NL 342: Ethiopian Eunuch Baptized- Acts 8:26-39

image: “Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch” by Herbert Boeckl Wikimedia Commons

April 25, 2021

Acts 8:26-39

Initial Thoughts

  • Extend reading to include verse 40? 

Bible Study

  • Who is Philip?

    • Called to be one of the first set of deacons last week

    • Immediately after the stoning of Stephen, the church scatters to Samaria, including Philip.

    • Acts 8:5-6 “Philip went down to a city in Samaria and began to preach Christ to them. The crowds were united by what they heard Philip say and the signs they saw him perform, and they gave him their undivided attention.”

    • Philip’s preaching and teaching converts Simon the sorcerer. His success in Samaria leads Peter and John to go there as well. 

    • “The apostles are in Samaria, and their voices are being heard in unusual places. This is extraordinary. They are there, not because they want to be there, but because they are now subject to God’s asserting love. The Holy Spirit is pushing them toward the Samaritans and beyond… They will soon turn back to Jerusalem, but little do they know that they can never fully go back. Their world turned upside down by the Spirit is yet turning, and the Jerusalem they know and the home they understand will soon become very complicated.” Willie James Jennings, Acts, p. 81

  • Who is the Eunuch? Not much is known other than what we have

    • “the Ethiopian was someone wealthy enough to ride in a chariot, educated enough to read Greek, devout enough to study the prophet Isaiah, and humble enough to know that he cannot understand what he is reading without help. He is also hospitable. When Philip speaks to him (at the direction of the Holy Spirit), the Ethiopian invites the talkative pedestrian to join him in his chariot. For a modern parallel, imagine a diplomat in Washington, D.C., inviting a street preacher to join him in his late model Lexus for a little Bible study.” Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word – Year B, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.

    • Could have been Jewish (as could have Candance) there were Jewish teachings in Ethiopia going back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba

    • Racism would not have been as much of an issue as sexual status (Karen Baker-Flitcher, Feasting on the Word – Year B, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide - this is true for the ancient world, but not for the way in which Western Christain Scholars have interpreted this story by ignoring the recognizable black African identity of the Ethiopian eunuch or dismissing his baspitm as being less significant ( or even illegitimate) than the baptism of Cornelius

    • Was the eunuch even allowed to worship in the temple? Unknown. Depends on whether there was a strict reading of Deuteronomy or Isaiah

    • Biblical Conundrum:

    • It is important to note “that the Ethiopian eunuch is a recognizable black African from ancient Nubia.” Demetrius K. Williams, “Acts”, True to Our Native Land, p. 226

  • Their conversation and four questions (this segment from Willie James Jennings)

    • Question 1 - “Do you understand what you are reading?”

      • Philip literally chases down the carriage, breaking down boundaries of ethnicity, class, and social status.

      • “God is chasing after this eunuch.”

    • Question 2 - “Without someone to guide me, how could I?”

      • “The reading of the holy word must always bend toward communal.”

      • The response to the question with this question opens up the channel God was chasing after - the relationship is opened and boundaries are crossed.

    • Question 3 - “Tell me, about whom does the prophet say this? Is he talking about himself or someone else?"

      • “The eunuch asked the right question, one that is like a prayer that God will answer. Now the body of god will be seen where no one would have imagined or dared to look, at the place of humiliation and pain and on a eunuch’s chariot.”

      • “Philip and the eunuch are in that strange new unknown that surrounds divine presence. Where God comes a surprising new follows, such that no one in Israel had ever seen. The strange and the new wrought by God will now bind together Philip and the eunuch in a new paradigm of belonging. They will not forever travel the same road.”

    • Question 4 - “What prevents me from being baptized?”

      • “Faith found the water. Faith will always find the water” 

      • There is no catechism or vows or ritual. There is only Spiritual thirst.

      • “There will be no correct or proper image of a disciple, no bodily model by which to pattern himself, and no one to begin a process of erasure or eradication of his differences. Philip will not be allowed to stay to tell him who to be or how to be, how to see himself or receive a preloaded life script in Christ.”

  • Baptism

    • By baptizing the Ethiopian, Philip is expanding the mission of the Jesus followers to the Gentiles long before it is embraced by the church itself. It won’t be until Acts 11 and the conversion of Cornelius (by Peter) that the church will acknowledge that “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18).

