my message Sunday night

Around 884 B.C., King Omri of northern Israel built a new capital for Israel, “Samaria.” Israel had been divided into two sections, a north and a south; Omri reigned in the north, and the ruler of the south was Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Rehoboam wielded political control because he had the Great City of Jerusalem; to offset Rehoboam’s power, Omri decided to build a new capital in Israel, Samaria. Samaria’s history is rather bleak: constant invasion and besieging. When the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 B.C., most of the inhabitants of Samaria were dragged in chains to slavery; Assyrian citizens swept into Samaria, bringing with them all their Assyrian gods. The Israelites still living in Samaria, lucky enough not to be transported into slavery, lived side-by-side their foreign neighbors, and they slowly adopted some of the Assyrian practices and beliefs. By the time of Jesus, the descendants of the Israelites in ancient Samaria continued to worship God, but they were considered half-breed Jews because of their slight association with Assyrian beliefs and practices.

As the gospel is spreading through ancient Palestine, the Christian leaders decided to go to Samaria and preach the gospel. When we read about this in Acts 8, we tend not to see the impact this would’ve had on the Jews. In the ancient Jewish mindset, there were three kinds of people in the world: the Jews, who were the good guys; the Gentiles, who were the bad guys; and the Samaritans, the half-breeds, who were worse than dogs when compared to the Gentiles. The Christian leaders taking the gospel into Samaria shows us that God loves everyone, even those whom society sees as the dirty half-breeds, even the people society hates (sadly, the “Samaritans” in our Christian world are often the prostitutes, drunks, and homosexuals—but Jesus loves them just as much as he loves you and me!). There’s a cool story in Acts 8 about what happens in Samaria, a cool story about how a guy tries to buy God’s miraculous power (it doesn’t work out), but the really cool story takes place at the end of Acts 8.

One of the Christian leaders, a man named Philip, is about to go to Jerusalem when God tells him, “Take the desert road to Gaza.” No doubt Philip said, “The desert road? I’m not going to Gaza! I’m going to Jerusalem! And why take the desert road? There’s nothing there!” But God said, “Take the desert road.” Sometimes God will tell us to do things that don’t really make sense to us. Philip decides to listen to God, and he takes the desert road.

Philip goes on his way, and along the way he meets an Ethiopian eunuch riding in a chariot and reading from the Old Testament. Ethiopia as a nation did not exist at this time in the Bible; the predecessor to Ethiopia, the Kingdom of Aksum, did exist, but we know that the man in the story who is called an ‘Ethiopian’ is not an Ethiopian in the sense that we are Americans or Aussie’s are Australian. The Ethiopian in this story is probably a citizen of the ancient Nubian Empire, settled on the Nile River. This man, then, was as dark as the night. He was probably the blackest man Philip had ever seen! Some people think that God loves white people more than He loves blacks, or Caucasians more than He loves Hispanics. It’s ironic that the gospel went out first to the Arabs, then to the Africans, and then the white people would come later. God loves everyone, no matter your ethnicity; He shows no favoritism.

This Ethiopian is also a eunuch. Now, what is a eunuch? A eunuch is someone who has his testicles removed. In the ancient world, there were three reasons—well, four—why someone would be a eunuch. First, a person might be a eunuch because he was born that way, a birth defect. A person might also be a eunuch if he chose to be one in devotion to a cause or in devotion to his god. A person might be a eunuch by punishment; in the ancient world, people were often punished by having their testicles removed. Or, fourth, and this is probably what has happened here, powerful leaders would remove the balls of their servants to curb the hormones causing aggression; by having their balls removed, this would ensure that they would most likely not be motivated to rebellion, and they would place their devotion upon their leader. The eunuch was most likely castrated because he served as treasurer for the Queen of the Ethiopians (the official title is the Kandake or Candace).

The eunuch is reading out of the Old Testament. In particular, he’s reading from the scroll of Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet in Judah during the reign of King Hezekiah; at this time, the Assyrians had already smashed Israel and were trying to invade Judah. Isaiah gave Hezekiah God’s command—“Repent and everything will be fine!”—and Hezekiah obeyed; God kept His word, and the Assyrians did not break through (this repentance would not last, however; eventually, because of Judah’s amounting sin, she would be conquered by Babylon). Interestingly, Hezekiah’s son Manasseh—not a very good guy—killed Isaiah by sawing him in half while he was still alive. The eunuch is reading the scroll of Isaiah’s written words and prophecies, and he is reading a part where Isaiah is prophesying about the coming Deliverer (Isa 53.7-8).

