Don't be afraid to share the gospel with someone you don't know.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Acts 8
Luke takes us from Stephen to Philip, another non-apostle whom God used mightily to spread the good news about Jesus to people further and further from Jerusalem. This passage focuses on an African man who needed help understanding the Bible. Philip models for us how to answer someone's hard questions while pointing them to Jesus.
“Do you understand what you’re reading?” (8:30)
When We Studied This Passage in 2016
I used a topic that is still just as applicable today: margin. Philip was able to obey God because he had the margin in his life to go where God pointed him. Other topics include:
believers' baptism by immersion
African Jews
ancient trading roads
an "emergency roadside kit"
a gospel presentation
If I don't cover something below, take a look at this previous post:
Getting Started: Things to Think About
Do You Remember Helpful Help Desks?
Younger readers might not have any idea what I'm talking about, but there was once a time when we had things called "Help Desks" that were actually helpful. Before Google or YouTube killed them, when we had questions or problems, we would call or visit a help desk, and a friendly, knowledgeable person would help us with answers.
(Yes, I know that help still exists in the world. I'm being hyperbolic!)
What's your favorite help desk memory? Maybe it was a concierge while on a vacation. Maybe it was student services while at school. Maybe it was a Radio Shack employee who helped you fix your Walkman. I hope we all have a story of having a question or a problem and getting excellent help from a random person.
One of my favorite such stories is from our honeymoon when we were on Roatan Island. We couldn't afford the "big" excursion a lot of other folks were doing, but a boat worker pointed us to a cabbie who took us to a restaurant who let us swim in their private lagoon (and even gave us snorkeling equipment!). (In retrospect, a lot of things could have gone wrong there, but they didn't.)
Just last week, we had a bizarre thing happen on one of our church computers. I called a number, and an extremely nice and knowledgeable man spent a couple of hours with me figuring out what happened and how to fix it. Help desks aren't dead yet, Google!
In this week's passage, a man has a truly difficult question, and God sends him someone to answer it: a random guy walking along the road with him (who turns out to be Philip, the super-deacon).
A Neon Sign from God
Every one of us has prayed something to the effect of, "God, show me a sign." And unless we're really not paying attention, every one of us has seen some kind of sign from God.
In this week's story, God sends a "do this" sign to a man named Philip. What I find most interesting is that Philip wasn't looking for a sign; God just told him to do something. So, I have two categories of questions for you to consider -- what's a time God gave you direction in response to a prayer? and what's a time you felt God was telling you to do something specific even though you hadn't asked?
For me, my "unprompted instruction" is usually along the lines of "you should send so-and-so a text". But here's the thing: if I decide that I'm too busy to do it at that moment, the prompt usually fades. I wonder if that can be explained by this week's passage. God told Philip to approach that chariot at that moment. If he had waited, he would have missed it.
Btw, here's a lesson on the difference between trusting God's signs and testing them:
1-800-Ask-A-Biblical-Scholar
I've suggested versions of this topic before. What's a biblical question you have that you haven't found a helpful answer for? There are lots of very difficult questions and situations in the Bible, and we simply don't have the capacity (or the right!) to understand it all. But that doesn't keep us from asking.
There are all kinds of websites for things like this:
I'm not endorsing any of them; I'm just pointing them out. They exist because a lot of people have a lot of questions about the Bible!
A man in this week's passage had a tough question. What's yours? What have you done to find answers? (How has that search gone?)
Where We Are in Acts
Last week's passage ended with Stephen on trial before the Sanhedrin. Stephen gave a truly profound and devastating message to those Jewish leaders: "you have always been trying to put God in a box of your own making". As a result, they have rebelled -- violently, even -- against all of God's messengers, including His own Son, their true Messiah.
Remember that restraint the Sanhedrin showed in the trial of the apostles in chapter 5? Well, that's all gone. There's no Gamaliel to prevent them from acting on their worst impulses. These "esteemed Jewish elders" drag Stephen out of the city and stone him to death.
