26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”
Historically, the conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch was one of the missionary successes of the Hellenists and Philip. Chronologically, we should think of the 30's or 40's.[1] The story of the early spread of Christianity has two narratives regarding the Gentile mission. One is this story, which Luke derives from a Hellenistic Christian source (Acts 6-8), informing us of the importance of Hellenistic Christianity in the mission to the Gentiles. The story of Philip stands as a complete story and has few direct links to surrounding material. The other tradition, contained in Acts 10:1-11:18, will say that Peter and the Jerusalem based apostles were responsible for the first contacts with the Gentiles.[2] The point in both stories is that the Spirit is the one who leads them into this mission.[3] The story raises the matter of our resistance to change or innovation, for here we are, at the beginning of the mission of the followers of the Jewish Messiah led by the Spirit to witness to non-Jews.
26 Then an angel of the Lord[4] we know something important is about to happen said, as if saying “the word of the Lord,” to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 Therefore, he got up and went. This Hellenistic tradition presents a unique attitude about the prospect of Christian witnessing in the Gentile world. Philip is an energetic and enthusiastic evangelist. Without any apparent qualms, he travels to Samaria to preach the gospel (8:5). Philip’s journeys are like Elijah. Philip, unattached and out on his own, whose on‑the‑road witnessing brought the first Gentile convert to belief in Jesus Christ. The Spirit led Philip to the middle of nowhere. Importantly, the move God makes here is toward an outsider. Without hesitation or question, Philip further obeys the Spirit and proclaims the Good News to a consummate outsider. Peter, on the other hand, was a much harder sell. In Acts 10, it takes a lengthy, complex vision and the unending persistence of the remarkably saintly Cornelius to get Peter to consider welcoming Gentile believers into the baptized fold of the church. Luke contrasts Philip's readiness and Peter's reticence by use of these two traditions. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. In the eyes of this Hellenistic tradition, the Ethiopian eunuch is the new Christian church's first Gentile member. The first century world considered Ethiopia, or Nubia, to lie right on the cusp of the edge of the world. It represented the very last outpost of human civilization before the void of unknown and uncharted territories. As an Ethiopian, he represents the ends of the earth. As eunuch, he could not have been a full proselyte into the Jewish faith, based on Deuteronomy 23:1. There could hardly be a better description of someone so completely "other," than is this Ethiopian eunuch.[5] The story further isolates him from the experience of struggling Christian communities of the first century. He was a man in control of great wealth and power. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home. Luke also reveals this man to the reader as what would have been termed a "God‑fearer." Although not a Jew by birth, and incapable of becoming one by conversion (because of his status as a eunuch), this Ethiopian worships God and makes pilgrimages to the Jerusalem temple in order to attend services there. It is as he is returning from such an experience that the Ethiopian eunuch encounters Philip. As the eunuch was sitting in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Here is another unique feature of this man. He could read. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him, for reading aloud was common then, reading the prophet Isaiah. It is very unusual that this Ethiopian was reading at all, let alone reading something from the prophets. The literacy rate in the land of Cush — often the name associated with ancient Ethiopia — wasn’t any higher than it was in first-century Palestine, where the literacy rate was barely 1 percent. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” He invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Many of us can identify the eunuch at this point. Understanding the Bible is not easy, even for professional Bible students. We continually ask questions. We see things reading the Bible that we did not see before. Beyond that, we are reading an ancient text with ancient practices. Many parts of the Bible are not applicable to today. Many parts of the Bible are simply boring. The Bible, unlike the Quran, has elements of it that may stretch back to 2000 BC and end around 100 AD. In some ways, it would be nice if the Bible had a chronological arrangement, but it does not. Further, the people who wrote the Bible and the audiences to whom they addressed their writings have vastly different experiences and culture from what we experience. Thus, the Bible is a collection of books. Christians even differ as to how many books are in the Bible. While all agree on 66 of them, the apocrypha finds acceptance in much of Christianity as well. The original language was Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, adding to our modern difficulties. We do have a “Philip” to guide us in our reading. We have study bibles and commentaries. We have the benefit of joining with others in worship and study. We have companions in the life-long journey