6. Philip the evangelist
Luke seems to have regarded Stephen and Philip as a pair. Both men belonged to the Seven, and so had social responsibilities in the Jerusalem church (6:5). Yet both were also preaching evangelists (6:10; 8:5), and both performed public signs and wonders (6:8; 8:6). In addition, Luke saw the ministry of both men as helping to pave the way for the Gentile mission. Stephen’s contribution lay in his teaching about the temple, the law and the Christ, and in the effects of his martyrdom, while Philip’s lay in his bold evangelization of the Samaritans and of an Ethiopian leader. For the Jews regarded the Samaritans as heretical outsiders and Ethiopia as ‘the extreme boundary of the habitable world in the hot south’.
A notable feature of this chapter is the currency it gives to two distinctively Christian words for evangelism. Luke has already described the apostles as bearing witness to Christ, announcing (katangellein, 4:2) their message, devoting themselves to the ministry of the word of God, and teaching the people. But now he introduces the verb kērysso (‘to herald’) in relation to Philip’s proclamation of Christ (5), and popularizes the verb euangelizō (‘to bring good news’). He has used the latter once before (5:42), but in this chapter it occurs five times. Twice the object of the verb is the towns or villages evangelized (25, 40), while the other three times the object is the message itself, namely the good news of ‘the word’ (4), of ‘the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ’ (12), and simply of ‘Jesus’ (35). This is a helpful reminder that there can be no evangelism without an evangel, and that Christian evangelism presupposes the good news of Jesus Christ. Effective evangelism becomes possible only when the church recovers both the biblical gospel and a joyful confidence in its truth, relevance and power.
In the first four verses Luke sets the scene for the evangelistic exploits of Philip which he is about to narrate, beginning with this statement: And Saul approved of their killing [Stephen] (1a). Luke appears to be drawing attention to a threefold chain of cause and effect.
First, Stephen’s martyrdom brought a great persecution . . . against the church in Jerusalem. It began on that day, the day of Stephen’s death, and it broke out with the ferocity of a sudden storm (1b). It is true that not every inhabitant of the city was in opposition, for there were godly men (probably pious Jews rather than believers) who buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him (2), deploring the injustice of his death. They will have taken a considerable personal risk by identifying with Stephen in this way. In contrast, Saul, who had approved of Stephen’s stoning (1a; cf. 22:20), now began to destroy the church (3a). The verb lumainō expresses ‘a brutal and sadistic cruelty’. Making a house to house search for believers, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison (3b). Not only did he not spare the women, but he did not stop short of seeking – and securing – his victims’ deaths (9:1; 22:4; 26:10). Saul of Tarsus had blood on his hands, for several others followed Stephen into martyrdom.
Second, the great persecution led to a great dispersion: all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (1c). Luke remembers how the risen Lord commanded his followers to be his witnesses ‘in all Judea and Samaria’ (1:8), as well as in Jerusalem; now he shows how the commission was fulfilled as a result of persecution. We are very familiar with the scattering of the Jews (the diaspora), which had led to the spread of Judaism; ‘this was the beginning of the Dispersion of the New Israel’, which led to the spreading of the gospel. Stephen’s speech had been truly prophetic. Jerusalem and the temple now begin to fade from view, as Christ calls his people out and accompanies them. No blame is attached to the apostles for staying behind. Jerusalem would still for a while be the headquarters of the new Christian community, and they evidently saw it as their duty to remain there. Besides, it would have been dangerous for them to leave, even if the persecution was directed more against ‘Hellenists’ like Stephen than against ‘Hebraists’ like them.
Third, if Stephen’s martyrdom led to persecution, and the persecution to dispersion, the dispersion now resulted in widespread evangelism. The scattering of the Christians was followed by the scattering of the good seed of the gospel. For those who had been scattered, as they fled, far from going into hiding or even maintaining a prudential silence, preached the word wherever they went (4). Up to this point it was the apostles who had given the lead in evangelism, in defiance of the Sanhedrin’s ban, violence and threats; now, however, as the apostles stayed in Jerusalem, it was the believers in general who took up the evangelistic task. Not that they all became full-time ‘preachers’ or ‘missionaries’. The statement that they ‘preached the word’ is misleading; the Greek expression does not necessarily mean more than ‘shared the good news’. Philip was soon to preach to the Samaritan crowds (6); it is better to think of the other refugees as lay witnesses (‘nameless amateur missionaries’).
