Acts, 8:1-24
Vern Peterman · Mar 20, 2005
Acts (2005), No. 12
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262322364775

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

There's a couple things to catch up on because last week I was hoping to have this map that's kind of at the front of your package and hopefully you get the package there and have the map there. That's intended to be referred to for basically weeks to come we'll see places that are mentioned there and we'll find the map valuable for that. One of the places that is going to crop up repeatedly in the Book of Acts I want us to take a quick look at. You have, I believe on page two of your handout, some insights.

This is Caesarea. There are two Caesareas, okay? Why would they confuse us like that? The folks in the ancient world had no problem calling things the same name multiple times over. Alexander the Great had over a half dozen cities named Alexandria, okay? Didn't seem to bother him at all.

And so, of course, one of the things that you would want to do if you were in the Roman Empire and you wanted to please the Caesar is name a city after him, right? So a whole bunch of places got called Caesarea. There's Caesarea Philippi, which is kind of north of the Sea of Galilee, and there's Caesarea Maritima. That's what we're talking about here, and what you'll see most reference to when you see Caesarea in the New Testament.

Let's take a gander at it here. This is up on the slides. This is the picture you also have reproduced in your handout. This is an aerial slide, and you can see there's been some earthwork done, and this is an excavation of Caesarea. Caesarea was a Roman military colony. About 3,000 Roman troops were stationed there. It was like a lot of military bases today.

It kind of runs the town or runs the area around it. And a lot of the support facilities and the culture and everything is kind of oriented around military presence. You've seen that if you've either visited or perhaps even lived in or near a military base.

You've probably seen some of that same impact. Same thing here. Here's a Roman military colony, about 3,000 troops. And so this is one view of it. This is one you have in your handout. Here is another one kind of looking down a little bit more at ground level. You can see they're going through and kind of cleaning up and doing some excavation there. And we'll take a closer look at some portions of it.

In order to house 3,000 troops, you know, you got a fairly substantial place to handle that. And, you know, plus some, not just places for them to live, but military facilities, military offices, things of that sort. Plus you've got a hierarchy of officers and you have to have accommodations for them, so it's quite a bit.

This is the theater, which was excavated, the amphitheater. And of course, just like you see throughout the Roman Empire, a lot of these amphitheaters just built in lots of different places. Here just the same, and it would be more than any place you would find in the area, a place where they would love to have you know, Roman military demonstrations and things of that sort, but they had other cultural events. Now what's curious is they were going through kind of cleaning up the theater, pulling off kind of the dust of the ages and weeds that start to grow up and all that.

They found, amongst all these stones, this stone. And it rather surprised them, but nonetheless, they found it there. It makes reference to Pontius Pilate, which we'll take a closer look at in a minute. One of the things you'll note is that the corners of it have been not accidentally but intentionally shaved off. As a part of the structure they took an inscription stone and chiseled off part of it like we don't care what it says and used that as part of the theater construction. So only in kind of pulling things apart and getting things reassembled did they discover this inscription that had Pontius Pilate's name on it. So what that tells you is how much they respected Pontius Pilate. But, here's the close-up on it.

You see the end, the V, that's the Roman U, followed by the S, so that's Pontius. So the first part of his name they chiseled off. And then you see Pontius, and then here let me circle it so we're on the same page. There's the P. The I's and the T's seem to jump higher, so Pontius Pilatus. Pontius Pilatus. So here's a reference to Pontius Pilate, real guy, but once he was done, they were done with him.

Let's go ahead and chisel up his stone and use it in the amphitheater, help build it up a little bit. We want more places to sit. So it gives you an idea of what they thought of him. There are other references to Pontius Pilate, but this is an interesting one that cropped up. This is the map that you have handed out to you there. It's in the front of your package. This is from Bible History Online, which is a site that I recommend highly. Lots of good resource material there.

And the fellow I've emailed with him some, he seems eager, and willing to have people use things for classroom materials and things of that sort, so he had no problem giving me permission for use of the materials. He copyrights it so that nobody else can copyright it and then deny him the use of his own material. So he does that, but I have no problem using the material and there's lots of good material there. A little caution, in order to fund the site, he's got little advertisements that come up Sometimes those advertised things I wouldn't recommend, but the site itself is good.

