy Spirit.
We believe that the Holy Spirit is given to us when we believe and are born again. Some passages equate the giving of the Spirit with repentance and baptism as in Peter’s sermon. Paul says it’s when we hear the gospel and believe it in Ephesians 1. Because baptism is so correlated with repentance and belief, and because Jesus himself was seen to receive the Spirit when he was baptised, I tend to think based on the bible, that baptism may be an integral part of being a Spirit filled Christian.
Think about it, do we have any record of Jesus performing a miracle before he was baptised. Even he received the Holy Spirit when he was in a human body. And since that time, every person who has ever been a true follower of Christ after Pentecost, has received the Holy Spirit and has abilities that Jesus and the early disciples had. That is why he can say you will do even greater things than I have done. The question is whether we implement or allow ourselves to be filled by Him. Either way, it is certainly not only by having the apostles or anyone else lay their hands on you that you receive the Spirit.
So I am thankful that God didn’t just leave us to fend for ourselves, but he gave us the part of God that makes all of his thoughts manifest in the physical universe. May we all be filled with the Holy Spirit, may we take hold of Him to use Him, to be transformed by Him, and be fully under his influence.
We are very materially blessed people and have much to be thankful for. It’s good to express our thanks for these things, and our families and so on. But do we sometimes underestimate and neglect thanking Him for what is really important? Paul talks about always being thankful several times in his letters, and it is rarely because of material blessings or family. Do we thank God for the people who didn’t buckle under the persecution, who didn’t let Christianity die? Are we constantly thankful that we have God the Holy Spirit living in us? And that we have eternal life.
Let’s thank God for these things today.
