What I shared out at the prison last night...

I love sharing out of Acts 8 at the prison. Much of the insight below comes from an Israel tour guide and scholar named Jim Fleming.

Philip went up to the chariot of the eunuch reading (then, Scripture was always read outloud…learning comes by hearing) a scroll (worth about $20,000). The Ethiopian was a wealthy character…the chief treasurer, a trusted official. He was reading the Isaiah scroll.

• In those days, a eunuch had both testicles and penis removed…which means he could not have been circumcised (which might explain Deuteronomy 23:1). So at the temple, he could only proceed as far as the Court of the Gentiles (which had a railing that said “No Gentiles may go beyond this line, if you do you will be responsible for your death which will ensue”).

• The eunuch wants some help from Philip concerning Is. 53. They began there.

• Perhaps they made it as far as 56: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths who choose the things that please me and hold fast to my covenant – to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.”

• No wonder the eunuch got enthused!
  

I asked the guys in that prison pod whether they ever felt "cut off" - from hope, or their family, or a fair trial, or even a visit from a lawyer who cares. They admitted that yes, they felt very cut off. I asked them to kneel so I could pray with them...that God would give them, by His grace, an everlasting name in heaven that would never be...cut off.

By the way, this is what Dr. Ben Witherington says about what might have happened with that Ethiopian's influence in days ahead...

“It can be pointed out that while there is no first-century evidence of the church in Ethiopia, nevertheless several early church fathers attribute to the eunuch the evangelizing of the region (cf. e.g., Irenaeus, Against heresies 3.12.8-10). We can only say, it may be so, and in any case the eunuch can be seen as a fulfillment of the psalmist’s words: “let Ethiopia hasten to stretch out its hand to God” (Ps. 68:31). (Ben Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles, 301)