The Ethiopian Eunuch

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.”30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with 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 before its shearer is silent,
    so he opens not 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 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. 36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” 38 And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

This mysterious story amazes me to no end. Some reflections:

Firstly, an African Gentile's unlikely and not-very-successful (I imagine) pilgrimage into the desert to worship none other than Israel's God... concludes with the gospel in his heart and his baptism. He sought understanding and was enlightened. He desired to repent and a pool of water appeared for that purpose (v.37, c.f. Matt. 3:11). When we seek God humbly, whoever we are, He allows Himself to be found and rewards our persistence extravagantly.

Secondly, the story highlights God's impeccable timing and sovereign providence. He makes everything fall beautifully into place. The coincidences in the story are too many to be merely accidental: the angel's prompting of Philip, the chariot meeting Philip on the eunuch's way home, the passage of Scripture the eunuch had decided to read, Philip's expertise in guiding him to the truth, the pool of water, etc. A child of God must therefore be comforted that nothing can ever happen to him/her which God has not planned or prepared in such great detail so that His goodness shines. God is yet bigger than any difficulty we should face, even death. I think then, that Abraham's attitude toward his bleak circumstances should be our inspiration and goal: "In hope, he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be". He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God." (Rom. 4:18-20, ESV, emphasis mine)

Thirdly, the sense of urgency in the story (regarding the eunuch as well as Philip) jolts me to think: do we respond to Scripture as if we might drop dead any moment thereafter and fall short of fulfilling it? For example, Philip could have put the angel on hold until it was convenient for him to journey to Samaria, not to mention a dusty desert. After all, he wasn't told why he had to show up there. The eunuch could have ignored that pool of water: "Oopsie, I didn't wear the right clothes." No. He commanded the chariot to stop and went down into the water at once. I can only imagine that he continued the journey back home drenched but overjoyed (v.39).

Finally, evangelism in this story began with Scripture (v.30). Of course, I'm not saying that Philip's approach is a one-size-fits-all sort of thing (not every unbeliever is reading Scripture when we appear at the scene!) - but I think the story emphasises the centrality of reading Scripture in the whole process. Philip used Scripture to get the gospel message across to the eunuch. Do we, in our well-meaning efforts, tend to skip the reading (and exegesis) of Scripture because we are afraid that those whom we evangelise to might get bored? Would we rather just briefly paraphrase? The Bible must tell its story on its own terms.