Good News

Introduction

About six weeks has passed since all the traveling for the Christmas holidays. Have you recovered? Many of us really put a lot of miles on our vehicles during the holiday time. From Thanksgiving through New Years, we are busy with trying to make our way to visit families. We enjoy those visits. We look forward to them. We also look forward to coming home. More than once you have said “I’m glad to be back in my own bed.” Holidays and traveling go together.

But would you do all the traveling if you couldn’t sit down at a table full of food or join around a Christmas tree and open gifts or visit with family? Would you travel if once you got to grandma’s house, you heard “stay out here and I’ll see about bringing you some food after we are through eating?” Would you travel if you got to your family’s house so that the results were to have your nose pressed against the window looking in at the fun and joy of others while you stayed outside? Would you travel if you couldn’t be in the house? Maybe. But it would be hard, wouldn’t it?

Turn to Deuteronomy 23:1. If a man’s genitals had been intentionally damaged, that man was not allowed in God’s assembly. Why was God so harsh? Most often a man would intentionally emasculate himself as a sign of loyalty to another god. God was making a point about the purity of his presence and the sacredness of his glory. Don’t presume upon God’s presence. Don’t pretend that it doesn’t matter to God how you live your life. God cares and wants his people to care. One cannot pledge allegiance to another god and come into the presence of God. What about a man who changes his mind and wants to honor God? The law was still followed, although there is no indication that God wanted the law followed. In other words, a changed heart did not allow a man to come to the assembly if his body carried the marks of prior allegiance.

So now we have to ask the question. What makes a man who knows he cannot enter into the assembly, travel 800 miles one way to go to the temple? What makes a man travel 800 miles only to stand on the outside of the assembly and say a few prayers? What does such a trip tell you about the man’s heart and his desire to be near to God? When we come to the story of Philip and the Eunuch we may want to talk about baptism and the way to be evangelistic. I suppose these are valid subthemes to be drawn from the text. But Luke is doing something else with this text. And he is using this text to encourage his readers about the extent and depth of God’s love, initiative, and the power of his word to change lives.

God’s Direction

From the very beginning, the reader sees the hand of God at work. Verse 26 says that an angel directs Philip to a desert road. Then in verse 29, the Spirit of God tells Philip to get next to the chariot and walk with it. God is directing this whole process. First of all, it would be unlikely for a commoner such as Philip to have a conversation with a dignitary from another country. But it happened because God is directing this process. Second, this is a deserted area. This is not a coincidence that Philip meets this man. God is directing this process.

Philip hears the writing of Isaiah being read aloud. The same section as we shared together in our responsive reading. The Eunuch does not comprehend the writing. Philip offers to help explain it. The eunuch invites Philip to join him in his wagon and they proceed down the road. The text tells us that Philip began at Isaiah 53 and told him about Jesus. We know that Isaiah 53 is about Jesus. The eunuch didn’t. So Philip told him and something begins to happen. The eunuch becomes convinced about Jesus.

We are not told what Philip told the eunuch. Maybe it was something along the lines of what Peter said at Pentecost. But it appears that Luke is a master at telling a story and expecting his readers to be knowledgeable about a text without going into great detail. If we turn back to Isaiah 53, we may be surprised at what we find. While Isaiah 53 is about Jesus, it comes in a section in which God is speaking of his grace being showered on those who come to him. It is a section about restoration and God’s call for those who are restored to Him to remain obedient and faithful to him. Not far after Isaiah 53 is a text which Philip may have included in his teaching.

Isaiah 56:3-8. Listen to the reading of God’s word. Do you think that a eunuch who has been trying to keep God’s sabbaths might be encouraged to believe that God has a special place for him? Do you think the eunuch might be getting the idea that it isn’t necessary for him to remain any longer on the outside of the temple praying, but that through Jesus, the suffering servant, that the gates of heaven are being thrown open to him? Is it any wonder that the eunuch instructs the wagon to come to a stop so that Philip can baptize him? Philip helps this Gentile who is from the ends of the earth, to come to know God. And with his work done, God calls him away from the scene but the eunuch continues on his way with much rejoicing because he knows that he belongs to God.

So What?

What is Luke doing with this text? Certainly he is demonstrating that the geographic outline of his writing is being fulfilled in the conversion of this eunuch. Surely, he is demonstrating that the spread of the gospel is by the power and intent of God. Certainly he is showing that God wants the Gentiles to know him as well. All of these purposes can be seen in this text. But for us there is one important facet. People’s lives are changed when they are in the word. This eunuch learns from Isaiah 53 who Jesus is and sees a personal invitation to become a part of God’s family. Yes, a teacher is needed. But the eunuch has no qualms about committing to God when he is convinced that God is at work in his life.

Scripture is not just casual reading. It is in the reading of scripture that our lives are changed. In this case, the eunuch responded to scripture with joy and a changed life. We may come to scripture and have a variety of responses to it, but we do not come to scripture and leave unaffected. To read and study scripture and to have no response speaks to the hardness of our heart not the inability of scripture to affect us. How can we read Isaiah 53 and not be affected? How can we read what Jesus did for us and walk away with a shrug of the shoulder and the casual response “that’s interesting?”

We continue to encourage you to be in the word. Open Bible studies are beginning to help you be in the word. Our study tonight is not designed to be another Bible class. We gather to be touched; to hear the word again; to see what the text means not only to those who first read it but to us as well. Why? Because God communicates with us in the scriptures. The Hebrew writer says “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” The eunuch was convinced by the scriptures that God wanted to be in relationship with him. So we too are convicted through the scriptures that we belong to God; that he loves us with a deep, immeasurable love; and that we matter immensely to him. But we are also convicted of our need for him and the importance of remaining faithful to him. To read scripture in a detached way says something about us not about the scripture.

Invitation. Baptism was and is a response of the heart when one comes to understand that Jesus is the answer to one’s sin. There is no arm twisting with the eunuch. He wanted nothing more than to have his sins washed away.

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