Questions Concerning Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
Introduction: Someone reads aloud Acts 8:26-40. A “Phillip” runs up asking, “Do you understand what you are reading?” Would you, like that Ethiopian, ask, “How can I unless someone guide me?” What questions would you ask? After thus entering the world of that text, and returning to our world today, we may have several questions.
Some longtime readers of the KJV may ask, “What happened to verse 37?”
Some modern readers may ask, “What an exciting story, can you fill in the details?”
Some readers of the Acts narrative may ask, “What happened to Phillip? How does he figure in the Acts story?”
Readers of Isaiah may ask, “How do you suppose that Phillip beginning with Isa. 53:7-8 told the good news about Jesus?”
Seekers today may ask, “Why does this text move so seamlessly from Phillip’s telling the good news about Jesus to the Ethiopian’s quest for baptism?”
Confused seekers today may ask, “What does this story tell us about baptism?”
Students of the history of the NT text may ask, “How and why did some later copyist insert verse 37?”
We return to the world of the text to ask, “What was the hindrance to being baptized in the mind of that Ethiopian Eunuch?” and, “What was his reason for desiring to be baptized?”
Conclusion: What hinders us from being an Ethiopian? What hinders us from being a Phillip? Hopefully an examination of this text and some proposed answers to these questions may help.
—Tom Yoakum