All right, I want to zero in on a part of it. This is the part where you see the Dead Sea, Lake Asphaltitis. Huh, interesting. Okay. The Dead Sea down here, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. Okay. And over here is Judea. And what we find is here's up in this corner here, Caesarea, on the coast, out to the coast and to the north that's where these pictures that you saw were from this area on the coast of Israel to the north of Jerusalem some and down here is Jerusalem closer to the Dead Sea and then Jericho would be down this area here by the way the drop from Jerusalem to Jericho is phenomenal It's like a 10 or 12% grade all the way. It's just amazing.

And then, the reason we bring it up is not only does Acts make multiple references to Caesarea. It is the place, for example, that Philip the deacon turned evangelist lived. It's a place that Peter goes where the Gentiles become believers. And there's reference to it later on, even like in chapter 21 or something of that sort. So it keeps being referenced. Paul spent two years there in prison.

What better place to do it? Lots of Roman guards, right? So it's a place that has lots of biblical significance. The reason I have the arrow here is it was Pontius Pilate who was responsible for transferring a number of Roman troops from Caesarea, where they were originally stationed, down to Jerusalem. I say down only because it's heading somewhat to the south. It's actually up higher. But transferring them from Caesarea to Jerusalem, and the reason that that's of big significance is where he put them.

Here is the model of the temple. Remember, here's the colonnades Here are the porticos. Here is the edge of the inner temple area. And this is the fortress Antonia. So you have Roman guards up on the towers overlooking the temple. The Jews just love that, right? Oh boy, they made their blood boil. Roman guards looking over everything they're doing.

This is a holy temple. So to them, this was absolutely a vile thing. that Pilate decided to do. And this is the place where Jesus was sentenced by Pilate. And the stones where Jesus was sentenced are still there. You can even see, you know how the Romans played games with Christ? You know, put this thing on his head and spin him around and spit him, you know, and have him guess who hit him. We still see Roman games scratched on the floor of the stones where Jesus was sentenced. Sit around the you know, you're stuck on Fort San Antonio. I got to do something to be entertained, right?

No cable TV to watch no DVDs to pop in so they played games sometimes cruel games That was the place and it was Pontius Pilate who was the one who made the decision did not make him popular and In spite of the fact that he made the Jews really ticked The Romans didn't think that much of him as a bureaucrat either. He served from 26 to 36 ad never to be heard from again. Disappeared off the face of Roman government and didn't climb the Roman government ladder.

Okay, that's kind of giving an intro because I think we want to keep some of those things in mind when you see Caesarea. That's what it's about. There's this Roman military colony. Some Jews lived there. It was a place that Peter and Paul both had involvement in, Peter because he brought the gospel to the Gentiles there, and Paul because he spent two years there in prison before being taken to Rome. So a place of real significance.

We'll see it continue to pop up through the book of Acts. Okay, now with that, let's look at 8, 1 through 24. This was Philip is carrying out evangelism in Samaria, and last week we taught on it, and then left you with some questions. By the way, if anybody stepped in late, make sure you catch up with us here in terms of the handouts, okay? Now, question one. This is on Acts 8, 1-24. Do you have that handout? Question 1, it's on page 2.

Was Philip in error to go to the Samaritans without the Apostles present? I mean, he had to call Peter and Paul in after the fact. Was he trying to get the Apostles to bless his actions after the fact? Hey, I'll get the Apostles here and that'll fix it, right? Why or why not? Do you think he's got a problem or not? What do you think is going on there? Yes, Tom? Okay, yeah.

The Apostles were called in to validate and one of the things we noted last week is that it was in each case the presence of the Apostles with the Holy Spirit was given and we have some, not in every case, and this is one not, We have record of the gift of tongues being expressed there among the people. But the Holy Spirit was initially introduced to each of the critical groups by the Apostles presence. One or more of the Apostles, but always an Apostle. Other thoughts on that?

One of the things, as you look in detail, and Josiah makes a good point there, the people in Jerusalem did the sending. It was a sending proposition, not Philip saying, hey, come here and cover me. I think I stepped out of line. And there's no indication from what is said either by Philip or about Philip that he was out of line.

So he was out there evangelizing as people believed, because Acts is a transitional book, not the norm for the entire church era, but because Acts is a transitional book at each group, the Jews in Judea, those in Samaria, and then as we see later on, the Gentiles there in Israel, and then Jews in the Gentile land.

