Philip and the Ethiopian. Acts 8: 26-40; Isaiah 53
This is the continued story
of how God the Holy Spirit is expanding the earthly church. Acts 1:8 was the final
marching order from the Lord Jesus Christ to the apostles: that they were to
stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came and then they were to be witnesses
of Jesus in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria and then to the uttermost part
of the earth.
We have looked at two areas
of expansion that have taken place as a result of the persecution. The first
has to do with the movement into
As we get into the episode in
the latter part of this chapter and we see the Holy Spirit overtly, actively,
consciously, in a manner that was known to Philip, moving him from one location
to another. But what is interesting is that this kind of expression in the book
of Acts pretty much disappears by the time we get towards the mid part of the
book. By the time we reach chapter 12, 13 and 14 the Holy Spirit is not
mentioned in this manner. So that was part of the transition that was taking
place. The Holy Spirit is only mentioned as overtly moving the apostles in
specific directions a few times, or God directing them through the appearance
of an angel. Then in this episode of Philip going to the Ethiopian eunuch we
have both overt direct direction, directive guidance from an angel of the Lord
(v. 26) and then we have the Holy Spirit’s guidance coming up just a few verses
later in v. 29.
But for those who want to
make this a standard operating procedure for the church the problem is that
there are a few references to an overt ministry of God the Holy Spirit like
this in the early part of Acts and then that is not mentioned anymore. And it
is not that normative even in the first part of the book. What is meant by that
is that it is not the expected, normal routine. What we really need to be
asking is why the Holy Spirit isn’t mentioned as having a more overt guidance
pattern in the rest of the New Testament. It is just not there. When we look at
it in light of some of the things we see in Acts 2, 4, 8, and in 10 with
Cornelius what we see is that this sort of overt divine guidance is very rare
in even the very early apostolic period. The normal mode of God’s direction is
more covert, more behind the scenes where the effect is felt more than any sort
of sense of specific direction revelation from God. It is mostly from either
circumstances or as they understood what the mission was they tried to just go
forward and accomplish the mission as it seemed best to them.
This is how we see Philip
making the first decision. He moves up and goes to
After finishing the ministry
in Samaria Peter and John are going to leave and go back to Jerusalem, and all
that we are told at the end of that section in verse 25 is NASB “So,
when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started
back to Jerusalem, and were preaching the gospel to many villages of the
Samaritans.” But we are not told what happens to Philip. He is either
travelling with them back to
What we do know is that the curtain goes
down at the end of verse 25 and then opens again with the scene in verse 26. So
there is something of a time lapse here. The second event that is brought up is
the direction that God gives to Philip now to move to the southern part of
The way to look at this if we want to
understand that is to see how these words and this phraseology of an angel
speaking are used in other places in Scripture, and every other place where it
is used there is an appearance of an angel and an external objective, audible
statement by the angel. So this is not some sort of mystical, subjective divine
guidance through feelings, it is overt special revelation via an angel.
Verse 26 doesn’t mean Philip is in
Somewhere along this roadway Philip is
going to meet up with the Ethiopian. Even at the time of the New Testament the
excavation of part of the ancient site of
The angel gives him an order and Philip
responds. This is how every believer should respond when we get a direction
from the Word of God as to what we should do. We should recognise that this is
a direction from God and this should be a normative pattern in our life. Acts
8:27 NASB “So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch,
a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all
her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship.” There is obviously
behind the scenes divine guidance that there is going to be an intersection of
the path of Philip and the path of this Ethiopian. But we don’t read that he
arose and went and the Holy Spirit guided him to this eunuch. We know that is
going on behind the scenes but it is not overt. The text doesn’t make a point
of always saying those things. The reason for saying that is one of the things
observed is that you can always tell when some people are brand new believers.
They are full of enthusiasm, very excited about the Christian life, and it is
always very refreshing. But it is often found that there are people who think
they have to talk in certain “Christian” verbiage. The say “Praise the Lord” in
every other sentence, say “Amen” and “isn’t God wonderful,” and every time
something has happened they say, the Lord did this, the Lord did that.
Scripture doesn’t even do that. This shows the new believer’s enthusiasm but
hopefully they will kind of calm down after a little time and recognise that
using verbiage like that has no spiritual value one way or the other.
This verse is important for setting up and
understanding the whole background and context in answering and addressing some
of the issues here. We see sometimes in commentaries comments like, “We can see
Philip’s yieldedness to the Spirit’s control and his
obedience.” We don’t know how he can see it because there is no mention of yieldedness. There is mention of his obedience but not
mention of the Holy Spirit—yet. It is a response to the angel. This is the
subtle way in which people read things into the text. We have to be careful not
to read things into the text. The Holy Spirit plays a key role in this as we
see in verse 29, but don’t confuse the Holy Spirit in verse 29 with the angel
in verse 26.