What is plain is that the devil (who lurks behind all persecution of the church) overreached himself. His attack had the opposite effect to what he intended. Instead of smothering the gospel, persecution succeeded only in spreading it. An instructive parallel from more recent times is what happened in 1949 in China when the National Government was defeated by the Communists. Six hundred and thirty-seven China Inland Mission missionaries were obliged to leave. It seemed a total disaster. Yet within four years 286 of them had been redeployed in South East Asia and Japan, while the national Christians in China, even under severe persecution, began to multiply and now total many times the number they were when the missionaries left.
Having set the scene in the first four verses of the chapter, Luke goes on to give us two examples of early Christian evangelism, both of which focus on Philip. He may have obtained the facts from the lips of Philip himself, for he stayed in his home in Caesarea about twenty years later (21:8).
1. Philip the evangelist and a Samaritan city (8:5–25)
It is hard for us to imagine the boldness of the step Philip took in preaching the gospel to Samaritans. For the hostility between Jews and Samaritans had lasted a thousand years. It began with the break-up of the monarchy in the tenth century bc when ten tribes defected, making Samaria their capital, and only two tribes remained loyal to Jerusalem. It became steadily worse when Samaria was captured by Assyria in 722 bc, thousands of its inhabitants were deported, and the country was repopulated by foreigners. In the sixth century bc, when the Jews returned to their land, they refused the help of the Samaritans in the rebuilding of the temple. Not till the fourth century bc, however, did the Samaritan schism harden, with the building of their rival temple on Mount Gerizim and their rejection of all Old Testament Scripture except the Pentateuch. The Samaritans were despised by the Jews as hybrids in both race and religion, as both heretics and schismatics. John summed up the situation in his simple statement that ‘Jews do not associate with Samaritans.’ Jesus’ sympathy for them, however, is already apparent in Luke’s Gospel. Now in Acts 8 Luke is obviously excited by the evangelization of the Samaritans and their incorporation in the messianic community.
It is uncertain which city Philip evangelized, since some manuscripts read a city in Samaria and others ‘the city of Samaria’. The better attested reading has the definite article, in which case ‘the city’ (presumably meaning ‘the capital city’ or ‘the principal city’) is likely to have been either the Old Testament town called Samaria, which Herod the Great had renamed Sebastos in honour of the Emperor Augustus, or the ancient Shechem, which by then was called Neapolis and is now Nablus. On the other hand, a city in [the province of] Samaria may be correct, since neither in this verse nor in verse 25 does Luke seem concerned to identify the city or villages in question.
Luke’s concern is rather to tell us what happened in the city. He unfolds the story in five stages.
a. Philip evangelizes the city (8:5–8)
The evangelist both proclaimed the Messiah to the Samaritans (5), since they too were expecting him, and performed signs (6), exorcizing impure spirits, which uttered wild shrieks as they left their victims, and healing many who were paralysed or lame (7). Some think of these miracles as special to Philip; others think of them as demonstrating a standard pattern for evangelism. What is certain is that, since neither Stephen nor Philip was an apostle, Scripture does not allow us a rigid restriction of miracles to the apostles. At any rate, hearing Philip’s message and seeing his signs, the crowds . . . all paid close attention to what he said (6), and the combination of salvation and healing brought great joy to the city (8).
b. Simon Magus professes faith (8:9–13)
For some time before Philip arrived in the city, it had been under a very different influence. A man named Simon had practised sorcery in the city. He had amazed all the people of Samaria, even in the region beyond the city, not only by his magic arts (11) but also by his extravagant claims (9). For he boasted that he was someone great. And all the people, ‘eminent citizens and ordinary people alike’ (jb), who seem to have been a gullible group, actually stated that this man is rightly called the Great Power of God (10). Commentators do not agree about the meaning of this phrase. Haenchen considers it clear ‘that “the great power” was a Samaritan designation for the supreme deity’, and that ‘Simon declared that this deity had come to earth in his person for the redemption of men’. Others think it more probable that Simon regarded himself, and came to be regarded, as some kind of representative of the divine being. Certainly in the middle of the second century Justin Martyr, who himself came from Samaria, described ‘a Samaritan, Simon’, who ‘did mighty acts of magic’, so that ‘he was considered a god’ and was worshipped not only by ‘almost all the Samaritans’ but even by some in Rome who erected a statue in his honour. Towards the end of the second century Irenaeus represented him both as ‘glorified by man as if he were “a god”’ and as the author of ‘all sorts of heresies’, while by the third century he had come to be seen as the originator of Gnosticism and the arch-enemy of the apostle Peter. But this is more romance than history.