Each of those instances, Acts 2, 8, 10, and 19. Those four instances we see at least one Apostle present as the Holy Spirit is introduced. And in not every case, but a few of the cases, tongues is one of the expressions that comes out in each one of those. Okay. So that's question one. How about, let's skip on to page three, question two.

Peter and John were sent to Samaria by the rest of the apostles, that's Josiah's point. Why didn't all of them go? If just Peter or John had gone, would that have been just as good? How come, why didn't we have the whole crew? That's what happened on Acts 2. Why was it okay here to just have a couple of them? Yes? One of the, you make a good point, and that's that as this thing is expanding, you've got more and more territory to cover. We've already seen the apostles recognize, hey, we need deacons.

Because even here in Jerusalem, this is getting too big. So one reason for not sending the whole crew is you still got a whole bunch of people there in Jerusalem that are gathered together and you can't take everybody out of there for that period of time. They couldn't fly in and fly out on a Learjet, you know, that just wasn't one of the things that happened in those days. And jet-powered donkeys were a long ways away. So as you look at this thing here, it was a matter of practicality.

It was also a matter of what we see as a pattern, and that's that in Acts 10 and Acts 19 there's only one apostle present. So it is not necessary to follow the Acts 2 template and say that must always be the case. We always see an apostle present, but in this case only two, and in the next two cases only one, and not the same. We start seeing a variation with the last instance, Acts 19, where it's just Paul, none of the other apostles. Okay. Then, question three.

Simon the Sorcerer had been said to believe in Acts 8.13. Here's the words of Peter. They sound pretty severe. I mean, Peter doesn't just say, hey, lighten up. He talks pretty intensely to this guy.

So the question, is Simon saved or not? Simon the Sorcerer. Is he saved or is he not saved? What do you think? Full of evil seems to be a problem, okay? Does it say that he believed? It also says he believed. So here's a little bit of a tension there, isn't there? Here's a guy that's, on the one hand, says he believed.

On the other hand, you see this full of evil thing. How are we going to resolve that? Tom? Okay. Alright. That could be. Yeah. Okay. Alright. You're saying that the belief may not have been the full gospel belief. Belief in some restricted sense. Okay. Dave? It also says he was baptized in the same verse. Oh really? Baptized. So that's real interesting. It doesn't make reference to any kind of water. When it says he was baptized, was that before or after Peter and John were there? Was it before or after Peter and John came? It was before. Interesting. Before. That's a curious one. Am I asking a trick question?

In a way it can be difficult, can't it? We know that the gospel was presented and there were those who truly believed and were saved. We know from a fact, because there's quite a bit of verbiage rebuking for what he's asking for. It may be difficult, because of the character of the passage, to nail down the answer. And I think this brings up a point. We are given, as believers, various evidences that someone is saved.

In the end, the Lord is the judge, isn't he? But in the end, the Lord is the judge. And that's one thing that's real interesting, that we as believers will someday judge angels. We are called as believers to judge things. Not a judgment of condemnation, but a judgment of evaluation at various places. Judge ourselves.

So there are key things that are to go on. What we see in this passage here is it may be tough for us to make the call that the Lord is ultimately going to make. But what is abundantly clear is there is still every exhortation to believe. There is also every reason to believe that Peter is right on and serious in his rebuke. And we're to take that seriously as well. And in the end, it may be a tough one. But I think it's valuable for us to look at these and to kind of get a sense, you know, what counts?

What's the message? What's coming across? The gospel isn't for sale, and none of its blessings are for sale. And that was a question that we asked. Real interestingly, that Ananias and Sapphira, their rebuke came a month before their death. So here we have Simon, and the rebuke that you see from Peter is pretty sharp. but he doesn't take his life, or his life doesn't take him may be a better way to say it. So it's interesting that the Lord is sovereign and able to call the shots and what's needed here.

But it's real clear this is not about selling anything spiritual. You raised your hand James? Yeah, he didn't seem to have a personal relationship there. So, then the question is, is he a believer or not? Is that expression an expression of, I'm not saved? Or is it an expression of, I'm very immature? Yeah, and so I think that's where you've got to look at it. Again, it may be a tough call, but I think if we look at it from the whole of scripture, we do see what are the issues and what matters. Tom?