It is interesting to understand the
background of the man from
A question that we should ask because of
the significance of what is going on in Scripture related to Jews and Gentiles
is, just exactly what is the identity of this Ethiopian. The first option is
that he is actually Jewish. We don’t think that is the case but we do think
that is a possibility. We have seen this in modern times. There is a huge
number of Ethiopians who were air-lifted to
There are two major operations that took
place back late twentieth century. The first occurred in 1984 and 1985 and was
a somewhat secret operation known as operation Moses. This involved a massive
airlift of Ethiopian Jews to
There have been several suggestions as to
who these people are. Some have suggested that they were members of the ten
lost tribes (reference to the ten tribes that were in the northern kingdom of
One of the interesting things about this
community is that it is very clear that they have a very ancient claim to being
Jewish. They practice all of the Mosaic Law, all of the customs of Judaism, but
it is not a second temple period Judaism, not a rabbinical form of Judaism. They
have no understanding or awareness of any of the rabbinic practices that were
common in the time of Christ or the period just prior to Christ. They have no
knowledge of the rabbinic laws that were enacted after the Old Testament period
ended. They only know of Old Testament Judaism. Another reason we can know that
their origins are ancient is partially based on the account in Acts chapter
eight, the story of Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch and his obvious Jewish awareness
and knowledge of Judaism in Ethiopia, and an awareness to the degree that this
Ethiopian eunuch who was a very highly place court official has made a
pilgrimage to one of the annual feast days to Jerusalem in order to worship at
the temple.
So there are basically four options in
identifying this Ethiopian. The first is that he truly was a Jew. That is
probably not likely. A second way in which a Gentile could become a Jew or be
considered Jewish was to become a full proselyte to Judaism. In this case they
would accept all of the Torah, all of the customs and all of the practices of
the Jews, and this would be a complete part of their life and religion. This is
probably not the case with the Ethiopian because most likely he was a eunuch—that
is not just a title for somebody who was in a role of personal servitude to the
royal family, though he most probably was—and if he was a eunuch then,
according to Deuteronomy 23:1, he would not be allowed to enter into the inner courts
of the temple to worship. He could have gone only as far as the courtyard of
the Gentiles. So he could not be a full proselyte to Judaism if he was a
eunuch. This would mean that the third option would be most likely and this was
a reference to a proselyte of the gate, someone who was a Gentile but believed
and worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and for the most part they
accepted the customs and the practices of Judaism but they did not have to
submit to the rite of circumcision.
When we come to Cornelius in Acts chapter
ten we are told that Cornelius was a God-fearer. He is not considered a
proselyte or a proselyte of the gate but a Gentile who worshipped the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob alone who lived as best they could according to the
laws of the Torah but did not necessarily have to follow or accept all of the
customs and practices of the Jews. This explains why he has his own personal copy
of Isaiah. This would have been extremely rare in the ancient world. Usually
only a person of some wealth or means would be able to own their own personal
copy.
Acts
Today if you are in education and say
anything about rote memory you are considered to be somewhat antediluvian, and
yet most people who were educated and made most of the brilliant discoveries
and inventions upon which everything modern is built came up through education
systems built on rote memory. So this should not be looked down upon by modern
schemes of education. It teaches how to learn and how to retain things. The more
we memorise things the more we will remember things. The more we train our mind
to remember things the easier it will become and the more we will remember. And
who knows what kind of an impact that might have down through the years if we
get Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia? As with Scripture the same
applies with hymns. People should memorise hymns. So it is important to get
this into the soul through Bible memory and learning hymns.
As Philip comes running up he hears what
the Ethiopian is reading in Isaiah chapter fifty-three. It is important to note
here that he doesn’t fully comprehend what he is reading. A point to bring up
here is that everyone should be involved in some kind of a Bible reading
program. We should be reading three chapters, four chapters, five chapters etc.
every day; because this is the Word of God that washes through our brain. Of
course there are going to be passages that we don’t understand. But we are reading
to be reminded of promises so that if we see verses that are promises we can
underline the promises. We are being reminded of how God works in the lives of
believers in the past. I am reading to be reminded of circumstances and
situations and events that took place in the Scriptures, and we are reading to
be reminded of certain key doctrines. We should be reading the Scriptures on a
regular basis. Unfortunately, today that is a practice that has fallen upon very
difficult times.
He is reading but he is not really
understanding or comprehending. But because he is reading he has a frame of
reference for a conversation. Today if we go into a public school, any sort of
environment where there are children, and we try to talk about the Bible we are
in serious trouble because they are biblically illiterate. Even among a lot of
Christians in a lot of churches they are biblically illiterate. They don’t know
the events; they don’t know the people; so we can’t even have an informed
conversation about the gospel, about God, about spiritual things because people
don’t have the vocabulary, the information, the knowledge. And even if you are
reading and not understanding everything that is there you are still learning
about people, places, events and things; and that then becomes a foundation in
your thinking for conversation and learning later on. But when you don’t have
the basic vocabulary then nobody can have an intelligent conversation about the
Bible or anything related to God.
What the Ethiopian is reading comes from
Isaiah 53:7, 8. As he is reading this out aloud God the Holy Spirit gives further
direction to Philip. Acts
Acts
The eunuch is asking one question and it
is important to pay attention to this. Acts