Luke uses this episode for two narrative purposes:
Stephen's death sparks the major persecution that forces the early Christians away from Jerusalem, fulfilling Jesus' call to spread the gospel to Samaria and beyond.
Stephen's death is how Luke introduces us to Saul of Tarsus, the man who will be at the heart of much of the rest of the book.
The Book of Acts is about to expand beyond Jerusalem and Judea.
Chapter 8 introduces us to Philip, who went and preached in Samaria (a place most Jews were prejudiced against). As divine testimony of God's approval of Philip's evangelistic work in that land, God empowered Philip with the ability to cast out demons and heal the sick.
(Yes, so many jokes I want to say about deacons casting out demons.)
And Luke throws in two rather confusing episodes.
The most prominent one to his initial audience is about Simon the Sorcerer. He must have still been rather famous at the time. He attempts to purchase the ability to give people the Holy Spirit, which makes Peter mad. It's just bizarre, and I really don't know what to do with it.
Simon's request points to the more important question to us today. Philip baptized the believing Samaritans in the name of Jesus, but they didn't "receive the Holy Spirit" until Peter and John came from Jerusalem and laid their hands on the people. This has led to all kinds of confusing practices in certain churches. Here's the best explanation I can give: Hebraic Jews had deep-seated doubts that God could love Samaritans (or Gentiles), so when God sent salvation to those groups, He allowed the apostles to be a part of the "transaction" so their credibility would make it easier for the Jerusalem Christians to realize that Samaritans (and Gentiles) could be saved. This particular kind of event only occurs here and in Acts 10, when salvation first extends beyond Jewish cultural bounds.
All of that makes me think we should have a section focusing on baptism.
This Week's Big Idea: Baptism
This week's passage, though strange in places, is not complicated. So I'm going to devote way more space than usual to my "Big Idea".
I'm a Baptist. I'm a part of a Baptist church. We talk about baptism fairly regularly. Both last Sunday and this Sunday, we get to be a part of multiple baptisms. But it's been a while since I've done a standalone focus on the meaning and purpose of biblical baptism.
Back in February, I did a comparison of baptism and circumcision. Two years ago, I did a breakdown of what it means to be "born of water and spirit". So, let's just talk about baptism. Your group may not have any questions about baptism at all, but just in case someone does...
In this week's passage, a man responds to Philip's gospel presentation with,
As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water. What would keep me from being baptized?” (8:36)
So obviously there's a familiarity with the idea and importance of baptism. Let's look at what Luke has already said about baptism.
Let's go back to John the Baptist, whom Luke spent a long time describing:
He went into all the vicinity of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:3)
John was tapping into a pre-existing Jewish tradition of ritual washing. Archeologists have unearthed hundreds of small pools around the Temple Mount; Jews would symbolically "cleanse their souls" by physically cleansing their bodies in such a pool. Proselytes to Judaism would first be circumcised, and then they would be baptized in such a pool to indicate their conversion to the Jewish religion. The word "baptism" was used to describe this action because it is the Greek word for "to immerse".
In summary, when John the Baptist came on the scene, he tapped into a pre-existing Jewish understanding that "ritual immersion" was an accepted symbol of repentance and conversion.
Peter takes over the John the Baptist role in Acts 2, when he gives his Pentecost sermon:
Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (2:38)
Interestingly, Luke doesn't mention baptism again until chapter 8, when Philip evangelizes and then baptizes men and women in Samaria. (This includes that unique situation in which the people Philip baptized did not receive the Holy Spirit until after Peter and John arrived to bear witness to their true salvation; see above.) Following that, Philip then baptizes a court official on the road to Ethiopia.
Let's start with this simple observation: the people in Philip's day understood that "baptism in the name of Jesus" was the act of being immersed in water as a public confession of their faith in Jesus as their Savior.
Pretty straightforward, right? So how did we get into so many arguments about baptism in the centuries that followed?
When we studied Acts 2, I pointed out many ways Acts 2:38 have been misrepresented. Then, I said to hold off your baptism questions until this week's study. And here we are!
