Last week we took another look at the Law—the rules laid out in the first five books of the Bible. We talked about how the Law was something that Jewish people take very seriously—that following the Law is believed to be the way a believer follows God. Therefore, it’s very important to understand the Law and it’s impacts on your own life. We also took another look at Jesus’ complicated relationship with the Law. The Law was not exactly straight forward, it was something to be debated; however, there were some laws that people viewed as very clear cut. Jesus on the other hand even called into question those supposedly clear cut Laws.
Which brings us to Acts. Peter and the other apostles are spreading the word of Jesus with reckless abandon! They want to bring everyone to him—or do they? So far the stories have mostly been focusing on their efforts with other Jewish people—whether Greek Jews or Aramaic Jews. Peter and the apostles are pretty specifically spreading the word to other Jewish people. But things don’t stay that way for long, and it brings up a lot of questions of the Law.
Someone please read Acts 8:4-8.
4 Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word. 5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. 6 The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, 7 for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured. 8 So there was great joy in that city.
Philip is one of the twelve disciples, who is now one of the Apostles leading this early Christian movement. Like Peter, he is out spreading the word with reckless abandon—going wherever God would have him go. Here Philip goes to Samaria.
We’ve talked about Samaria before, when we studied the story of the Good Samaritan and the story of the Woman at the Well. But to remind us: Samaria is the Northern Region, what was once known as the kingdom of Israel, or what we sometimes referred to as the Northern Kingdom in our studies. This is the area of land that fell long before Judah—to the Assyrians. While Judah later fell to the Babylonians. While the people of Judah were able to retain their identity and their Jewishness, and if anything stick closer to the law during their exile, the Northern Kingdom was different. They were completely conquered and subjugated. Most of them were even moved out of Israel. And most of them lost their identity, they forgot they were Jewish.
However there were some people who remained. These people probably intermarried with the people brought in by the Assyrians. And to the Jewish people in the south, that would be unacceptable, a tainting of God’s chosen people and tradition. According to the Law, Jewish people were supposed to marry other Jewish people, not marry outsiders. But worst of all, the Samaritans and Jewish people constantly fought and had been fighting—not just wars, though that too, but over a question of identity.
The Samaritans said they were God’s chosen people, they were the ones worshipping God correctly in the high places of the mountains in Northern Israel, and that the entire temple system set up in Judah was a fraud. So to a Jewish person not only are Samaritans questionable because they married into other people groups, but now they’re claiming they are the God’s chosen people, the Children of Abraham via Joseph, and that the people of Judah are wrong.
This at the core a question of the Law, a question of the interpretation of the Law, what it means to be Jewish and what it means to follow God. The way the Jewish people followed the Law in Jerusalem, the Samaritans could never be accepted.
This isn’t like today, where you can be Presbyterian, your friend can be Baptist, and your cousin Catholic and everyone agrees to disagree. This is more like the Irish troubles of the 70s, where the Catholics and Protestants were at such a disagreement that they wanted to murder each other.
Romans might be the oppressor who overtook Israel, but Samaritans were the Jewish’s people’s personal nemesis. They hated Samaritans more than anyone else on the planet.
But Philip still goes there, he still preaches to them, and they come to Christianity in droves. They would never be accepted in Judaism, but the message of Jesus is that these delineations no longer matter. That they can worship Jesus anywhere, not just in a Temple. And they can let go of their past lives, their past sins, and come to God anew.
Someone please read Acts 8:9-13.
9 Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. 10 All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11 And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. 12 But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.
In Samaria, there is a guy named Simon. He was a practioner of magic. This isn’t like Harry Potter magic. He was more likely some sort of illusionist, like modern magicians, using tricks to bamboozle people. Whereas today, we know that magicians aren’t actually doing magic—that they have the cards in the sleeves or the dove in a special compartment of their hat, back then people would have taken this very seriously, and thought he was a serious magician. They would have thought he was using spirits to do magic—and maybe even sometimes he thought that too.
The people of Samaria were super impressed with him. They thought he had the power of God, because he could do these things.
Then comes along Philip, bringing everyone to Jesus—even Simon! This is a big deal and once again a question of the Law. Because the law is very clear what should happen to people who practice magic. Magic is a capital offense. In Leviticus it directly says that people who practice magic should be put to death—this is the sort of rational people used during the Salem witch trials to kill the people they thought were witches.
