A Chance Moment of Revival
When you think of significant historical movements, what comes to your mind first?
Is it the civil rights movement from the sixties? Is it women’s suffrage of the 18th century for voting rights? These are just a few from the context of America. There are many movements throughout the world in many different countries.
Most people forget the most significant movement in the history of humans: the movement of the Holy Spirit. That is my opinion, but nothing changed the course of human history like the coming of the Spirit. Opening ourselves up to the Holy Spirit starts a movement in our souls that moves us toward holiness. But before we get too far, we need to understand the motion of the Spirit and how an evangelist in the Bible opened himself up to the Spirit and helped to create a greater movement in the world.
The book of Acts, written by Dr. Luke, the same guy who wrote the gospel of Luke—these two books should be viewed as one complete composition to showcase the work of God in this world. The Gospel of Luke is focused on Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection. On the other hand, Acts is focused on the early church’s movement and the gospel’s spread, as shown in the book’s opening section.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Throughout the introduction, Luke highlights the words of Jesus, saying the Holy Spirit was coming to them here in Jerusalem. The disciples were to stay and wait for the Spirit. (Ac 1.4) John the Baptist had baptized with water, but God would baptize with the Spirit. (Ac 1.5; cf. Mt 3.11; Mk 1.8; Lk 3.16, Jn 1.33) John had foretold the people this moment was coming, and Jesus in his resurrected state (Ac 1.3) was now confirming this moment had arrived––this was the first movement of the Spirit in Jerusalem and Judea. If we follow the words of Jesus from verse eight, we see that the Spirit was to first come to the disciples in Jerusalem (Ac 1-7), then it would move to Samaria (Ac 8-9), and finally, it would go to the ends of the earth. (Ac 10-28) In just one verse, Luke laid out God’s plan to bring the good news to the people of the world. Until now, it had been focused on God’s people in Jerusalem. But that was all about to change with the shift in focus to the Gentiles.
The mission of the Gospel was hyper-focused around God’s chosen people and had yet to reach other groups until we get to the next movement in the book of Acts. On the day of Pentecost, the eleven disciples, plus Matthias and a group of about one hundred and twenty people, received the first wave of the Spirit. (Ac 1.15, 26; 2.4) Once they had received the Spirit, they began to build a community of believers or a church, as we would describe it today. (Ac 2.37-47) Through this small community of believers, the gospel began to spread.
We pick up the story where the believers had been scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (Ac 8.2), which is going according to God's plan for spreading the Holy Spirit. An evangelist named Philip finds himself in Samaria with a group of people and the opportunity to proclaim the gospel. (Ac 8.4-5) This Philip is not the same disciple Philip but is one of the seven people chosen to help aid the care of the early church—he is only found in the book of Acts.[1] Even though his role is small in the number of times he is mentioned in the Bible, his impact is grand in scale. He performed signs and wonders for the Samaritan people—it was through these actions that the people believed. (Ac 8.12) With the help of James and Peter laying hands on the people, the Holy Spirit came to the Samaritans, again advancing the movement forward.
“Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. ”
At this moment, Philip could have stopped listening to God because of all the good happening in the villages of Samaria, but he did not ignore the presence of the Lord.
“But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road) ”
I will admit that having an angel of the Lord speak to you is very motivational. Having never been in the physical presence of an angel, I cannot say for sure what I would do, but I imagine I would listen. With that being said, Philip still had to be open to the Spirit.
The Spirit opens our eyes to the world around us
I will carefully interject into the biblical narrative to assume that Philip did not see the need to go down this desert road. Why would he when all of this life change was happening in front of his eyes? It seems counterintuitive to leave life and head towards desolation, but that is the exact picture we are given. Philip most likely did not understand the need to leave where he was, but because he was open to the Spirit, Philip had a chance encounter that would shift the movement of the Holy Spirit again.
“So he got ready and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading Isaiah the prophet. ”
There are details in this story that Luke included for a specific purpose. When we see the word Ethiopian, we think of the country in Africa. During the time of Luke’s writing, the word was known to mean Africans or people with Black skin.[2] This Ethiopian was also a eunuch, which is confusing for us in today's culture because of our lack of understanding of the word. During this time in history, eunuchs were often assigned to royal precessions, often with female royalty, because they had no male reproduction organs either through birth or castration.[3] Eunuchs were also in charge of the finances for the kingdom, which was a pretty important job. We see the eunuch had come to Jerusalem to worship, meaning at this time he was a proselyte—a gentile that had been converted to Judaism.[4] Given that it was just the start of the Jesus movement in the world helps us to see that his religion would have been the same as the Jews.
