We are in series which explores the reality that God has something for each of us “this very day.” Today’s story better helps us understand how our relationship with God and others impacts our Bible reading. What does Bible study look like with a God who encounters us “this very day”? We will see through Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch that the Bible is a book that calls us to mission, to run toward desert places and excluded people, to encounter questions that we might not expect, and have us running with the Spirit in strange ways.
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
This crazy Bible study involving Philip doesn’t begin in a quiet spot with a commentary and a cup of coffee. It begins with the angel of the Lord directing him where to go and leading to an encounter. It continues because the Holy Spirit speaks to Philip and tells him, “Go to that chariot.” Philip encountered this Bible study because he was listening to God.
The book of Acts reminds us strongly that we read the Scriptures with God and not simply about God, that reading the Bible on the run is a team sport filled with angels, the Holy Spirit, outsiders and ourselves. And God directs us along side Scripture to where we need to go but also what we need to understand. And that can feel frightening. It’s far easier to believe that all we need to do is to keep our nose in the book but friends, the author of it is all around us and wants to guide and direct us. You can never know the Bible too much, but you can know the Spirit too little.
The book of Acts reveals a God who is active in the world and not merely trapped in the pages of a book. The Bible, in other words, is not Aladdin’s lamp – awesome cosmic power, in an itty-bitty living space. God is not trapped there but actively uses it to bring people to faith.
How do we cultivate a sensitivity to angels and the Holy Spirit? Don’t read like an atheist. We often read the Bible like the author isn’t present. Acknowledge God, asks for wisdom and direction, take risks, and suspend disbelief. Angels are often easily explained away. In the library of Scripture, the Spirit often whispers.
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
The story reminds us that the Bible can’t simply explain itself – it often needs, someone to teach it or explain it (the Spirit, the church, and maybe “you”). We need to move beyond the too easy comment, “The Bible says . . .” or “I just believe what the Bible says . . .” This isn’t to say that the Bible loses authority or must give way to only an elite set of interpreters but it does require some careful attention.
In my last church we had a season in which the lens on our worship projector kept giving out making everything blurry. I was particularly struck when it would happen while Scripture was being read and shown on the screens. What seemed so clear would all of a sudden lose focus, become hard to read. To be honest, I think the actual experience of the blurriness of Scripture is appropriate and, I suspect, so would Philip. If you don’t understand that the Bible is blurry you will never read it with the care that it demands. Blurry doesn’t mean you can’t see anything or that it’s inscrutable but neither is it easy. To read it well requires help, it requires others. We’ve already seen we need the Holy Spirit but we also need other people, even outsiders.
To read the Bible well you’re going to need to be like Ethiopian Eunuch. You are going to have to ask some questions. You are going to have to ask for help. You will need to discover some helpful friends to explain it to you. You will need to cultivate a proper disposition - a commitment to study, a determination to ask questions, a willingness to risk, the ability to laugh, and a readiness to ask for help.
You will also need to be like Philip. You are going to check-in on others, to ask if they need help with this book. You are going to have learn obedience to God and an ability to hear his voice and do what is asked of you. You are going to have to know the Old Testament and how it connects with the story that God wants to tell – “the good news about Jesus.”
32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the
slaughter,
and
as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so
he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of
justice.
Who
can speak of his descendants?
For
his life was taken from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
Reading the Bible on the run is a suffering sport. It involves a suffering road. Our story begins with Philip receiving an absurd command from an angel to go toward a not-so-comfortable road (vs. 26) – “Get up and go South, along the desert road (in the middle of the day).” This is not a comfortable book. If you find yourself never encountering difficult commands or desert places, you’re probably not reading it correctly. Bible reading with the Spirit demands a commitment to action and adventure. It requires engagement not simply understanding. It asks you to run to others with good news amidst suffering and about suffering. I’m wary of Bible readers who haven’t suffered – the sleek, the beautiful, the famous. They often read the Bible and think they’re good.
The Bible is a terribly wonderful book with a message that says: God has taken up our suffering in Jesus Christ. That God is found in suffering. That God can use suffering. It seeks to tell us about God and about ourselves and the story it wants to tell is a suffering story that is good news, that is horribly transforming, painfully fantastic. If you are going to read the Bible well, you are going to have to understand suffering and God.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [37] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
Now this Bible study becomes very interesting. For this outsider, non-Jew, foreigner, does appear to know the Bible. And his knowledge is revealed in a question that perhaps we missed: “What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” That phrase in vs. 36 “stand in the way” is one word in the Greek - koluo [hinders, denies, restrains, punishes]. Why would he imagine that something might hinder him? Well, the Bible told him so. Unlike the other adjectives for our Ethiopian, Luke uses the word “eunuch” five times. Eunuchs were marginalized in Judaism and explicitly told that they could not be a part of the people of God (Deut. 23:1). He would not have been able to enter the temple nor eat any sacrifices that he had sponsored. Culturally, within Judaism, we know that he would have been considered effeminate and a bad omen if you crossed his path. In fact, calling a man a eunuch was an insult. Given the stereotype, cultural tensions, and clear Biblical text, many within the church could have easily said to this outsider: “Yes, the Bible hinders you.” They would’ve rightly quoted Scripture and hindered the work of God. The Bible is telling a story that points in a certain direction. It should not be read in all the same way for it speaks of a drama that centers on God’s work through an anointed one to bring about salvation. Another passage in Isaiah, Isaiah 56, tells of a future salvation that will include “eunuchs” and name them “better than sons and daughters: (Isaiah 56:5). Because of Jesus Christ and because of the Spirit’s prodding – Philip understood that one scripture was no longer true, no longer to be followed, and that another text was to take its place. He came to this conclusion not because he was awfully clever but because he was there by God’s command, asking questions of God’s book with God’s Spirit running alongside. It was God, he knew, who told him, “Run!”
So, Bible study is not for the faint of heart. It requires an openness to God and doing what God wants. It involves a mental, emotional, and spiritual commitment that will lead you into unfamiliar territory.
How do you know if you’re reading it right? Do people go on their way rejoicing? Do they have their suffering named? Do they experience the joy of God being present in it through Jesus Christ?
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