But Philip doesn’t use that interpretation of the Law to make everyone riot against Simon and kill him. No! Instead he spreads the good news to Simon too, and in the end Simon also becomes a Christian!
I’m sure that means he turned from his charlatan ways, because that’s the thing about following Jesus, you no longer want to do the sinful things were doing before. But Philip didn’t necessarily know if that would happen. If he knew the Law, he would know Simon was someone he was supposed to stay away from. But instead, Philip offered Simon the chance to follow Jesus, and Simon took it.
Because Jesus is for everyone.
This isn’t the only time Philip brings Jesus to someone the Law doesn’t necessarily welcome.
Someone please read Acts 8:26-28.
26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south[g] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
Once again, Philip is going where his God tells him to go. In this case, an angel tells Philip to go to a random road in the middle of the wilderness.
If I was Philip I’d probably be like, “lol—what? You want me to go where?” It would be like God asking you to go to a random country road in the middle of nowhere New Mexico where you would probably be unlikely to meet anyone. It just seems random! But Philip has faith in scads, so he goes to the place where God has asked him.
Lo and behold, while he is there, an Ethiopian eunuch is traveling down this road.
As an Ethiopian, this person is clearly not born Jewish. He is from another country, and not born of Jewish heritage it would seem. However, somehow this guy came to want to be a follower of God, so he went to Jerusalem to worship.
I wonder what kind of reception this guy received in Jerusalem, at the temple. It’s possible it did not go well at all. He’s an outsider—probably easily marked by the color of his skin, his accent, and probably even his clothes. But he’s also a eunuch.
For those of you who don’t know what a eunuch is: it’s basically when you take a boy and have them neutered—as often do to our dogs or cats or horses. We do this to animals so they can’t have puppies, or kittens, or whatever. But in the ancient world, rulers used to do this to boys. This is not really a practice that exists anymore; however, in the ancient world there were many reasons rulers used to do such a thing. Sometimes they would do it to their enemies, so they could never bear children. But often, they would do this to children, so that those boys would grow up, different. Eunuch children wouldn’t go through puberty like a normal boy, they wouldn’t develop like a normal boy. They could often look different. Their voices were certainly different—their voices never dropped. Many eunuchs were treasured for their singing voices.
But rulers did this to boys, so they could have a class of people who were not quite men or women—who they could then trust to go between the realms of men or women. You could trust these men amongst your wives, because they could not “accidentally” get your wives pregnant, and therefore bring into question your entire royal line.
The Bible uses male pronouns for the eunuch, but the truth is that eunuchs were viewed not quite as full men, not quite granted the privileges and rights of a regular man. They were viewed a bit like a class to themselves.
And since they were often visibly and definitely audibly different, you could tell when you met a eunuch that they were a eunuch.
Why is this important? Well, because depending on your interpretation of the Law, it’s highly likely that when the eunuch came to the Temple, he wasn’t allowed in because of his status as a eunuch. It’s highly likely that they used the Law as written in Deuteronomy 23:1—which seems to address men in his situation—to refuse him entry.
Imagine traveling all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem, just to be rejected at his destination.
So it’s entirely possible that this Ethiopian is leaving Jerusalem a bit defeated, a bit dejected, a bit on the outside.
Someone read Acts: 8:29-34.
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 reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture 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 justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”
Philip is on this road, when the eunuch goes by, and God is like, “Hey Philip, join this guy in his charios.” And Philip is like, “Okay God” and literally runs up to the chariot—which takes some guts. Chariots have been known to trample people on occasion. But perhaps the chariot was stopped, I’m not sure.
Anyway, Philip runs up and hears the eunuch reading from the prophet Isaiah. Why does this eunuch have a copy of Isaiah? Who knows! It’s not like the Bible and its books were something you could buy at any bookstore, like today. There were no bookstores bake then, and there was no compiled Bible. Every synagogue would have a copy of the Law, the torah, and I’m sure the scholars and religious leaders all had copies of the other books of the Bible, but it’s unlikely that they were something super circulated.
However, this eunuch was a court official, so he probably had some political reach. Eunuchs were also generally very educated, courts and rulers viewed them as an investment in their court, people who could act as scribes and secretaries.
It’s possible that the eunuch found the copy of Isaiah first, somewhere in Ethiopia, and that’s what drove him to Jerusalem, the scripture he read there. Or it’s possible that once in Jerusalem—despairing about how he wasn’t being allowed to worship—someone gave him a copy of Isaiah to comfort him. Because despite what the Law says, or seems to say, about eunuchs not being able to worship in the temple, Isaiah had some very comforting words for eunuchs.
