BRUCE C WEARNE, in his examination of Acts, looks at an encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch…
But (there’s more) a messenger of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the road that leads from Jerusalem down to Gaza, the desert road.” And he got up and went. And, do you know, (that was when) an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a minister of Candace, the Ethiopian queen, (the fellow) in overall charge of her treasury, was on his way home having come up to Jerusalem to worship. And seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “You are to go up to and join to this (caravan and this) chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and (as he did so he) heard him reading (aloud) from Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Can you understand what you are reading there?” And he said in reply, “How can I, without someone to guide me?” And (with that) he invited Philip to come up [into the chariot] and sit with him. Now the Scriptural passage he was reading was this: “As a sheep is led to the slaughter or just like a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he keeps his mouth closed. It was the humiliation of a right judgement that was denied him. Who now can give an account of his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth.” And the eunuch said to Philip, “Please tell me. Who is the prophet talking about? Is it himself or about some one else?” Then it was Philip who (indeed) opened his mouth, and starting from this Scripture he told him the Good News of Jesus. And as they travelled along the road they came to a place with water, the eunuch saying, “Look, here is water! What prevents my being baptised?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water, and he baptised him. And having come out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip and took him off elsewhere so that eunuch didn’t see him again, but on his way he went rejoicing. Philip, however, could thereafter be found at Azotus, and as he went he announced the Good News in each of the towns he visited until he came to Caesarea. (Acts 8:26-40/transliteration by Bruce C Wearne)
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THE DESERT ROAD: Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch on a desert road, not unlike this one. PICTURE: Mira Pavlakovic/www.freeimages.com
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Philip moved on. God’s Spirit prompted him to keep going. And that was when, out on the Gaza Road, he met a servant of the Ethiopian Queen. This foreigner “had come to Jerusalem to worship”. But he was a eunuch, and Jewish law forbade him from entering the house of God (Deuteronomy 23:1). Was he going home early? Maybe someone had consoled him by referring to Isaiah’s account of God’s promise to eunuchs. This is found in Isaiah 56:5. There it reads: “To eunuchs who believe in me I will give an everlasting name that will never be cut off.”
This is very stark language. The Almighty gave a wonderful promise. And no doubt Luke, a physician, knew this promise as well. He would have known that eunuchs could not enter the temple. This man was puzzling over Isaiah’s prophecies when Philip hitched a ride with him. The scroll he was reading was chapters 40 to 66, known as “Second Isaiah”. They looked together at the “suffering servant” passages. The eunuch’s question was about Isaiah 53 and this gave Philip an opportunity to explain how Jesus had fulfilled this prophecy. The man believed and was baptised. He went home rejoicing.
He may not have been able to worship as he had intended but now he was part of the “suffering servant’s story”. Philip returned home to Caesarea. We next hear about him in Acts 21, when Luke was accompanying Paul. It was then, I guess, that Luke heard this story from Philip’s own mouth.
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