I have never really loved or even understood the story in Acts 8 about Philip & the Ethiopian eunuch. I've always just thought it was there to show us how the gospel spread to Africa. Today Our wonderful Sunday School teacher, Miles Mullin was teaching on this. And today something clicked for me. I understand this story now like I never have before and I get it. I get why it's in there. It's beautiful. I think the story isn't so much to show us the spread of the gospel, but the efficacy of the gospel for everyone.
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”
27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship,
28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet.
29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”
35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”
[37] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both 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 suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
So the eunuch, who is not completely whole physically has gone to Jerusalem to worship. You see, because of his body he could not participate wholly in Judaism. They had rules about that. The eunuch was excluded because he wasn't whole.
Now think about what the eunuch was reading when Philip came on by.
Isaiah 53. Two verses before the ones quoted in Acts 8 is this one:
Isaiah 53:5
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
See where it says, the punishment that brought us peace was on him. I'm not Bible scholar, but what I see here is God saying Jesus brought us peace. Wholeness. Exactly what this eunuch didn't have. Wholeness. Also, the reason this eunuch could not have been wholly accepted as a proselyte to Judaism. Then we read how Philip shares the gospel message of Jesus Christ with this eunuch and he believes and is baptized. Now he has a wholeness he could have never had before. The Gospel of Jesus does something that Judaism couldn't have. Here we have someone rejected by the old covenant, but accepted in the new. Jesus Christ makes whole all who believe in Him.