Now, however, in Samaria, Simon found himself challenged by Philip. It is not just that Philip’s miracles rivalled Simon’s magic. It is rather that, whereas Simon boasted of himself, Philip proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (12). The people first ‘paid close attention to what he said’ (6a) and then believed Philip. Luke seems to mean that they believed Philip’s gospel – in other words, were converted – for they then were baptised, both men and women (12b). It is less clear what Luke intends us to understand by his next statement that Simon himself believed and was baptised . . . he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw (13). He who had amazed others was himself now amazed. There is no need to suppose that he was only pretending to believe. Nor, on the other hand, did he exercise saving faith, for Peter was later to declare that his heart was ‘not right before God’ (21). Calvin suggests that we should seek ‘some middle position between faith and mere pretence’. Probably ‘the sorcerer believed to all appearances as the rest did; he professed belief, became a convert in the view of others, and in the customary way, by submitting to the rite of baptism’. New Testament language does not always distinguish between believing and professing to believe.
c. The apostles send Peter and John (8:14–17)
The apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God (14). This is more than a matter-of-fact statement; it seems to be almost a technical expression by which Luke signals an important new stage in the advance of the gospel. He has used it in reference to the Day of Pentecost when three thousand Jews ‘accepted his [Peter’s] message’ (2:41). He uses it here of the first Samaritans who ‘accepted the word of God’. And he will use it again after the conversion of Cornelius, when the apostles heard that ‘the Gentiles also had received the word of God’ (11:1). Furthermore, in all three developments Peter played a decisive role, using the keys of the kingdom (though Luke does not refer to this) to open it successively to Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles.
When the apostles heard about the conversion of Samaritans, they sent two of their number, Peter and John, to investigate (14). It was particularly appropriate that one of them was John, since Luke describes him in his Gospel as wanting on one occasion to call fire down from heaven to consume a Samaritan city. Now his desire is to see the Samaritans saved, not destroyed. When they arrived, they discovered (we are not told how) that, although the Samaritans had received both the gospel and Christian baptism, they had not yet received the Spirit. So they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit (15), because (Luke explains) he had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptised in the name [that is, into the allegiance, even into the ownership] of the Lord Jesus (16). In addition to praying for them, Peter and John placed their hands on them, thus identifying the people for whom they prayed; and in answer to their prayers, they received the Holy Spirit (17). Luke is as unforthcoming about how the apostles knew that the people had received the Spirit as he was about how they knew that they had previously not received him. Some put their knowledge down to the gift of discernment; others suggest that there was visible public evidence, whether speaking in tongues as on the Day of Pentecost, or their exalted joy or bold testimony.
I think Professor Howard Marshall is right to call verse 16 (‘the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus’) ‘perhaps the most extraordinary statement in Acts’. For Peter had promised the gift of the Spirit to those who repented (the corollary of faith) and were baptized (2:38). How, then, could the Samaritans have believed and been baptized and not received the Spirit? The question has caused Christian readers much puzzlement and division, and we will return to it shortly.
d. Simon tries to buy power (8:18–24)
When he saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, Simon the sorcerer, whom we might also call Simon the superstitious, to whom the apostles appeared ‘extraordinarily gifted practitioners of religious magic’, offered them money (18) in exchange for the power to impart the Spirit to people through the laying-on of his hands (19).
Peter immediately rebuked him, outspokenly and publicly, for imagining that God’s gift could be bought (20). He added that Simon could have no part or share in this ministry because his heart was not right before God (21). He therefore called on him to repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord, for perhaps then the Lord would forgive him for entertaining such an evil thought in his mind (22), even though he was full of bitterness and captive to sin (23). Ever since that day, the attempt to turn the spiritual into the commercial, to traffic in the things of God, and especially to purchase religious office, has been termed ‘simony’.
