Homeschool on the Croft

In the Book of Acts, chapter 8 we are given a short account of the Ethiopian Eunuch and his meeting with Philip. Last Sunday evening, we had an elder taking the service and he spoke on this passage. Here is just a small taster of some of the wonderfully vivid thoughts he had.

Verse 27 of this chapter tells us that the eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship. If he had gone to worship, then he must have desired to know God in some way. Was he looking for answers to burning questions? Where have I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? 

Was he devastated when he arrived in Jerusalem? You see, he was an eunuch, and the Levitical law taught that no eunuch was to enter the congregation of the Lord. 

He was also a son of Ham: not the son of Shem, father of the blessed nation.

A Gentile. And an eunuch. 

The poor, poor man. He was seeking, but he wasn't finding. Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever desired peace with God, and have looked this way and that, only to find another wall blocking your path?

Well, this man didn't give up. Although he had to return to Ethiopia, where he held a position of great honour and authority, yet we find him on his way, reading.... And what a passage of Scripture he was reading! 

Isaiah. The Gospel writer of the the Old Testament!

When Philip approached the eunuch, he was reading the words of chapter 53.

"He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken."

Philip asked him if he understood what he read. Of course, the eunuch did not, until Philip "preached unto him Jesus". Ahhh. The eunuch could have been reading in Genesis, or in the Psalms, or in the prophets, and it would all have lead to Jesus. 

Remember the two on the road to Emmaus? Luke 24 tells us that when Jesus spoke to those two sorrowing men, He spoke, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." (Luke 24:27)

You see! The Scriptures are all about Him! All about Christ, our Saviour. And so, Philip began teaching the eunuch all about this Jesus, born in Bethlehem, God becoming man, living amongst us, keeping the law perfectly to impute His righteousness to all who believe on Him, being betrayed, but all in the plan of God, dying and bearing the curse of God due for His people's sin, then rising again the third day. Triumphant! 

I can imagine the eunuch's jaw dropping and his eyes widening. As Philip spoke, more and more of his questions were being answered; more of his longings were being fulfilled. 

He had come to Jerusalem seeking. He must have left despondent and disappointed. But he kept seeking. He turned to God's Word. And eventually, he found. Oh, what peace after turmoil. What joy after disappointments. What liberty after fear.

This eunuch, this son of Ham, this Gentile is welcomed into the kingdom of Christ. The Gospel is open to all. It's open to you too, for there is no sinner on earth who comes to Christ who will be turned away.

If you have never found Christ as your Saviour, then seek Him. And when you seek and are faced with disappointments, keep seeking. If you seek Him with your whole heart, you will find Him. And then, what unutterable peace and joy will fill your soul.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." (Matthew 7:7)