Yes, the great power of God is a marketing theme. Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, hey, this is great stuff. I could market this well. This is a good trick. Yeah, and I think, you know, let's assume, just for the sake of falling down this line, let's assume this guy is a believer, just for the sake of pursuing this. Is it possible that the guy truly is a believer, but carrying a lot of his prior and obviously worldly thoughts, it appears that this is not a hobby for him to carry on this occultic practices, but with a marketing theme like that, the great power of God, this guy, that's his livelihood, or a substantial part of it. And that he's looking at, hey, how do I keep this going? That would be a good investment for him to buy that trick. to put that in his quiver, so to speak.

And it would certainly look good to kind of do a grand finale at my show. So you can kind of imagine that if he were still a believer, but very immature, very untaught, still thinking in his worldly, fleshly ways, that would seem to explain the behavior. James? Yeah, okay. All right.

Let's step into and move on to the next part. That will put us into this package that you have here. It's fronted with a colored map and then behind that is a handout. The black and white handout says Phillip's Travels, Peter's Travels is one I just put in there last night.

Nelson's has a big, thick book that they put together and it's designed to be reproducible. That's great, as long as you don't charge for it. Limited to a thousand copies, I think we can do that. They don't care if you copy from the book, so that's great. And that's what this is.

I think it's helpful because it gives some detail on Philip's travels, and as we'll see shortly, Peter's travels. We won't get there here this morning, but keep that in mind and keep taking a look at it. There are lots of things going on. And this next thing, I'm kind of excited about this next passage here. chapter 8, 25-40. All of chapter 8 is in the sphere of the evangelistic gift and the exercising of it that Philip demonstrates. Verse 25 starts off and it kind of wraps up what we just finished.

Here's Peter and John, and as they're returning to Jerusalem, because as we mentioned, they didn't have the jetpack donkeys in those days, as they're returning to Jerusalem, they're traveling back through these Samaritan cities and continuing to spread the gospel, continuing to tell people about Jesus Christ. And so it kind of sums up that activity in that one verse.

And then now it changes in the account here. and turns to Philip, looking at the Ethiopian eunuch. Now, you have on the map that we just, on the prior page there, that we just handed out, that one that's in black and white, kind of Philip's path here. It's interesting, he's kind of zigzagging around Israel, going into areas, you know, towards the coast now, as it turns out. So here's Dr. Luke, and I'm looking at the background section here if you want to track with me. Here's Dr. Luke, he's telling this account, and here's this Ethiopian who is a court official, the treasurer for the Queen of Ethiopia.

You might think that the name Candace would be helpful. Oh, now we can put him on some kind of a story. The problem is that Candace was sort of a title almost like Pharaoh or Caesar or something, where they just carried it from one generation to the next. They have had Candaces as Queen of Ethiopia for several hundred years by now.

So this doesn't identify a particular one. Nonetheless, it certainly fits because, very interestingly, you use that particular term and not some other. It's the right one, and so it would fit. There was a political and military realm there that was south of the Roman Empire. So this is interesting.

You've got a military area, and the Romans didn't seem to want to go after it. So somehow the Ethiopian official, who's now entering into Roman Empire territory, and actually an official, is able to come through there and go back then to an area that the Romans said, hey, we're not interested in this, or it's not worth it, or it's going to cost too much for us to try to take the territory. we'll let it be. And they never did seem to want to push south. So here's this eunuch.

Now something really important for us to understand. Eunuchs are something we find throughout the Old Testament and now into the New Testament. And some things to note. One is eunuchs were often put in positions of high responsibility. Frequently, in this case, the guy was a treasurer. We also see some instances, and we did some references there in Esther, where eunuchs, and in some cases we have other names, eunuchs were given places of authority over a harem or other areas of responsibility. And why would a eunuch be given these areas of responsibility? Why would that be somehow particularly qualifying? Yes. Pardon?

Less temperamentally, a little more even keeled. Yeah. And less likely to be highly aggressive. Okay. That's one, one point. Good point. Another thought. That's right. They could, they could focus energy because there wasn't a, you know, a distraction in terms of, you know, Hey, that's a pretty hot looking gal there in the harem or something of that sort. So they could focus energy, not be distracted by any, you know, trying to find a mate or looking for, you know, a prospect or anything of that sort. Yeah, good point.