The questions Peter's words set off include:
Is baptism necessary for salvation?
Is baptism necessary for the forgiveness of sins?
What is the proper form of baptism?
What does baptism do?
Who should be baptized?
Forgive me for oversimplifying about 300 years of church doctrinal development, but you don't want to be here all day. The early Christian church rightly concluded that salvation was by far the most important thing they were "keepers" of. They wanted to spread salvation to as many people as possible. But as they grew into more Greek and Roman areas, they found extremely superstitious people (think about the Greek and Roman myths you still know today). Superstitious people need to "do" things. Salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is just something they had a real hard time with. They were terrified of not being saved. And unfortunately, leaders in part of the early church wanted to put their fears to rest, so they started what we now call the "sacramental system". Over time, it developed into a very thorough and detailed system of actions that, when taken, would "assure" a person of being saved.
The first action on their list was baptism; the second was the Lord's Supper. If you want to be saved, you have to do those things. There are enough "prooftexts" in the Bible (like Acts 2:38) that they could seemingly justify their teachings.
Well, there were a number of "unintended consequences" to that decision. I only want to mention two today. First, if baptism is necessary for salvation, and if infant mortality is relatively high, wouldn't it make sense for concerned parents to ask the church to baptize their infant, just to be safe? Compassionate priests agreed, and it became customary for parents to have their infants baptized in a church. (This, of course, became widespread after the Roman Empire "turned Christian". And all sorts of traditions and beliefs sprang up around this unbiblical practice in part to justify it and in part to solidify the church's hold over the people.)
Second, if baptism is necessary for salvation, then shouldn't the church be very careful about exactly who performs it and how? (The same thing applies to the Lord's Supper.) It did not take long for this concern to develop into a very strict process for training (and then ordination) -- the only people who could do such a baptism were ordained priests in the established church. And over time, appealing to the people's superstitious tendencies and the church's enjoyment of pomp, the ritual of baptism became more and more elaborate. People began to expect baptism to be done a certain way.
To make a long story short, Luke's audience of first-century Christians would have had one simple way they would have understood baptism. But today, we have 2,000 years of development and argument about baptism that we have to sift through which makes baptism a much more complicated subject.
[Aside: if you have any opinions about the way weddings "should be done", you perhaps unintentionally demonstrate how this kind of thing can develop. The Bible doesn't give us a "wedding ceremony". We gravitate to what we like or think appropriate.]
That brief survey is intended to help us understand how so many different kinds of beliefs about baptism came to be.
Here's the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 statement about Baptism and the Lord's Supper:
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.
Matthew 3:13-17; 26:26-30; 28:19-20; Mark 1:9-11; 14:22-26; Luke 3:21-22; 22:19-20; John 3:23; Acts 2:41-42; 8:35-39; 16:30-33; 20:7; Romans 6:3-5; 1 Corinthians 10:16,21; 11:23-29; Colossians 2:12.
In Acts, Peter and Philip shared the gospel with people, and when they responded in faith, they were instructed to be baptized in the name of Jesus. From that pattern, we can draw these conclusions about Christian baptism:
Who should be baptized? People who have declared their trust in Jesus for salvation.
What is baptism? Immersion in water, which is a symbol of cleansing.
What is the purpose of baptism? To publicly declare one's faith in Jesus for salvation.
When should that person be baptized? The biblical pattern is for someone to be baptized soon after their salvation.
Salvation is thus separate from baptism. The rest of the New Testament continues to explain and describe what salvation is and how someone is saved (because people kept having questions about it). My favorite is Romans 10:9-10:
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
A person is saved apart from baptism; a person is then baptized to profess that salvation. Remember that in those days, openly declaring faith in Jesus was dangerous, so only true believers would even want to submit to be baptized.
What is the symbolism of baptism?
Death and burial to our old life of sin. (Rom 6:3-4, Col 2:12)
Our unity with all believers all over the world. (1 Cor 12:13, Eph 4:5)
We have "put on Christ". (Gal 3:27)
The cleansing of our souls from sin. (1 Pet 3:21)
What is the "formula" of baptism? Jesus says that when we baptize, we do so "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19)
Who can baptize? The people who "do" the baptizing in the New Testament are respected Christians.