of the Bible unfolding itself to us. The point is, we need teachers. We need to find voices of the past to gain wisdom about the present. So many persons today want to trust their private judgment and make pronouncements without considering the knowledge and wisdom others may provide. I find this especially truth on matters theological, ethical, and biblical. We need others to help us unpack Scripture. Scribes, elders, Pharisees, Sadducees, for example, were such persons in the time of Jesus. They had a vital function in the religious life of the community. In post-exilic Judah, the scribe and priest Ezra inspired a religious revival through his reading and teaching (Nehemiah 8:5-8). The Ethiopian was eager to learn from a teacher. He would have agreed with the biblical proverb: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. … Do not be wise in your own eyes” (Proverbs 3:5,7). Therefore, the church has pastors, teachers and evangelists who are eager to step into Philip’s role as a teacher, mentor and guide. In fact, the Bible explicitly states that some people have been gifted for this very task, and we should not hesitate to make use of their skills: “Some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13). 32 Now the passage of the scripture (Isaiah 53:7-8) that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation, authorities denied him justice. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” We should note that in Mark 9:12 and Luke 17:24-25, Jesus taught that the Son of Man and the Suffering Servant were the same. Therefore, the Son of Man, usually considered a powerful and victorious figure, Jesus viewed as identical with the suffering servant of this passage in Isaiah. The Son of Man undergoing suffering was not the standard Jewish interpretation of the relevant passages of the Bible. 34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. The text maintains the delicate balance between the established Scripture and tradition of Judaism and the new message of the gospel. In response to the eunuch's expressed desire to understand what he is reading, Philip takes up the tradition begun by Jesus himself, proclaiming the fulfillment of Hebrew Scripture in the life and person of Jesus Christ. According to Philip's witness, the continuity between the two is unbroken ‑‑ Jesus is the "sheep" or the "lamb" described in Isaiah 53:7. In this case, then, the new event in our history, an act of God in Jesus of Nazareth, has thrown light upon the Old Testament passages. This text, one of the "suffering servant" songs of Isaiah, not only provided Philip with a fitting springboard to proclaim Christ to this Ethiopian. Many students of the Bible have recognized that these verses, steeped in the language of "suffering" and "humiliation," as containing a particularly poignant message for the eunuch as well. Despite his status as a high‑ranking minister in the queen's court, despite his education and polish, the most defining element of this Ethiopian's identity was surely his physical nature. He knows that Scriptures disavow his right to belong fully within Jewish society, that they define his general status as one ritually impure, and that they disbar him from the sacred space of the temple. Through no fault of his own, the Judaism of that day judged and found guilty the Ethiopian eunuch. The text he reads from Isaiah proclaims that humiliation and denial of justice from authorities was the fate of the servant. We are not surprised, then, that the Ethiopian would perceive Philip's interpretation of this text as "Good News." 36 As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” [western text - 37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. He answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.[6] I include the reading of the western text to show that some in the early church thought this immediate baptism is too quick. However, for most, it appears the genuine enthusiasm of the Ethiopian was enough to justify baptism.] We can see here the importance of acknowledgement. Coming to faith means that in the encounter with the community of Jesus Christ, one encounters Christ. In its relative authority and freedom, one encounters the full authority and freedom of Christ. Yet, even here, the church has not won the person, but rather, Christ, who has won the person to Christ and to the community, so that one might ask this question of what could hinder baptism.[7] In the missionary practice and theology of the early church, the relation between baptism and faith involved faith first and then baptism. We see that practice here, especially as Tertullian used the term “sacrament of faith.” For the baptized, baptism testified to faith and confessed it. A presupposition, then, was instruction in the content of faith such as the catechumenate of the early church received.[8] 38 He commanded the chariot to stop. Both of them, Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. Thus, its impromptu nature does not detract from the theological correctness of the eunuch's baptism. The immediate presence of "the Spirit of the Lord" further emphasizes the genuine fulfillment of a baptismal ceremony. The same Spirit that whisks Philip away to a new location also seems to stay with the eunuch as he goes "on his way rejoicing." Yet, it remains an open question whether we are to see an earlier form of Christian baptism without the gift of the Spirit when Luke does specifically mention of the gift of the Spirit in the baptism of the eunuch. For Luke the imparting of the Spirit is usually through the laying on of hands, but that does not happen here.