Philip walks up to the chariot (this would’ve been more like an ox-cart), and he peers inside. “Hey there,” he says. The eunuch, I imagine, is surprised (there’s some random guy walking all alone in the desert), so he says, “Umm… hi.” “Watcha reading?” Philip asks. So the eunuch shows him. Philip asks, “Do you understand who Isaiah is talking about?” The eunuch responds, “No, not really… Do you know who he’s talking about?” “Yeah,” Philip says. “I do. He’s talking about this guy named Jesus.” So he tells the eunuch about how the prophecy is about Jesus’ humiliating death, and he also shares the gospel with him.

This unnamed eunuch is a converted Jew: we know this because he was returning from Jerusalem. Faithful Jews would make three yearly pilgrimages to Jerusalem: once for the Passover, another time for the Feast of Pentecost, and then again for the Feast of Tabernacles. This eunuch, who is reading the Hebrew Bible, understands that there was a promised Deliverer whom would be sent by God, and when he realizes that the Deliverer—Jesus!—had come and offered salvation to him, he got excited! But his excitement weaned; see, he had a little problem ‘down under.’ His balls were missing! According to laws of the Old Covenant, anyone who had a genital defect was not allowed into the presence of God. So the eunuch nervously asks Philip, “So… is there anything keeping me from becoming a Christian? Am I good enough to be accepted by God?”

Philip answers, “God will accept you now” So he baptizes the eunuch then-and-there.

See, God will accept anyone who comes to Him in faith and repentance. Faith isn’t just knowing the facts about Jesus; it involves commitment to Christ. In our modern American understanding of what “faith” is, we have this skewed idea of faith because we see it in a Greco-Roman lens, spattered with Hellenism, or Greek, abstract thought. The ancient Hebrews didn’t have this same kind of abstract thought; when they thought of “faith,” they didn’t think of just believing something; they associated it with a commitment to something. So when Jesus says, “He who believes in me [has faith in me] will live,” he is virtually saying, “He who commits himself to me will live.” If we commit ourselves to Christ and repent (this is not saying, “I’m sorry,” this is actually changing the way you live!), God will forgive us of our past, present, and future sins, and He will accept us as His friends and children!

The Ethiopian eunuch converted to God nearly 2000 years ago. God’s offer for conversion is open to us now. In the Greco-Roman mindset, conversion is a change in the way we think, but in the Hebraic mindset, conversion is a change in the way we live. In a sense, we convert from selfish, greedy, overly-self-indulgent, and indifferent people, and we become a new kind of person in the world: we were selfish, but we’ve become selfless; we were greedy, but we’ve become generous; we were indifferent to others, now we serve others in love; we were self-indulgent, but now we are God-indulgent: we live God-pleasing, God-honoring, God-serving lives. Christians are a new kind of people in the world, a people of love; this is why Jesus said that his people would be recognized by their love for others. God calls us to conversion, but if this conversion does not involve a change in the way we live, then the conversion is a lie; if we believe we’ve converted to Christianity but have not experienced life-change, even in the smallest amount, then we have convinced ourselves that we are something we are not.

Conversion in the biblical sense holds two different, equally important aspects: first, the way we look at God, others, ourselves, and our world radically changes (Gk strepho). This radical change of perspective results in a transformation of the very way we live (Gk epistrepho). We overthrow our old ways of living—lives rooted in selfishness, greed, indifference to God and others, and self-indulgence— (Heb qal) and we completely turn around and reverse in how we “do life”—we adopt a way of life rooted in love (not mere sentimental gush, but a love rooted in action), a life of selflessness, generosity, compassion and care and justice, a life where we live to please, honor, and serve God (Heb niphal). Conversion is a total transformation of both our thoughts and our actions (Heb hithpael).

God’s offer is open to you: if you come to Him in faith and repentance, you will have become a convert, not just in the way you think, but in the way you live. This new way of life is not a life of laws and regulations; it is a life of fearlessly loving God and others in genuine freedom. We don’t have to embrace God; the choice is ours. God will honor our choice, but we must bear the consequences. If we reject God, we will taste death, in this life and the next; if we embrace Him in faith and repentance, we will taste life—beginning now and stretching into eternity.