Look, Here Is Water!
I looked in our baptistry last week. After two years of neglect due to Covid and the zoom paraphernalia on top, there were hindrances to immersing someone in it. So, what do you do on a sunny 60* afternoon in February? Dayton and I drained the pool, washed it down with Clorox and filled it with clean water. It may not be sanctified water but it is sanitized.
You may recall the story of the above exclamation in Acts 8:26-40. Two men are traveling south on the road to Gaza. One is an unnamed Ethiopian official and the other is a preacher named Phillip. Who are they? The Ethiopian is a foreigner. He is a worshipper of God and a reader of Scripture. Somewhere he had acquired a scroll of Isaiah, perhaps in Ethiopia. As any student, he had some unanswered questions. Then comes the wonderful exchange: “Do you understand?” and “How can I unless someone guides me?” He asks the perennial question, “Who is the prophet talking about” in this passage on a Suffering Servant (Isa. 53)? But this eunuch had a very personal question. He had read ahead to Isa. 56 where foreigners and eunuchs were included as servants of the LORD (56:3-7). Can I be included among the servants of God? I suspect that was the hindrance in his mind when he asked for baptism. We are not told about their ensuing conversation. The original text simply says that both went down into the pool of water and Phillip dipped the Ethiopian, no hindrance!
Who is Phillip? No one special, oft overlooked. He was a table-waiter selected with others to serve Greek speaking widows in the Jerusalem church (Acts 6:1-6). But he is very special — a person of good repute, full of the Spirit, of wisdom, and faith. When hard times came and the church was scattered, he goes to Samaria to proclaim the Christ to those outcasts (8:5). Next, he is sent by the angel’s, “rise and go.” He goes, little knowing that he would be telling a man from the “ends of the earth” the good news about Jesus. May there be many “Phillips” today.
—Tom Yoakum
To be continued: Questions by today’s readers of this text