Simon’s response to Peter’s rebuke was not encouraging. He showed no sign of repentance, or even of contrition. Instead of praying for forgiveness, as Peter had urged him to do (22), he felt so incapable of praying, or so lacking of confidence in his own prayers, that he asked Peter to pray for him instead. What really concerned him was not that he might receive God’s pardon, but only that he might escape God’s judgment, with which Peter had threatened him (24). It is true that the Bezan text adds that he ‘did not stop weeping copiously’. But these words are not original; and if they were, Simon’s tears will have been tears of remorse or rage, not of repentance.
e. Peter and John evangelize many Samaritan villages (8:25)
Once the apostolic mission was fulfilled, and the Samaritans had received the Spirit, Peter and John stayed on for an unspecified period to proclaim the word of the Lord, presumably teaching the new converts. Then they returned to Jerusalem. Not directly, however. They visited many Samaritan villages on the way, in order to preach the gospel in them also, and so to gather in more Samaritan converts (25).
2. Philip, the Samaritans, the apostles and the Holy Spirit
We return now to the questions about the gift of the Spirit which the Samaritan story raises. How is it that through the ministry of Philip the Samaritan believers received only baptism, and that they received the Holy Spirit later through the ministry of the apostles Peter and John? What did the apostles have which Philip did not? How are we to understand the connections between Philip, the Samaritans, the apostles and the Holy Spirit?
Behind these questions, moreover, lies another and more important one. Does Luke intend his readers to understand the Samaritans’ divided experience (first faith-baptism, later the gift of the Spirit) as typical or atypical, normal or abnormal? Is it set before us as the usual pattern for Christian experience today, or as an exception which we should not expect to be repeated?
Opposite answers are given to this central question. According to the first, Christian initiation or becoming a Christian is a two-stage process, consisting first of conversion and water-baptism and, second, of the gift or baptism of the Spirit, so that the Samaritan experience must be judged normal. According to the second, initiation into Christ is a one-stage event, comprising repentance/faith, water-baptism and Spirit-baptism, so that what happened in Samaria must be judged abnormal.
a. Two-stage initiation
Acts 8 is a major proof text for two large groups at opposite ends of the church spectrum: on the one hand, ‘Catholic’ people (Roman Catholics and some Anglican Catholics), and on the other, ‘Pentecostal’ people (classical Pentecostalists, together with some neo-Pentecostal or charismatic Christians in the older denominations). Both use this passage to support their belief that Christian initiation is in two stages, the second (receiving the Spirit) being accompanied by the laying-on of hands with prayer. It is true that there are differences between them, in that the Catholic scheme is largely outward and ceremonial, while the Pentecostal scheme is largely inward and spiritual. Yet a striking parallel remains.
Catholics believe that the first stage of initiation is baptism, and the second is confirmation by a bishop regarded as a successor of the apostles, with the Spirit being given through the laying-on of hands. This position can be traced back to Hippolytus and Cyprian in the third century. Cyprian commented on the Samaritan incident thus:
Exactly the same thing happens with us today; those who have been baptized in the church are presented to the bishops of the church so that by our prayer and the imposition of our hands they may receive the Holy Spirit.
Modern Roman Catholic writers tend to give similar teaching. For example, George D. Smith writes that the Samaritan episode ‘bears all the marks of a normal procedure’. Relying on the same passage, Ludwig Ott systematizes the Catholic position in this way:
(a) The Apostles performed a sacramental rite, consisting of the imposition of hands and prayer; (b) The effect of this outward rite was the communication of the Holy Ghost . . . ; (c) The Apostles acted in the mandate of Christ . . . [Their] matter-of-course manner . . . presupposes its ordinance by Christ.
Similarly R. B. Rackham, the devout Anglo-Catholic commentator, reasoned that because in Acts 8 the Spirit was given through apostolic hands, ‘the church has accepted this as the normal method’, and has perpetuated it in the rite of episcopal confirmation.