Someone read Isaiah 56:3-8.
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and do not let the eunuch say,
“I am just a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
5 I will give, in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.
6 And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,
and hold fast my covenant—
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.
8 Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them
besides those already gathered.
These verses seem to directly address the eunuchs situation. He is a foreigner. He is a eunuch. I’m sure as he read this, he thought “This Jewish God is speaking to me.” That’s probably the draw of Isaiah to him, the draw of the Jewish God. God is saying, “Hey eunuch, it doesn’t matter that you can’t have children. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t born as one of my chosen people. All can come to me. No one should stop you from coming to me. You too can be holy, you too can be complete, you too can be part of all of this.”
In the last verses it says God gathers the outcasts of Israel. He takes the people that Israelite society has said, “No, you’re not good enough for us” and God says, “it’s doesn’t matter, they are good enough for me.”
I like to think those are the verses the eunuch found comfort in, even as society told him he was less than—less than a man, less than worthy.
But that’s not the section of Isaiah he’s reading when Philip pops up! He’s reading another section, about a lamb led to the slaughter. And he’s reading it like, “Dude, I have no idea what this means. Why is this Isaiah guy talking in riddles.”
So when Philip pops up, the eunuch is like, “Hey, you’re Jewish. What does this mean?” Lucky for him—or rather as God planned—Philip has the answer.
Someone read Acts 8:35-40.
35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 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?” 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and 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. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
When the eunuch asks Philip about these verses, he’s like, “Oh boy, do I have good news for you! That innocent lamb led to slaughter? I met him! His name was totally Jesus!!! Let me tell you all about him.”
And the eunuch is like, “THAT IS AMAZING!” In fact he’s so amazed that at one point he sees water and he’s like, “Can I get baptized right now?” Remember baptism is a symbol—a symbol that you are choosing to follow Jesus, that you are becoming part of his family, and this eunuch doesn’t want to waste any time. He wants to be baptized, to become a follower ASAP.
But I imagine after his experience at the Temple, there is a part of him who is expecting Philip to be like, “Oh no, we can’t do that—there are all these rules surrounding baptism, and we have to wait” or to say that people like eunuchs can’t be baptized. That’s probably why he asks, “Is there anything to prevent me from being baptized?”
But Philip is like, “No! Let’s do it right now! This is so exciting!” And they stop the chariot, they both hop out, and Philip baptizes him in the water. Is it a pond? A river? A lake? I have no idea. But they don’t care. They just care that it’s enough water to perform a baptism so that this eunuch can start his new life, as an accepted follower of Jesus, a child of God.
The Bible says as soon as the Baptism is completed, that God snatches Philip away, to send him somewhere else. The eunuch sees this, he is amazed, and he starts rejoicing. He is a follower of a real, powerful God, who cares about people like him—a mere eunuch. Society may not value him as much as a normal man, but God does. And the eunuch is going to spend his days rejoicing.
Meanwhile, Philip just keeps preaching wherever God takes him.
This story can seem random—it’s after Stephen’s stoning and before Saul’s conversion. It’s just a little story in the Bible, but I wanted to stop and talk about it a few reasons. One—this is just another example of how the apostles and early disciples are spreading the word with reckless abandon. But two—and more importantly—it’s about how God loves the people on the fringes of society and wants them as part of his crew as well.
We as a society often make up a bunch of rules about what makes someone acceptable to socialize with us, to be a part of us. Sometimes we—as a church or a culture—make up rules and we try to attribute them to God. We try to say it’s God who cares how you dress on Sunday. God who cares what color your skin is. That we’re just following God when we discriminate or enforce a rule.
This was seen a lot during the times of slavery, but also during the Jim Crow era in the South. We tried to say it was God who said that a white person and a black person marrying was wrong. When really it was just us, and our racism.
The eunuch probably came across a lot of people in life who told him he didn’t fit in societal boxes enough to join them. He certainly would have at the Temple. Like I said, it’s highly likely they wouldn’t let him worship at the Temple because of his status as a eunuch.
But God doesn’t care about these man-made things. God doesn’t view rules or institutions as more important than people. He wants all people to come to him, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their status as a foreigner, regardless of their questionable gender. He wants them all.
Don’t ever let anything stop you from coming to God.