Philip & the Eunuch - Sunday 2/8

Acts 8:26-38

Do you all remember what we talked about last week? Who can tell me? Or were you all distracted by me dropping my laptop? One of you said you were going to tell your mom about it! Did you??

Baptism! That’s absolutely right! The main focus of the series we are in on Sundays is what did the early church do about baptism?

Today we are going to be reading another conversion story found in Acts chapter 8, which is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.

Before we get into that, I want to ask you all, who here has seen the movie Nacho Libre? It’s 20 years old now, but I think there is a clip that is very relevant to this series and what we are teaching about today.

(SLIDE PLAY CLIP)

Funny right? Being baptized is a big part of salvation in catholicism in which it is a requirement to be saved. Although, we talked about what the Bible really teaches about baptism last week remember?

(SLIDE) Baptism does NOT save you, only faith and belief in Jesus dying for your sins and making you a new creation is what saves you.

Today we’re going to talk about that more.

The past few weeks we have been reading from the book of Acts and I want to make sure you guys understand the context of the book.

The book of Acts, is shortened from its original name “The Acts of the Apostles” which is a collection of writings from Luke, the same guy who wrote the Gospel of Luke.

I recommend if you didn’t already know this, on your own time you should all read the Gospel of Luke and then read the book of Acts right after because they are a continuation of the same story.

Luke intended to share his Gospel from his interview of Mary Jesus’ mother and then he went to write the Acts of the Apostles in the early church right after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

It’s important to know this as we study the book of Acts and what was going on with the early church.

Now that we talked about the context, let’s look at the passage together!

(READ Acts 8:26-38)

First we see how God brought Philip to the right place at the right time.

The man was prepared for the harvest. Jesus was working on his heart clearly by the passage from Isaiah that he was reading.

(SLIDE) Lets read verses 32-33 again. (read) Do you all see who that sounds like? The book of Isaiah was a part of the only Bible that existed since the New Testament wasn’t written.

The Eunuch had clearly been studying scripture of who the coming Messiah was who would save the world and he was longing to understand and learn more.

We see in verse 34 where he begs for Philip to tell him more.

We don’t know what the exact words of the message were, but we know by what it says that Philip preached Jesus to him!

Additionally he had to have explained to him what baptism is because the Eunuch then asked for Philip to baptize him at the water nearby in the desert that they were traveling.

(SLIDE) Verse 37 we see that he believes in Jesus as his savior and then 38 he is baptized! His immediate response is to be obedient and show gratitude to his savior.

Now I want you all to know something about verse 37. Do you see a star next to that verse in your Bible?

Some bibles have it in brackets and that verse specifically is noted as not original as the earliest versions of the book of Acts, do not include verse 37.

So why is it there?

Back in ancient times when the Bible was written down on scrolls and parchment, often people who made copies of scripture would add their own notes that sometimes would be kept by people who copied it down later.

We know that this was not original because over 60 copies of Acts chapter 8 were discovered without verse 37 than any of the copies of Acts 8 that DO contain verse 37.

I always want you guys to pay attention to stuff like that in your bibles! While it is not originally what Luke wrote in Acts chapter 8, It is important that we know exactly what God’s word says and how we can know it’s reliable.

So why did we keep it in Bibles today?

Why did someone write down a verse that was never written by Luke?

(SLIDE) Let’s read verse 37 one more time. (READ)

That’s because the person who wrote it knew that throughout the rest of the book, people believed in Jesus first and then were baptized because that is the Gospel that was preached!

We also don’t truly know what was said by Philip in their conversation about the Gospel based on this passage.

It can definitely be implied that he told him those exact words since that is the same Gospel that was preached by Peter in Acts chapter 2 which we discussed last Sunday if you remember.

As I mentioned last week, the ONLY way to get into heaven is through belief in Jesus alone. Any time that someone in scripture is baptized, it is only after someone professes that they believed in Jesus as their Lord and savior.

How amazing is it that the response of the Eunuch, was to ask if Philip could immediately Baptize him?

I want to leave you all again as a reminder with this passage.

(SLIDE) Acts 16:30–33 “Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.”

All that you need to do is believe in Jesus and you will be saved! Baptism is how we represent that act of obedience and gratitude towards our savior as the early church did in the book of Acts.

Think and pray about it if you haven’t been baptized. Again, there is a baptism class today if you want to learn more or you can see me after service if you have questions.

But think about these things if you have accepted Jesus, you should be baptized as a way to express that gratitude!

(CLOSE IN PRAYER)