The preaching was powerful. People were coming to Christ, and yet God called him to leave it behind to pursue one man. It doesn’t make sense to me, yet that’s what he asked Philip to do.
In Acts 8:25-40, Philip is heading back to Jerusalem and “preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans (25, NASB).” On the way, God calls Philip to another task: “But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza (26).” The NASB in that verse describes that road as “a desert road.”
What’s amazing to me is that God tells him to go to some deserted place and does not tell him why or who he should meet. I think I would’ve questioned God: “Why would I leave preaching the gospel to all these people for some desert road?” Not Philip. He “got up and went (27).”
On the road he meets “an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians (27) who happens to be reading Isaiah 53:7-8. The eunuch asks Philip to explain this scripture and he tells him about Jesus. Because of this encounter, the eunuch is baptized. “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing (39).”
That’s it, the end of Philip’s encounter. Many have speculated about what happened to the eunuch, but I want to focus on Philip’s heart. God didn’t initially tell him he would meet a court official of a Queen and bring him to Christ. He just told him to go and he went.
God wants our unconditional obedience to him. Too often I’m guilty of questioning God. I can’t understand why he wants me to leave something that is successful for some unknown path. But God wants a responsive heart like Philip. He wants us to obey and trust Him. As in the case of the eunuch, it may be to bring one person to Christ instead of preaching to many people.
“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?” – Luke 15:4, NASB
140 Character Christian 