[9] Here is a man whose heart is uniquely receptive to the gospel message. How do we know that? Because of whom he is.We know nothing of the reason for this man’s long journey to Jerusalem — whether it was an affair of state or a personal religious pilgrimage. But we do know he would not have received a warm welcome at the temple. He was highly likely returning home in great disappointment. Now, his race was not the deciding factor; it was because he was a eunuch. The law of Moses specifically prohibits a person of his physical condition from entering the temple (Deuteronomy 23:1). The scribes and pharisees would have shunned him on the streets. The learned rabbis, with whom he longed to discourse, would have spared him little time. He had the personal wealth to buy a scroll — a handwritten manuscript of the book of Isaiah — a souvenir of great price. But alas, he had no one to discuss it with. “Blood is thicker than water,” they say. The scribes and pharisees in Jerusalem believed that you had to belong to the chosen race to be saved. Yet, in baptizing the Ethiopian, Philip is proving the opposite to be true for followers of Jesus. Water — the baptismal water of the gospel of Christ — is thicker than blood. 40 However, Philip found himself at Azotus. Philip’s sudden removal to Azotus (ancient Ashdod, a Canaanite city about 20 miles north of Gaza) by the Spirit snatching him away is reminiscent of other abrupt spiritual translations (e.g., Obadiah’s in I Kings 18:12; the prophets’ speculation about Elijah, II Kings 2:16; and Jesus’ sudden disappearance in Luke 24:31). As he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns, as he moved north in his missionary route, until he came to Caesarea, an important port and location of the Roman governor of Palestine; it became identified as the home he shared with his four prophetic daughters (Acts 21:8). Thus, as soon as the encounter takes place, this episode is over. Philip disappears from the Acts narrative until 21:8, where he is still in Caesarea with his family and still an active witness for the Lord.
We see in this passage the first attempt in the early church to move beyond Judaism. Granted, this eunuch is a God-fearer, one acquainted with Jewish scripture and tradition. Yet, this is a significant moment in the early church. This encounter, this event, represented change.
Change is difficult. It is a challenge in families, in businesses, in churches, in communities and in entire countries. I recently came across an informal list of people afraid of innovation.
German writer Johann Georg Heinzmann warned people in 1795 about reading. He said that consuming words leads to a "weakening of the eyes, heat rashes, gout, arthritis, hemorrhoids, asthma, apoplexy, pulmonary disease, indigestion, blocking of the bowels, nervous disorder, migraines, epilepsy, hypochondria and melancholy." Be careful about reading! I think this is a rather odd concern for a writer to have.
Then, in 1803, preacher Jedidiah Morse said, "Let us guard against the insidious encroachments of innovation, that evil and beguiling spirit which is now stalking to and fro through the earth seeking whom he may destroy." We may safely conclude that he was not open to new forms of praise music in his Sunday services. In 1854, author Henry David Thoreau criticized the construction of a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas. He said, "But Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."
In 1906, composer John Philip Sousa lamented that phonographs were causing "deterioration in American music."
In 1926, the Knights of Columbus warned that the telephone would "break up home life and the old practice of visiting friends."
About the same time, a dean at Princeton observed that cars were becoming a threat to America's young people. "The general effect of the automobile," wrote Howard McClenahan, "was to make the present generation look lightly at the moral code." He worried that youths with cars would begin to drive all over the place on Sundays ... everywhere but church.
Finally, in year 2008, The Atlantic magazine asked the question, "Is Google making us stupid?" The jury is still out on that one.
Resistance to change is a constant in human life, even around innovations that have proved to be beneficial: Reading, telegraphs, phonographs, telephones, cars and the Internet. Yes, there are problems associated with each, but, overall, they have been a huge help to people around the world.
I am not suggesting that change is always good, of course. In my lengthening years on this earth, I could list some changes of which I am not so sure will prove helpful. That would be a quite different reflection, and one worth exploring at another time. Personally, such reflections tend to make me feel pessimistic, and today, I do not want to go there. Right now, I feel a need to encourage the reader and the writer not to dismiss change too quickly. Consider a potential change prayerfully, being open to fresh winds from the Spirit.
[1] Ludemann. The possibility of this arises out of what scholars know about the Hellenists, the probability of such a verdict because of the specific character of the tradition contained in Acts 8 and the tension between this story and Acts 10.