What does baptism "do"? The expectation that baptism "does" something has led to much of the debate about baptism. Baptism is not magical. I believe the Bible suggests that baptism "dos" two things: declare a person's faith publicly, and demonstrate a local church's affirmation of their declaration of faith. Isn't that enough?
And that's really all we get about baptism in the Bible. Of course, that's enough. Most of the arguments we have about baptism are about things that people have added to what the Bible says.
So that brings us to the big question that people have today -- why does First Baptist Church "require" someone to be baptized by immersion as a profession of faith in order to become a church member? This is when it is important to remember that being a church member is not required to be saved. If we were to tell someone that they can't be a church member of FBC, we are not thus kicking them out of heaven, right? So, then we look at the pattern of churches in the New Testament. The members of those churches were all baptized believers. Why? Because Jesus commissioned His followers to make disciples, baptize them, and then teach them what He commanded. So here's the process: (1) Lead a person to Christ. (2) Baptize them as a public profession of their new faith. (3) Bring them into the local Christian community -- the local church -- where they could be nurtured, cared for, and discipled in their faith.
The New Testament teaches that only Christians should be members of churches ("the body of Christ"), and one of the first steps of obedience a Christian takes is being baptized. Therefore, we think it right and reasonable that our church members should have taken that step of obedience demonstrating their submission to Jesus their Savior.
If you have any questions, please contact me!
Part 1: A Neon Sign of Evangelism (Acts 8:26-29)
26 An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is the desert road.) 27 So he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem 28 and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.”
Luke first introduced us to the folk legend Stephen, and now he tells us about Philip, another of the Acts 6 "deacons". To distinguish him from Philip the apostle, Luke later identifies him as "Philip the Evangelist" (21:8). His point is that the church will no longer be solely focused on the apostles and Jerusalem.
Philip started the chapter in Samaria, and in our passage, he has moved to the road to Gaza (which goes through Gaza to Africa).
The Ethiopian Eunuch
"Eunuch" is eunuch. That concept, uh, translates. Some scholars have suggested that "eunuch" could be a title, and thus he didn't have to be emasculated; I think it's almost certain that he was indeed emasculated, which was a common method of "controlling" officials in certain positions.
"Ethiopia", on the other hand, couldn't have meant the modern nation (or even location) of Ethiopia. Modern Ethiopia has a very tumultuous history of expansion, contraction, and colonization. Instead, this is the area called "Cush" in the Old Testament, which was conquered by what would become the Ethiopian empire in 330. This is likely southern Egypt and/or northern Sudan. "Candace" was the title of the queen, not her name.
The point is that the gospel is for everyone. This man would have been a true African, living in a culture very foreign to Jerusalem. And the "eunuch" comment is not meaningless -- eunuchs were unable to participate fully in the Jewish religion (Dt 23:1). People who would have been rejected by Jews -- the Samaritans, this disfigured African -- were all welcomed as Jesus' brothers and sisters.
The detail about being a court official is there to help us understand (1) why this guy was allowed to go to Jerusalem, (2) how this guy was able to read Hebrew, and (3) how this guy could afford to have a copy of the Isaiah scroll. It also helps us realize that the gospel is for wealthy and powerful people just as for the poor and oppressed.
This is going to be a theme for our entire study of Acts: who are the people you don't think are a "fit" for your church? What are you doing to make sure they hear the gospel anyway? And what are you doing to make your church a "fit" for them?
[In this case, the man went back to his home in Ethiopia. He wasn't ever going to be a part of the church in Jerusalem. I see this as a prefigure of what we call "resort ministries", where Christians serve in locations with lots of travelers. They share the gospel with them and commit them to finding other Christians in their hometowns.]
Part 2: Don't Be Afraid of Hard Questions (Acts 8:30-35)
30 When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the Scripture passage he was reading was this: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who will describe his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. 34 The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or someone else?” 35 Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning with that Scripture.