So, basically, you have a Black CFO working for the queen who has questions about the scriptures and his faith. There is a lot of detail in that one verse, but Luke is showing us the start of the spread to the rest of the world.
The eunuch is not a person that you would just walk up to and start a conversation with. Imagine walking up to the Secretary of the Treasury on the street. I do not think that would go well, but Philip listened to the Spirit to answer this man’s questions. (Ac 8.29-30) The eunuch was reading from the scroll of Isaiah.
“He was oppressed and afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off from the land of the living For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due? ”
The section of Isaiah he is reading from is often referred to as the suffering servant. Believers of Judaism thought this referred to the nation of Israel as the suffering, but followers of Christ see the prophet as speaking to the coming of Christ and his suffering on the cross.[5] Given the detail and specific nature of this section of scripture, no other place in the Hebrew Bible describes the pain and sacrifice that Jesus experienced on the cross.[6]The Jewish convert asks the all-important question to Philip.
“The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself, or of someone else?” ”
This was the moment the Spirit had been working towards the whole time because now Philip had the chance to speak the good news of Jesus Christ. It was through Philip speaking and the Spirit working that the eunuch wanted to get baptized. (Ac 8.35-36, 38)
In this triumphant moment, the Ethiopian eunuch, who was a proselyte, saw the connection between the Hebrew scripture and Jesus. He knew at that moment that Jesus was the culmination of all scripture, and he was the son of God—sent to earth to die and suffer on the cross, like a lamb sent to slaughter. (Is 53.7 Cf. Ex 12.21; Rev 5.6, 12, 13.8.) Philip, with the Holy Spirit, had been a vessel to see the Spirit descend on the Samaritan people and an Ethiopian who would take the good news back to his country of Africa. It was the start of the movement of the Spirit to the ends of the earth. In just a few chapters in the book of Acts, we will see the Spirit come to the Apostle Paul (Ac 9), Cornelius (Ac 10), and then to the Gentiles as a whole. (Ac 11) It is in the gentile community at Antioch that a group of believers is referred to as Christians or followers of Christ for the first time. (Ac 11.26)
An open heart to the Spirit leads to open moments with people.
Philip listened to the Spirit when it spoke to him. He was open to what God had planned for his life. I do no doubt that God could have accomplished spreading the gospel with the snap of his proverbial finger, but that is not what happened. God took a man who was in relationship with his Spirit to accomplish his plan here on earth—this gives us insight into two characteristics of God. One, he wants to partner with humans to see his mission fulfilled (Gen 2), and two, these moments only happen when we are in union with the Spirit through our body, soul, and might. (Deut 6.5) How you connect to the Spirit is going to be different from everyone else because we are so uniquely made. (Ps 139.14) In his book Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas writes about how God is the same from Genesis to Revelation, yet the people worship him in many different ways throughout that time.[7] What was true for the people of the biblical narrative is true for us. We connect with God in many different ways. The key is to find out how you connect best with God. Because when we are open to those moments with the Spirit, we open ourselves to speeding the gospel, which is the greatest news ever told.
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[1] “Philip the evangelist, not to be confused with the disciple. This Philip appears only in the book of Acts, where he is appointed (along with Stephen and others) to supervise the daily distribution of food to the widows following the dispute between the “Hellenists” and the “Hebrews” (Ac 6:1–6). Thus he is regarded as “one of the seven” (Ac 21:8), but not as one of the twelve (cf. 6:2).” Powell, Mark Allan, ed. The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary (Revised and Updated). New York: HarperCollins, 2011. Logos Edition[2] Powell, The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary.[3]Powell, The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary.[4]Powell, The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary.[5] Bence, Philip A. Acts: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1998. Logos Edition[6] Bence. Acts: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. [7] Gary Thomas, Sacred Pathways: Discover Your Soul’s Path To God, Revised ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010).18.
