June 19, 2000
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July 2 Lesson
___By Rick Willis
Sharing the gospel with 'different' people
___Acts 8:4-8, 26-38
___4Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. 6When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. 8So there was great joy in that city. ...
___26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road--the desert road--that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
___30Then 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.
___32The eunuch was reading the passage of Scripture: "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth."
___34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
___36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and they eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?" 37Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." The eunuch answered, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." 38And he gave the orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
___Them and us. It's a trap we all fall into. From childhood, we are taught which group we belong to and which groups are on the outside. The distinctions can be as innocent as our football team versus theirs, as enlivening as our political party opposed to another or as bewildering as us men compared to those women. The differences are simply there. The trap snares us when we believe we are good and right merely because we are "us," and "they" will always be second-class citizens at best.
___The trap tried to close its iron jaws around the early church, according to the book of Acts. Thick walls between "them" and "us" threatened to make Christianity into a Palestinian Jewish sect. But God pushed, coaxed, visioned and Spirited believers across the barriers that held them back from the world Jesus came to save--Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.
___Our churches still are not immune to the trap either. When things seem to be changing too fast, we tend to shrink back to the familiar and to put up fences protecting it. Yet God is still in the business of pushing us ahead, still beginning with believers who will cross the barriers one by one.
___A way of seeing the world
___In Acts 1, Jesus gave his disciples a new way of seeing the world--people who need to know Jesus. God's Spirit already was crossing barriers and preparing people to receive Christ. To get the disciples to catch up with the Spirit of God took some pushing.
___God's first push came to the church in Jerusalem when persecution broke out. What evidently began as a cultural conflict (see Acts 6:1, 14) spiraled into the stoning of the disciple Stephen, whose heritage was Greek. Those who were zealous for the ancient Hebrew ways continued to lash out against the believers still in Jerusalem, and many of the believers fled the city.
___There were two ways these believers could have seen their situation. One was negative. Just put yourself in their place for a moment. No sooner had they begun to grow and really get things off the ground than they ran into fierce opposition. It would have been easy for them to be discouraged. Their thrill and joy in seeing God's Spirit move so powerfully were quickly dampened.
___In some ways, they were going through what many mission churches experience. When members of a sponsoring church band together as the nucleus of a fresh mission congregation, there are immediate bonds strengthened by a common goal. Here is a body of believers with a clean slate. And when the first new converts are added, the sense of excitement grows. But it seems never to fail that before long visions begin to conflict, or leadership falters or outside pressures try to squeeze great potential into a smaller mold. Discouragement sets in, and the temptation to give up is strong.
___The Jerusalem church easily could have decided the world was going to be too resistant and hostile to the message of Jesus. They might have thought it better to keep quiet. But they had a different way of seeing the world.
___The view they took was positive and resilient. The weight of God's grace in their lives was heavier than their fear or discouragement. They were scattered; therefore, they would spread the good news wherever they wound up! The world might have pockets of resistance to Christ--didn't Jesus himself say as much (John 16.2-4)? Yet the world also was embraced by God's love poured out at the cross. The risen Savior sent them into this very world with assurance he would be received, and he would be with them always.
___Show and tell
___One of the disciples who saw the flight from Jerusalem as an opportunity for expanded mission was Philip. He was counted among the Hellenistic Jews (Acts 6.1-5). That means when it came to witnessing beyond the boundaries of strict Hebrew culture, he already was equipped. Added to that was his heart for sharing his faith, which reflects in the title given to him. He was called Philip the evangelist to distinguish him from Philip the apostle (compare Acts 1:13, 6:5, 21:8).
___Sharing the message of Christ with the Samaritans was as natural for Philip as frogs croaking after a rain. But not all of his fellow Jews would talk religion with a Samaritan unless it was a fight. Even the 12 disciples had been shocked to find Jesus talking freely with the Samaritan woman at the well. The hands of racism between Jews and Samaritans had reached out in skirmishes, vandalism and even murder for hundreds of years when Philip found himself there preaching the word of Christ.