[2] A host of biblical scholars notes that Acts 8:26‑40 stands as such a complete story in itself that it could be lifted out of the book without causing any discernible interruption in the Lukan text. The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch stands almost wholly on its own. This means no obvious narrative links exist between this passage and the text that surrounds it. However, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch is necessary to balance the scales in two competing arguments presented in the book of Acts. Luke insists on two answers to the question of who was the first Gentile convert in the infant Christian church and who was responsible for first bringing the Good News to a Gentile seeker. According to Acts 10:1‑11:18, those specifically designated as apostles, acting under the auspices of the church in Jerusalem, were the first to expand their official mission. In this version, Peter, the leader of the apostles, is the first one to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Cornelius, a Roman centurion in Caesarea, was the first convert. Peter himself reiterates this claim in his testimony before the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:7‑9. The book of Acts tells that story with tremendous power and persuasion. Yet Luke's text also carefully preserves and presents another tradition. Many scholars consider that Luke gleaned Acts 6‑8 from a Hellenistic source that focuses on the early spread of Hellenistic Christianity. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that this source claims that Hellenists, not the Jerusalem‑based apostles, were the first to spread the gospel out into the Gentile world.
[3] Ludemann. Luke has remained faithful to his principle that became evident in the first story about Philip, not to connect the bestowing of the Spirit with the Hellenists preaching and to suppress reports to this effect. Luke has two versions of the giving of the Spirit, one from a Hellenistic source and from the tradition surrounding the Jerusalem church. Far from initiating such contact, both Philip and Peter do what the Spirit tells them.
[4] The angel of the Lord is a figure that appears far more commonly in the Hebrew Bible than in the New Testament (roughly four times more frequently). References to this divine messenger — which is what both the Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible translated “angel” mean — are commonly in a genitival construction (i.e., “angel of NN”). We find this form here (and at Matthew 1:20, 24; 2:13, 19; 28:2; Luke 1:11; 2:9; Acts 5:19; 12:7, etc.), or as an “angel of God” (Acts 10:3; Galatians 4:14). Angels in general are referred to more frequently in the New Testament than in the Hebrew Bible. This reflects the development of belief in celestial beings of all sorts in the Mediterranean world during the inter-testamental period (roughly 200 B.C. to A.D. 200), but many of those references are to heavenly beings that appear only in apocalyptic contexts, as opposed to the normal appearances of angels in the Hebrew Bible.
[5] Scholars have wrangled over this word's exact meaning. Physical eunuchs were still common, graphic symbols of a ruling people's domination over the lives of a conquered people. Making eunuchs of one's enemy, or an enemy's sons, was the ultimate sign of a conqueror's force. Yet in the first century, the term "eunuch" was also used to describe a role or a status within ancient society. The term "eunuch" could simply designate a servant, especially one with specific duties within a royal household. Biblical Israel usually regarded eunuchs as alien royal imports (at worst) or as maimed unfortunates (at best). The eunuch, like many eunuchs (e.g., Potiphar, Genesis 39:1), was a high official in the administration of the “Candace” or queen of Ethiopia (v. 27). The title was used by queens of the realm of Meroe, a Nubian province on the upper Nile in modern-day Sudan. Although the word appears only here in the biblical text, it is clear from external sources that it is not, as formerly thought, a proper name (cf KJV). However, by the time of the New Testament, when the pro-natalism of biblical Judaism was under severe strain from Greco-Roman (and Jewish) asceticism (see, for example, Matthew 3:9), eunuchs had become powerful symbols of the values of the kingdom of heaven inaugurated by the unmarried and childless Jesus (Matthew 19:12). The Christian movement depended for its advancement not on biological reproduction, but on adult conversion. Although this attitude lasted through the time of the apostle Paul (see his commendation of celibacy in I Corinthians 7), by the second generation of Christians, transmission and preservation of the Christian message through progeny was rapidly becoming the norm for ordinary believers, with celibacy being reserved for a spiritual elite.
[6] Scholars have noted the liturgical ring to this question ‑‑ especially when one considers the editorial additions found in many Western texts. For some, the baptismal dunking of the eunuch was a bit too swift, so the Western addition of verse 37 asks a series of questions which later tradition, but before Irenaeus, asked at baptism, that he believes with his heart, and that he believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God. However, for most texts, the enthusiasm of the eunuch is enough. Together they create a quite complete‑sounding baptismal rite ‑‑ with the obligatory question and confessional dialogue.
[7] Church Dogmatics IV.1 [63.2] 759-60.
[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 112, 257.
[9] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 240, 260.
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