Week 42 Acts
Philip left Samaria and headed out to the desert because an angel of the Lord had told him: go south down to the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza. Along that road Philip met an Ethiopian (he was the country’s royal treasurer) and the reason he was coming down that road from Jerusalem was because: he had gone to Jerusalem to worship.
Which sounds like he was a religious convert to Judaism…from Africa – however that happened.
Philip approached the chariot and walked alongside beside it. The man was travelling along reading the book of Isaiah out loud. Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading.
I started reading the book of Isaiah in April and finished in early May. No one asked me if I understood what I was reading and if someone had I might have said – depending on what chapter I was reading – what the Ethiopian guy said: how can I, when there is no one to instruct me?
The African guy asked if Isaiah was talking about himself or someone else and Philip started with Isaiah and then looked at other OT passages and finally told him the man Isaiah was referring to was the resurrected Lord. And having just crossed paths with Philip that day the Ethiopian believed. And then Philip turned and headed north.
I’m left wondering what happened with the Ethiopian. Where did he end up?
It seems like an unfinished story.
Note: quotes from Acts 8:26, 27, 31 NLT