Acts 8 - The Church is Evangelistic

Evangelism is a word that sometimes scares people. For some it conjures up memories of misguided attempts to covert people. For others it reminds them of evangelistic phrases they heard as a child that were meant to scare people into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Others think that they are unworthy of sharing their faith or don’t have a story to tell at all. But at the end of the day, no matter what our feelings about evangelism, disciples of Christ are called to share their faith with others.

For the last two Tuesday mornings, a group of us have been gathering in the Annex of the Roseville church to talk about just what evangelism is ... And what it is not. The first week we learned that evangelism is about relationships that the Holy Spirit lead us into, just as the Spirit lead Phillip to the eunuch that day. Every step of the journey, Phillip was instructed in a divine way about where to be - as the angel of the Lord commanded him to go, and what to speak as he proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ. The spirit even decided when Phillip’s moment of ministry was over, whisking him away to Azotus. In all that he did that fateful day, Phillip was obedient to the leading of the Spirit. When the angel told him where to go, he went immediately. When Phillip saw the chariot the eunuch was riding in, he ran to it. He had the words of wisdom to ask the eunuch if he understood the scripture passage in Isaiah that he found him reading. It is safe to say that the chief character in this evangelistic moment was in fact the Holy Spirit, not Phillip.

Have you ever felt a prompting from the Holy Spirit? Perhaps you got up one morning and felt that you were to do something a bit different then you had scheduled. Or you had a nudge inside of you to say something difficult to a friend or have a conversation with someone you normally don’t talk to. I don’t think Phillip woke up one day and just immediately knew to be obedient to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I think he probably learned to trust and respond to these promptings day by day. But we will never learn to respond in such faithful obedience if we do not begin to trust the Spirit. We need to learn to listen to those internal nudging to see if they are our own thoughts or the voice of God. We need to leap into action when the Spirit is giving us opportunities to share ourselves in relationship.

Not everything the Spirit will lead us to do or say will look like Phillip’s experience. More often then not, the opportunity to share our faith will come in the context of a deep, long relationship, not a situation that we are whisked into. But an opportunity is an opportunity, no matter what it looks like, and when they come, we need to trust the Spirit for the words to say and the courage to show our faith.

And let us note the words that Phillip did have to share with the eunuch. They were not ones of condemnation for being a eunuch, even though Jews often looked down on these particular types of servants. They were not chastising because he did not understand the scripture passage. Nor were they ones of flattery or praise because of his high position as a servant to the queen. No, Phillip simply shared what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ. And that simple sharing of faith, without frills, is what lead the eunuch to ask to be baptized that day. 

Phillip in his sharing about Jesus Christ during his encounter with the eunuch was also attentive to the questions and needs that he specifically had. When Phillip first saw and heard him reading from the passage in Isaiah he asked him if he understood it, to which the servant replied, how can I understand unless someone guides me? Up to this point, the eunuch had probably received mixed messages from the Jewish people he encountered about his worth as a child of God. He would have surely heard people quote Deut 23:1 at him, claiming that since he was sexually mutilated, since he had been castered to prepare him for his service to royalty, that he would not be admitted to the assembly of God. Yet, here he was reading a passage that claimed that eunuchs that kept the Sabbath and worshiped God would be welcomed into the kingdom. 

We probably have all had experiences like the eunuch’s where two pieces of scriptures contradict each other or we simply do not understand what it is trying to say. We need people to guide us in order to know what is true. The eunuch needed someone to teach him about God who had felt the embrace of God, so he could be lead into that same embrace. He needed Phillip to guide him.

So he invited Phillip to sit beside him as they continued to read from the book of Isaiah. When he got to parts that he did not understand, he would ask questions of Phillip, such as about whom the prophet is talking about when he describes the one being lead before the slaughter. The eunuch, according to scholar Tom Long, is probably asking, “Is what is being described only about Isaiah and his situation or is it about me as well? Is this a word from God for someone else in a different time, or is this God’s word for me, today?” This gave Phillip an opportunity to share about how the passage applied to Jesus Christ and how Jesus understood all that the eunuch had suffered in his life, and brings hope and redemption.

After hearing the good news, the eunuch saw a body of water and asked Phillip his final question, what prevents me from being baptized, to which Phillip replied through his actions, nothing. There were several things that could have prevented the servant from being baptized. Others may not have accepted him because he was from Ethiopia, or because he was a eunuch. Others may have rejected him because he served the queen. But Phillip lead again by the Holy Spirit, answered “Absolutely nothing” and he was baptized right on the spot, and the eunuch was restored by God’s grace. 

Phillip may not have had such a profound and life changing moment with the eunuch if he refused to listen to his questions, didn’t act on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or let his own judgments of the man get in the way. 

I remember my first year of college while at the University of Pittsburg, there was a gentleman who came and stood outside of the main academic building for one week with a six foot sign proclaiming that all girls who attended this university were going to Hell. In all of the times I saw him that week, not one person wanted to approach him. Later when I was discussing his presence with the small group I lead, girl after girl said the same thing - his tactic scared them, because his voice was so loud he would never hear what they had to say. Perhaps this is what blocks evangelistic moments the most, or makes evangelism scary at times. We are worried about becoming the loud voiced man who said all the wrong things and wouldn’t listen to the stories and questions that others had. But Phillip shows us a different way of evangelism - one that responds to the promptings of the Holy Spirit alone and responds in grace to the moments that arise and answers the questions that others have to ask. In the class on evangelism we are learning that sometimes this is a long process, and other times we are given moments. But for certain, we are all called to share our faith by the Holy Spirit. It is not just some people’s job - its all of our responsibility. Sometimes when we are obedient to the spirit, we will find ourselves in odd places. All we need to do is respond to the spirit and see what the good news can do.