Acts 8:26-40

Philip and the Ethiopian

This has always been a fascinating story to me, but I don’t have one single line on it so here are several random thoughts.

First, I love the fact that the Lord told Philip to go south to the desert road and Philip just did it. There was revival going on in Samaria. Philip started the revival. Surely the Lord would not take him away from where it was happening? What would these people do without him? Gone.

The Ethiopian was reading from reading from Isaiah 53. This is the most powerful chapter in the Old Testament if not the entire Bible. I strongly encourage ever believer to become familiar with these twelve verses.

“Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” In the vast majority of the world you can say that you are a Christian all you want but no one really believes you until you are baptized. The only biblical identification rite we are given as believers is baptism. In evangelical circles we have substituted the walk down the aisle and the “sinner’s prayer” as the identification rite. I’m not saying that those who aren’t baptized aren’t saved. I am saying that the biblical rite that tells the world you are saved is baptism.

There are several different approaches that various churches take to the rite of baptism. Some churches require a waiting period or a time of study. Study is fine; however, there is no hint of this in the New Testament. In the New Testament once you came to faith the next thing you did was get baptized. The Ethiopian did it and later we’ll see the Philippian Jailer and his family doing the same. Oh, and usually the person who shared the gospel with the convert is the one who baptized them. Again, I’m not saying doing it some other way is wrong. I’m just saying that this is the pattern you see in the New Testament.

Finally, after Philip baptized this guy... Gone. He went from Jerusalem to Samaria to the Desert road to Azotus to Caesarea. Then many years later we find Philip and his family still in Caesarea. Apparently Philip was willing to go but he was also willing to stay. It is not the going or the staying, but the obeying, that counts.