    • “The conversion of an ‘Ethiopian’ eunuch, then, provides a graphic illustration and symbol of the diverse persons who will constitute the church. Therefore the forecast of the mission ‘to the end of the earth’ (Acts 1:8) finds symbolic fulfillment in Acts 8:26-40...in ancient Greco-Roman reckoning, ‘Ethiopia’ represented the southern ‘end of the earth’”. Demetrius K. Williams, “Acts”, True to Our Native Land, p. 226

  • Sexual Stigma

    • Eunuch - castrated male, typically castrated before puberty, be seen as “safe among women” and to perform social functions for royalty (like being a treasurer)

      • ironically stereotyped as sexually immoral

      • Jesus refers to “eunuchs from birth” in Matthew 19:12

    • Isaiah 53 - refers to one who is “shorn” and was a book of hope to eunuchs, captives and the poor. 

      • This can be seen explicitly in Isaiah 56:4-5, “For thus says the LORD: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant,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.”

    • This passage has also been lifted up as a passage of hope among many in the LGBT community for Philip does not acknowledge the eunuch being racially or sexually different, but instead shares the story of Jesus with him and Baptizes him- regardless of biology, sexual or sociocultural norms.

    • “The eunuch, Kandake’s treasurer, is colonized and “unmanned”--that is, transgendered--but still exceedingly powerful.” Margaret Ayermer “Acts of the Apostles”, Women’s Bible Commentary  p. 540

    • “Philip simply teaches that the prophecies in Isaiah have been revealed and fulfilled in Jesus. The text in Isaiah 53:7-8, along with Isaiah 56:4-5 and Acts 8:5-12, does not mention gays and lesbians. This does not mean, however, that contemporary Christians are let off the hook regarding contemporary controversies surrounding human sexuality. The text does encourage us to accept persons who are biologically, sexually, different from dominant sociocultural norms. We, like Isaiah, Jesus, Philip, and the eunuch, are affirmed in the call to share the good news of the God of Israel revealed in Jesus without partiality or prejudice.”-Karen Baker-Flitcher, Feasting on the Word – Year B, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide (emphasis added)

  • In the Wilderness- both encounter God in one another

    • Eunuch finds God in a local who is able to travel with him for a ways and reveal the good news in the scriptures

    • Philip encounters God in one whom (at least some of) the religious authorities had declared unclean, yet the good news of Jesus sees the man-not as a eunuch but as someone in need of good news

      • “When Phillip joined this person who sought to worship God despite his exclusion, was it perhaps Phillip himself who was converted to the faith?” Nadia Bolz Weber, The Hardest Question (great blog that no longer exists :(  )

      • “So Philip baptized him, and when that black and mutilated potentate bobbed back to the surface, he was so carried away he couldn't even speak. The sounds of his joy were like the sounds of a brook rattling over pebbles, and Philip never saw him again and never had to.” Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words

Thoughts and Questions

  • How can I understand unless someone guides me?

    • This statement illuminates the eunuch’s need for guidance as well as Philips call to guide. How will you and your church guide those seeking good news?

  • “About whom...does the prophet say this?” Is a passage only relevant to Isaiah and his time or is this passage good news for the Eunuch? The basis of this question I think lies in the hearts of many Christians. 

    • “The biblical word is never merely about "back then." It is always a word to us, to this moment, to these circumstances.” Tom Long, Feasting on the Word – Year B, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide

    • What is to prevent me from being Baptized? How would you or your church respond to this inquiry?

    • There is no indication that the eunuch believed in Jesus or truly understood who Jesus was, but somehow he heard the good news in Baptism

  • “The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch demonstrates fro African Americans of the 19th and early 20th centuries the fulfilment of Ps. 68:31 that Ethiopia will “stretch out her hands to God...Numerous references to this text [Ps 68:31] in sermons, speeches, and other writings during the 19th and early 20th centrueus relate it to racial pride as a counter to racial prejudice…”Demetrius K. Williams, “Acts” True to Our Native Land, p. 227

  • “The text does encourage us to accept persons who are biologically, sexually, different from dominant sociocultural norms. We, like Isaiah, Jesus, Philip, and the eunuch, are affirmed in the call to share the good news of the God of Israel revealed in Jesus without partiality or prejudice.” Karen Baker-Fletcher (Feasting on the Word – Year B, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide)

    • what does this mean in our increasingly divided world? How can we proclaim good news to ALL without partiality and injustice? Do we risk the safety of those “persons who are biologically, sexually, different from dominant sociocultural norms” by embracing those who would reject or harm them? I don’t think so- we proclaim the good news which is radical love and comfort to those who have been rejected and will challenge those who wish to maintain the status quo.

Year 3Eric FistlerActsComment