The Pentecostal churches, together with some (but by no means all) charismatics, also teach two-stage Christian initiation, but describe it differently. To them the first stage consists of conversion (the human turn of repentance and faith) and regeneration (the divine work of new birth), while the second is ‘baptism in (or of) the Spirit’, often (not always) associated with the laying-on of hands by a church leader. For example, paragraph 7 of the Assemblies of God ‘Statement of Fundamental Truths’ reads:
All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church.
Similarly, Myer Pearlman, an Assemblies of God Bible teacher, writes: ‘While freely admitting that Christians have been born of the Spirit, and workers anointed with the Spirit, we maintain that not all Christians have experienced the charismatic operation (i.e. baptism) of the Spirit, followed by a sudden supernatural utterance.’
In seeking to assess these viewpoints, we want at this point to ask only one question: is the two-stage Samaritan experience to be regarded as the norm for Christian initiation? There is no need to deny that the Samaritan experience did, in fact, take place in two stages. Nor have we any right to deny that, having happened once, it could happen again, especially if the circumstances are similar. We must not deny the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. But it is right to press the question: is it God’s normal purpose that the reception of the Spirit is a second experience which follows conversion and baptism?
To this question we need to give a negative answer (we come to the positive alternative later), because what happened in Samaria differed from the plain and general teaching of the apostles. Initiation into Christ, according to the New Testament, is a single-stage experience, in which we repent, believe, are baptized, and receive both the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, after which, by the indwelling power of the Spirit, we grow into Christian maturity. During this period of growth there may indeed be many deeper, fuller, richer experiences of God; what we should reject is the insistence on a two-stage stereotype. In addition, no imposition of human hands is needed for God’s initial saving work to take place. To be sure, the laying-on of hands is a significant gesture accompanying prayer for somebody, whether for blessing, comfort, healing or commissioning. And the Anglican Church has retained it in confirmation, although its purpose in this context is to assure candidates of God’s acceptance of them and to introduce them into full church membership, and emphatically not to bestow the Holy Spirit on them.
Therefore the Samaritan situation, in which there was a two-stage experience, together with an apostolic laying-on of hands, was exceptional and is not to be taken as a norm for us today, either in Catholic or in Pentecostal terms.
b. One-stage initiation
One possible way to think of the first half of Acts 8 is to say that even the Samaritans’ experience, although in two stages, was not the two-stage initiation which it appears to be at first sight, because either the first or the second stage was not initiatory.
Some argue that the Samaritans’ first stage was not a genuine conversion at all, but a false one. Campbell Morgan interprets their having ‘accepted the word of God’ (14) as a merely intellectual assent: ‘they had not received the Spirit which brings regeneration, the beginning of the new life’. More recently, Professor Dunn has provided a thorough development of this argument. He suggests that the Samaritans got carried along ‘by the herd-instinct of a popular mass-movement’. They are said only to have ‘believed Philip’ (12), which he thinks does not mean that they believed in Jesus Christ; and their baptism (like Simon’s) was form without reality. Besides, since ‘in New Testament times the possession of the Spirit was the hallmark of the Christian’, we simply cannot regard the Samaritans at that stage as having been Christians at all. Therefore their second stage was really their first. It was through Peter and John, not through Philip, that they became Christians.
It is an ingenious reconstruction, but it has not won general agreement. The main objection to it is that Luke gives no hint that he considers the Samaritans’ original response inadequate, although he is clear that Simon Magus’s profession was bogus. No, Luke writes that outstanding blessing attended Philip’s ministry (4–8); that the Samaritans ‘believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of . . . Jesus Christ’ (12), so that we should not separate believing Philip from believing the Christ Philip preached; that they ‘had accepted the word of God’ (14) in the believing sense in which he uses this phrase elsewhere (e.g. 2:41 and 11:1); and that the apostles gave no indication that they thought Philip’s ministry or the Samaritans’ faith to be flawed.
