Daily devotion – Saturday 29th May 2021
Acts 8: 26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”
30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this:
“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;
And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
So, He opened not His mouth.
33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away,
And who will declare His generation?
For His life is taken from the earth.”
34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Philip is one of my heroes in the Bible. We can always learn a lot from the way he lived his life before the Lord.
Philip was a masterful evangelist – something that the majority of Christians today seem to struggle with. That of sharing the gospel with another person. We fear their rejection, we are worried about saying the wrong thing, or we simply are just too scared to open our mouths to speak about Jesus.
Philip was engaged in an evangelistic crusade in Samaria when God instructed him to head south to the desert road that ran from Jerusalem to Gaza. Faithful Philip did just as God asked and went. On that very road Philip ‘bumped’ into an Ethiopian statesman travelling home from Jerusalem. The man was sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah! Obviously he did not suffer from ‘chariot sickness’ whilst reading!
Philip, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, approached the traveller and asked the man did he understand what he was reading? What an ice breaker for a conversation. The man happily invited Philip onto his rig to assist him in his quest to understand what he was reading.
Even though Philip had his foot in the door, he remained gracious, courteous, and sensitive to when he should speak about salvation. When the moment came, he “opened his mouth” and got to the specifics. No vague dialogue about religion, Philip spoke only about Jesus Christ, the main issue!
As you rub shoulders with hungry, thirsty humanity and sense their inner ache for help and hope, keep the Philip approach in mind.
I cannot think of a place I would rather be at the moment Christ returns than riding shotgun in a twentieth century chariot, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with a hungry heart.