There's any others? Other thoughts? Even in instances, of course, a harem, you can look at an obvious issue where, hey, it takes away a distraction or a possible complication. On top of that, there was also less likelihood that they would be bribed or somehow enticed into something that might cause a problem. So it's interesting.

On the one hand, you will have eunuchs be given positions of responsibility. So here they are at a high level of responsibility and often compensation. And then the flip side is socially they were looked down upon. Not just by the Jews. but throughout the ancient world.

So it's an odd conflict that here they would be looked down upon and socially outcast on the one hand, and on the other hand have these positions of high authority and oftentimes good income, and we'll see some evidence of that shortly. So it's an interesting conflict.

One of the key points is, even in the law, it said Those who are eunuchs may not come into that central temple area right before the inner temple. They couldn't even come into that area. Jewish women could come in, but not the eunuchs. As an Ethiopian, therefore a Gentile, and also a eunuch, there was no hope of him going into that temple area before the inner temple.

He could go into the court of the Gentiles, which we saw in the picture here, kind of the outer court of the temple, inside the colonnades and the porticoes, but not in the inner temple area at all. Not allowed. Not permitted. Period. So there was no hope of him going into that inner area.

And yet what we see is, here's a guy who is intensively interested. It's enough for him to make a trip from as far away as he did, and to come from another empire and to go through what may have been some hassle to go through being from another empire and coming through Roman territory in order to get to Jerusalem. So this is interesting stuff. This is real curious.

Now, here's Philip and now the eunuch is coming up to him and he's going along in this chariot And by the way, we don't know, the word chariot is sort of general. It may have been a very military kind of chariot. A lot of times the word was also used for things that are more just military purpose carts.

And you may have a whole entourage, we don't know. He may have had a whole entourage of people, a bunch of people accompanying him since he seems to be a high level official. And especially going into a place where there's Romans controlling the place and possible thieves. Things of that sort. So he may have had a number of other people in a fairly large chariot and not just a little two or three men. The other thing is it seems like there's reading and conversation going on, possibly while traveling, and at least one other person then would be steering and driving the horses and all that while this was going on.

So it gives us some indication. At minimum, there's probably Philip, the eunuch, and a driver, and possibly much more. as this is going on. Now, here's the other thing. In the social structure of things, for Philip to step up into the chariot with the eunuch would have been like, we don't do that. You know, I don't do that. You know, no. That doesn't happen. So here's Philip. Did he hesitate? Did he look around and say, is anybody watching me? No. He steps right up into the chariot, which must have been socially just a real shocker if there were others around watching at all. What? Look what he's doing! Because here's this eunuch, yes, a high-level official, but a eunuch.

The eunuchs, by the way, were not just, a lot of times it was not just a matter of removing their testicles, but their entire sex organ assemblage. So it was one of these things, not only are they lacking the glandular support for anything, they're just basically completely emasculated with anything external. Yeah, James? The eunuchs couldn't do what? Oh yeah, well, there's a section in MP5, I think I made reference here, Leviticus 21, Deuteronomy 23, eunuchs were not permitted to be a part of any of the, for example, you could be a Levite, fully trained.

Yeah, basically that was like, yeah, you're out. It didn't mean that you somehow couldn't participate at all, but it meant that you were treated as if you were a Gentile. Yeah, that's as close as you could get. In this case, the guy was doubly so. Here was a Gentile who was also a eunuch. And so for Philip to come up and just step into the chariot with him was really an amazing thing. Let's back up here. Think about Philip. What's the first group he went to? Samaritans, okay. The Jews just love the Samaritans to pieces, right? Yeah, to pieces, mostly.

So here's a group, we just hate these guys, we'll walk miles around to get away from these guys. Philip says, let me at it. And then, here's case number two. Here's another, now in one case it was a whole population of people, now we've got one individual, this person is also rejected social outcast. He is doubly, by his Gentileness, and, by his being a eunuch, set to the outside. He could not participate in the very closest and most intimate things of Judaism. Philip gets a question from him and just steps right into the chariot. This guy is some guy, isn't he? Art, you had your hand raised?

