Guiding seekers one-on-one and one-by-one to receive Christ!

Acts 8:  30 – 31:  Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the (Ethiopian) man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

“Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.  The Ethiopian official did not and he asked for help from this unknown preacher who appeared next to his chariot in the desert.

So Philip, beginning with the scripture the man was reading from Isaiah 53:7-8, shared with him the good news of Jesus.”

The prophecy about Jesus that he read was one of the most important passages for early Christians. It is part of Isaiah's fourth Servant Song, describing the mysterious figure who was slaughtered and humiliated and whose life was "taken away from the earth," as Luke gives the text to us in Acts 8.

So, to the official's question about whom this servant is, Philip can eagerly reply that it is no one else but the resurrected Jesus. And like Jesus before him on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24), Philip proceeds to speak, "and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus" (8:35).

In joyful response, the Ethiopian asked Philip to baptize him into this faith of Jesus. And in verse 38, "both of them, Philip and the official went down into the water, and he (Philip) baptized him."

Then we read that the official “went on his way rejoicing.” (Verse 39)

The good news of Jesus always calls for a response: one of gratitude, public profession of faith, receiving baptism and experiencing great joy. This is exactly what the Ethiopian did. He had been in Jerusalem to worship God - but without understanding the Gospel. Now he understood and believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as Lord and Saviour.

How much more should we who have heard the gospel our whole lives and were baptised as infants, confess our faith, proclaim the gospel, live new lives, and rejoice in the goodness of God? How much more should we carry the good news of Jesus back to our families, friends, neighbours, schools and workplaces, for all to know and to believe?

We too should ask the seekers that cross our path:

 “Do you understand what you are reading?”

And “do you believe the good news of Jesus?”