Let's be honest: this question is a big reason why some Christians are terrified to share the gospel. They're afraid that someone will ask them a very difficult question and they won't have an answer.
Look, the Ethiopian's question is the exception, not the norm. And besides, God had prepared Philip to have the answer for the question! Do you trust God to give you the answers you need for the people who ask them?
In my experience, the "hard questions" are a cloak. Some people just don't want to talk about Jesus, and they know how to use such questions to put off evangelists. Don't take it personally, and pray your way through it.
The Ethiopian was reading from Isaiah 53. When we studied Isaiah 53 in 2020,
I included a full section about how Jews today still struggle with the implications of this chapter. The "God who suffers" and the "Messiah who dies" just doesn't compute.
No wonder the Ethiopian was confused!
Philip, being a spiritually mature follower of Christ with a strong Jewish background, was ready for it. (It was really kind of a layup, because Jesus is the only way we can make sense of that very challenging chapter.)
This leads me to a two-part discussion topic.
(1) What are things people "know" about the Bible today but are confused by? You can definitely include end-times stuff. That leads to so much confusion about the Bible. But there's a lot of other stuff that people "think" they know about the bible, like what it says about marriage or gender or ethics, etc. What are those confusing topics?
(2) How can you turn that point of confusion into a way to share Jesus? Isaiah 53 was an easy one for Philip; that chapter was literally about how Jesus provided salvation! But remember why we like The Bible Project so much -- they believe that the entire Bible tells a unified story about Jesus, so every chapter of the Bible can be used to help someone understand why people need salvation and how Jesus provided it.
If questions like these make you afraid to share your faith, then perhaps a tool like this might be an encouragement:
It's a simple New Testament with a section on how to share your faith as well as a list of 36 common questions and answers. It's a handy resource.
Part 3: The Deal Is Sealed (Acts 8:36-39)
36 As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water. What would keep me from being baptized?” 38 So he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any longer but went on his way rejoicing.
Clearly, part of Philip's gospel presentation included the importance of baptism as a profession of that faith. The Ethiopian was so excited to be saved that he sought out baptism ASAP!
Aside: Should You Go Ahead and Baptize the Person You Just Led to the Lord? As a general rule, I recommend not. Jesus gave the ordinances (baptism Lord's Supper) to the church, which is expressed in local churches. There was no Christian church in Ethiopia in that day, so it was then or who-knows-when. There are churches all around today, so generally you want to help the person you led to the Lord find a good church, and then that church would baptize them and welcome them into their community of faith. There are certainly reasons why a person might not be baptized at/by the church they will join, and you can work out those circumstances when you encounter them. For my part, I just want to make sure that no one takes baptism lightly or frivolously such that a person might later come to have questions or doubts about their baptism.
Back to the passage.
You'll notice, especially if you have a KJV Bible, that verse 37 isn't there.
Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Long story short, that verse isn't in the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament. The accepted theory is that a later scribe added the verse to help readers understand that the eunuch was "saved" before Philip baptized him. I trust Philip, the super-deacon, to have the spiritual insight to know that the Ethiopian was truly saved.
Aside: the Ethiopian was clearly baptized by immersion.
Verse 39 is just weird. I don't know why God did that. I don't know what it means. I don't know what to do with it. It is kinda cool, though. Verse 40 tells us that Philip ended up in Azotus, which is Ashdod in Philistia (see the map) -- another region shunned by Jews.
My Serendipity Bible brought up two applications that I hadn't thought of.
Who is a person in your life who has helped you understand the Bible? (I extend this application to -- when was the last time you thanked them for their investment? and what do you need to do to become a mentor to someone newer to Christianity than you?)
How often do you study the Bible? The Ethiopian had his question because he was reading the Bible on his own. (I extend this to -- do you need your Bible study group help you with tips or ideas for reading your Bible more?)
Lots to talk about this week, isn't there!
Luke continues to use his narrative to build the case that the gospel is for everyone all over the world.
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