Yes. Yes, good point. What Philip is doing is not something, while it is bold socially, it's not something that the Lord had sidestepped. The Lord indeed did go to the woman at the well in Samaria, and he violated some of the cultural stigmas, and Philip said, hey, I've got plenty of precedent, if you will, for doing that. Good point. Tom? Sure, yeah, yeah, he did he say look I got the example of the Lord himself.

Yeah, why not go for it one other point here is This was not a low-level official. He's obviously a treasurer. One of the indications that we have, he's a high-level, well-reimbursed official, is that he has a scroll of Isaiah, appearing to be a personal scroll. You don't just walk away from Jerusalem with one of those. Here's why.

To have a scroll of Isaiah, let's say in the sheepskin, The sheepskin for the scroll of Isaiah, just that alone would be about 400 days wages for the average person. And of course, 400 days wages, that means the average person working like crazy just to survive. Here he's got, just for the skin alone, then the copying time. And there were scriptorium places in some of the major cities where you could get almost anything copied, but this was something that would be copied by somebody very carefully.

It was probably in Greek. It would be unlikely that he would know Hebrew. It's possible, so I can't line it out. But more likely Greek. And so here he was reading what we call the Septuagint of Isaiah. And that's what he's looking at. So he's reading this thing and he says, you know, Philip, how do I get the picture on this thing?

And what are the points that we make here in Isaiah 56? So this is later on Isaiah has, by the way, as many chapters, and things weren't broken into chapters then, but as many chapters as the Bible has books. And one of the things you see in Isaiah 56, which we quote a part of here, he refers to foreigners and eunuchs, and this guy is both, right?

In this passage. Nor let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuch who keeps my Sabbaths, and choose what pleases me, hold fast my covenant, to them I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial, and a name better than of the sons and daughters." How about that? The Jews would say, hey, I'm of the right lineage. And the Lord says, hey, for somebody who loves me, I'll take that above somebody who's got the bloodline. That's really neat.

I will give them an everlasting name which will not be, look at the last words, cut off. That's the problem with the eunuch, he had some things cut off, right? And he says, I'll give them a name which won't be. Real interesting, and I give, 3 through 8 is the larger context, I didn't quote it.

Feel free to take a look at that, I think it's fascinating, because here's this guy reading through Isaiah, when he encountered that passage, that must have had him jumping up and down. because it just shows such grace and shows the heart of the Lord. The Lord is ultimately looking for that heart that loves him and responds to him. He says, I'll pour out grace you won't imagine. Really neat thing. Okay.

Here we have the scroll of Isaiah he's looking through. On page two you've got some pictures to take a look at. This is Isaiah's scroll from among the Dead Sea Scrolls. That was in Hebrew, okay? But that would be an example and he'd have a large scroll of that kind. To the right is Tell el-Hessi, and this is an 1890s photo when it was first excavated.

Let's see, Dr. John Currid is the curator there of the excavation now. And so anyway, what you see is there's a mound there, there is a stream that goes by, or kind of around the mound. And that's typically the way they do it. This mound is, there was a town there. And so they build the town next to some water supply. And that's what this was.

And so this is where the eunuch would have been when, you know, Philip took him down and baptized him. We see Philip's route, which is somewhat simplified here. You get a little more detail on that other handout that I gave you. And then the Caesarea that we saw some pictures of earlier, so you get some kind of graphic orientation to what's happening. One other thing to note, at the end of the baptizing, real interesting what happens there. Here's Philip baptizing the Ethiopian, and the appearance is this. It uses the Greek word harpazo, which is used for the rapture, in 1 Thessalonians 4, 17. It means to snatch up. It may indicate that the Lord actually did something miraculous here.

He said, OK, Philip, you're done. I've got somewhere else for you to go. So then here's Philip. Whoa! He ends up in Azotus. That is on your colored map that you have there. Azotus is on the coast. It is the updated name. It used to be Ashdod. in the Old Testament, and that was a Philistine city for centuries. Philistines last got mentioned around the time of the Babylonian Empire, so things have gone through quite a bit of change. Nonetheless, that's the place. And so that's where Philip ends up. Now, we have some questions here. Page 3. Let's talk about those. Here's Philip. He's with the Samaritans and with the Ethiopian eunuch. He seemed to freely cross forbidden social lines.