___It takes more than smooth talking to overcome the calluses of prejudice. The Bible says the crowds in the city of Samaria were attentive to Philip not just because of what they heard but also because of what they saw. The actions of Philip reinforced the message. He preached salvation from God with power through Jesus Christ, and he demonstrated the power. His hearers saw lives torn by unclean spirits made whole again. They saw bodies gripped by disease healed.
___People who need Jesus notice his love in action. Ask a staff member from Buckner Baptist Benevolences, or a disaster relief volunteer with Texas Baptist Men. Finding practical ways to meet needs and heal hurts gives powerful support to the proclamation of Jesus Christ.
___A desert road
___Obedience to the Great Commission has many benefits. Laying down our selfish priorities for the sake of adopting Christ's mission statement defeats emptiness and gives real purpose to life. Sharing a common experience of God's love and forgiveness binds church members together against loneliness and isolation. Witnessing others come to faith in Christ thrills us as believers and rejuvenates our own joy of salvation. And God has a way of giving the clearest directions to those who already are following him most obediently.
___That last benefit certainly was true of Philip the evangelist. In spite of the traumatic exit from Jerusalem, where he had been made a deacon and began to put down roots, the Bible says Philip was preaching the gospel everywhere he went. He developed a habit of telling others about Jesus and showing them faith's results wherever he wound up. It's a safe bet not all of the people who heard Philip believed or even welcomed his message. Yet he stayed faithful.
___It comes as no surprise, then, that God gave Philip very specific guidance to a divine appointment. Philip knew he was to get up and go down the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. The added detail that this was a desert road probably told Philip exactly which route toward Gaza he was to take.
___The man in the chariot
___No doubt there were many people on the road--Jewish pilgrims, traders, sightseers--but one person caught Philip's attention, and he got that unmistakable feeling this man was the reason God had sent him there. The Bible describes him as an Ethiopian eunuch, a high-ranking official, riding in a chariot and reading from the book of Isaiah.
___What a quantity of information is packed into that short description! Imagine a well-dressed, foreign man riding in a limo. He's self-confident, with the bearing of someone who's accustomed to making things happen, not one to settle for shoddy work. He would look right at home reading the Wall Street Journal, and yet he's reading the Bible--a brand-new copy with the price tag still sticking to the cover.
___The man in the chariot represents two types of people we should be watching for. One is the well-educated and successful type who is seeking for some deeper meaning in life than a new BMW. The other, ironically, is the marginalized misfit. The physical condition imposed on men who served as harem overseers made them different. He had advanced to become secretary of the treasury in his country, but he still remained different. Although the Ethiopian man obviously was interested in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he never could fully participate in Jewish worship because he was a eunuch (see Deuteronomy 23:1). He was the outsider at a class reunion. He was the single who showed up for family night.
___Isn't the Holy Spirit of God still prompting us to get alongside people like the Ethiopian eunuch? As Texas becomes more like that populous, kaleidoscopic, commercial road to Gaza, we can become more like the attentive Philip with an ear for the Spirit and an eye for the seeker.
___The right question ... the right answer
___The Ethiopian man had a scroll of the book of Isaiah. It could very well be he especially was interested in Isaiah because of the verses that read: "Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, 'The Lord will surely separate me from his people'; and let not the eunuch say, 'Behold, I am a dry tree'" (Isaiah 56:3). Certainly the blessings Isaiah foretold already were budding there on a desert road.
___He was reading, out loud as the custom was in those days, from the Suffering Servant Song in Isaiah 53. Hearing what he was reading, Philip asked him the right question: "Do you understand what you are reading?" In reply, the Ethiopian gave the right answer: "No way can I understand it without someone to guide me." A Bible in hand does its best with a flesh and blood guide alongside.
___Starting with the text the man in the chariot was reading, Philip preached Jesus. Others looking on might have seen one of "them" and one of "us." But there in that chariot, as the living Christ was introduced across another barrier, person to person, the truth was born afresh. The chariot stopped, and both men walked into the water they found. With the magnificent sign of believer's baptism, the Ethiopian man began his own testimony to the truth. He too was given a new way of seeing the world. As he looked around the rest of his way home, like Philip he only saw "us." And we all need to know Jesus.
___Rick Willis is pastor of First Baptist Church in Roscoe
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