Philip is the second named deacon chosen at the beginning of Acts 6, after Stephen.
He meets an Ethiopian eunuch. "Ethiopian" could mean any dark skinned person from south of Egypt -- this man could have been from the Sudan or anywhere at the "ends of the earth." As a eunuch he could not be a Jew, but he was so taken with the Hebrew scripture and beliefs that he had been up to Jerusalem to worship, and was reading Isaiah.
Philip follows Jesus example and direction at the end of Luke, explaining how Jesus life and death fulfilled scripture, and that this message was to be "proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem."
Philip's tool for preaching about Jesus Christ is the passage from Isaiah about the suffering servant, about which we read earlier.
Although the eunuch would not qualify for the Jewish assembly, Philip has no hesitation in agreeing to baptize him when they come to some water. The way of Jesus is not just for the Jewish people ... it is for all nations.
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| Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch |
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