Philip, however, didn't seem to cross over just completely telling Gentiles who were not trying to be Jewish converts. He didn't seem to cross that line. It looked first like, we've got to have a Jewish convert Gentile and then we can talk to him, but he didn't seem to just cross right over and start telling the Gentiles, people who were Gentiles, or at least some semblance of Jewish lineage, like the Samaritans. Why do you think that Philip didn't go to the Gentiles with the gospel, just openly?

Just walk right into the Roman, after all he says later on he had lived in Caesarea, right where the Roman colony was. Why didn't he just start walking into the amphitheater? Say, hey guys, about five minutes before the show starts here, everybody's gathered around, just wanted to tell you about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, Todd. Yeah, this is a real question mark. He probably wondered, what's the reaction of the Gentiles? What's the reaction of the Jews? What's the reaction even of the rest of the church? Any other thoughts on that? Anyway, think about that. This is one for you to ponder here.

Yeah, Tom? It seems like you've been selling the fossils of the Ethiopian biologists in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then Ethiopia. Okay. I think Phil was saying, well, it's possible you're a Phil. Yeah, I remember that. Just for fossils, then. Would it also not be possible for the apostles initially to hear Jesus saying that, and saying, hey yeah, there's Jews in all those places, I'll just tell the Jews in all those places. So they may initially have restricted it in their thinking to Jews, or Gentiles who are intending to be Jewish converts, even though the lands described would be primarily Gentile as you go farther out. Okay, think about that.

Number two there, we never hear anything more about what happened to the Ethiopian eunuch. I mean, zilch. Nothing. It's clear that he was saved, unlike the issue we have with Simon, where we kind of scratch our heads and wonder and say, well, the Lord knows. In this instance, it appears there's every indication this guy was saved. It's also clear that the Lord took, perhaps even miraculously, took Philip away, just bang, right away. How come, with what we read later about spiritual growth and maturity, how come we don't read about, you know, Philip spent six months with him going over the, you know, scriptures and giving him a good foundation and all that. How come? Why is that not there?

Todd. Okay, he's headed back to Ethiopia. Okay. All right. Yes, and in fact there were, and possibly Jews who had come to a place of having the gospel. How was it in the first place that this Ethiopian eunuch would be so intensely interested in, you know, hey, I've got a scroll of Isaiah coming to Jerusalem, which would have been quite a trip, crossing into another as a high official crossing into another empire that may have been some hostility there. So yeah, it is quite an obstacle of time and expense and political rivalry, military opposition possibly, for him to make this move required quite a bit. There may well have been Jews that had introduced him there. It would certainly imply that. Yeah, good point.

Something else to take a look at here is, does the scripture in the account in Acts tell us about everything we might want to know? No. For example, who are the two apostles we hear the most about in the book of Acts? Peter and Paul, as we get to the last part. You notice that after chapter one, most of the apostles are not mentioned again. So Acts is not intended to be a comprehensive description of everything that took place. And it also tended to focus on Philip as the evangelist, but not as the teacher.

Take a look at that, see what you think, examine it, give some thoughts there. Philip had been appointed a deacon in chapter 6 and here in chapter 8 we see him substantially evolved in areas geographically outside of taking care of the widows in Jerusalem. Is something wrong here? What happened to his being a deacon? What's going on here? Is he negligent? Is this thing falling apart? What's happening? What's the description?

Something to take a look at, what happened upon the death of Stephen to the church. Read up on that. What happened to the church upon the death of Stephen? Think about that. You're going to see that right at the end of the description of Stephen's death, and we're going to continue to see that have impact up to and even be specifically mentioned in chapter 11. Let's stop there.

We're out of time, and we need to cover here, so let's pray. Lord, thank you. As we look here, we certainly don't have every one of our questions answered, and yet you've determined to reveal and have recorded for our benefit these things that took place, how marvelously you have worked, gone beyond human social prohibitions. You've gone beyond what appear to be human limitations. And as we look at the evangelistic work sampled here in chapter 8 of this deacon and now evangelist Philip, it is clear that you were working and dealing mightily with people to the north and even far to the south of Jerusalem here because it was important that your good news be carried to the ends of the earth. We thank you, Lord, that you did this and recorded this for our benefit because you love us. In Jesus' name, Amen.