Acts 8 - End of the Beginning (2022)
Acts 8 NLT
Philip left Jerusalem along with many others in the "great scattering" of Acts 8:1, "On that day (the day of Stephen's stoning) a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all except the Apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria."
He preached the good news about Jesus all over the place before discovering beautiful Caesarea (Acts 8:40), and in Acts 21:8 it says that, "we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven (Acts 6:5)." So basically he never left! I get it! This was one of our favorite places we visited in Israel.
Back to the scattering...This persecution (led by Saul) marked the end of the beginning of the church in Jerusalem and moved forward Jesus' vision of taking the message into all the world (Acts 1:8).
So cool to see how God uses adversity and difficult times (like now with the coronavirus) to cause growth that otherwise might not have taken place. How is God working in YOUR life in this difficult time?
For Philip, he discovers that he, too, will be used by God in supernatural ways (vs 5-7) and his "divine appointment with the Ethiopian eunuch was a clinic on how to lead someone to Christ:
1. Listen to God's direction & then obey it (vs 26-27)
2. Look for opportunities (divine appointments) & act on them (vs 27-30)
3. Be observant and be a great listener (he heard him reading from Isaiah) (vs 30)
4. Ask great questions like, "Do you understand what you are reading?" (vs 30)
5. Be ready to give a good answer when people ask, "...tell me, please..." (vs 34)
6. Begin your answer "where they are at" (vs 35)
7. Tell them the good news about Jesus (vs 35)
After leading him to Jesus and baptizing him, Philip gets to have a pretty amazing experience himself: "When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away..." (vs 39)
Prayer: Lord, show me what you want to do in my life during this crazy time. Help me to see how you are working. And help me to pay attention every day for those "divine appointments". Protect me, Lord, from myself so I don't end up lost like "Simon the sorcerer" (vs 9-24). In contrast, use me, Lord, just how you used Philip, the evangelist. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