Others argue that the Samaritans did truly believe in Jesus, and that they must therefore have received the Spirit at that point in accordance with New Testament teaching. In consequence, what they received through the laying-on of the apostles’ hands was not the initial gift of the Spirit (which they had received at their conversion), but rather some charismatic manifestations of the Spirit. Calvin taught this: ‘To sum up, since the Samaritans had the Spirit of adoption conferred on them already, the extraordinary graces of the Spirit are added as a culmination.’ And Reformed commentators have tended to follow him. They may be correct. Certainly the statement that the Spirit ‘had not yet come on any of them’ (16) could refer to special gifts and graces. On the other hand, Luke never says that the Samaritans received the Spirit when they believed and were baptized, whereas he does use the language of ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ the Spirit (15, 17–19) as the same as the Spirit ‘falling on’ them, which suggests that what they received through the ministry of the apostles was the initial gift of the Spirit.
Although these two reconstructions are mutually exclusive, they have one thing in common. They both affirm that the Samaritans’ initiation into Christ was a one-stage event, because they deny that the other stage was initiatory. According to the first view, stage one was a false conversion and irregular baptism, so that stage two was the full initiation, including faith and the gift of the Spirit. According to the second view, stage one was the Samaritans’ full initiation, including their conversion and reception of the Spirit, so that stage two was not initiatory but a subsequent charismatic experience. In both cases, by eliminating one of the two stages (either declaring the first false or the second supplementary), we reach the same conclusion, namely a one-stage initiation into Christ.
Neither reconstruction is satisfactory, however, since Luke does seem to understand stage one as a genuine conversion, and stage two as the initial reception of the Spirit. In that case, because Luke describes a two-stage initiation in Samaria, the alternative explanation is to regard it as having been altogether unusual. There are two main indications of this, namely that it deviated both from the normal teaching and from the normal practice of the apostles.
Take the apostles’ teaching. It is always dangerous to isolate any passage of Scripture. What, then, is the general teaching of Scripture about receiving the Spirit? According to Peter’s first sermon, forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit are twin initial blessings which God bestows on everyone whom he calls and who repents, believes and is baptized (2:38–39). Furthermore, Paul agrees with Peter. God gives his Spirit to all his children, so that ‘if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ’.
Now Luke must have been very familiar with this apostolic teaching, for he was Paul’s constant travelling companion, and it is he who records Peter’s instruction in Acts 2:38–39. No wonder, therefore, that we detect a note of surprise in his narrative when he describes the Samaritans as not having received the Spirit, but as having ‘simply’ been baptized into Christ. But, against expectation, water-baptism had been received without Spirit-baptism, the sign without the thing signified. There was, Luke implies, something distinctly odd about their separation. It was because of this irregularity, Professor Dunn writes, that ‘the two senior apostles came down hot-foot from Jerusalem to remedy a situation which had gone seriously wrong somewhere’.
The second deviation was from the apostles’ practice. Luke tells us that on this occasion the college of the apostles, if we may so call them, sent a delegation of its two leading members to weigh up what was going on in Samaria. This was unique. The apostles did not normally see themselves in the role of ‘inspector of evangelism’. On other occasions when people received the gospel, the apostles did not come and investigate, or feel it necessary to add their authorization to what had been done. They did not do it with regard to either the evangelism of other Christians mentioned at the beginning of this chapter (1, 4) or the conversion of the Ethiopian related at its end (26–40).
The picture of apostles scurrying hither and thither up and down the eastern end of the Mediterranean in an attempt to keep up with the rapid expansion of the Christian gospel, with little time for anything but ‘confirmation services’, is amusing but incredible.
So why was it necessary for an official apostolic delegation to scrutinize and confirm the work of Philip? And why in any case was the Spirit not given through Philip himself who had done the preaching and the baptizing? For what special reason could God have withheld the Spirit? There is no indication that Philip’s teaching was defective. Otherwise the apostles would have supplemented it, whereas what they did was pray for and lay hands on the Samaritans, not instruct them.
The most natural explanation of the delayed gift of the Spirit is that this was the first occasion on which the gospel had been proclaimed not only outside Jerusalem but inside Samaria. This is clearly the importance of the occasion in Luke’s unfolding story, since the Samaritans were a kind of halfway house between Jews and Gentiles. Indeed, ‘the conversion of Samaria was like the first-fruits of the calling of the Gentiles’. The nearest equivalents to the investigation by Peter and John were when the Gentiles first believed. When Cornelius was converted, the apostles asked Peter to explain his action (11:1–18), and when Greeks turned to the Lord in Antioch, Barnabas was sent there to assess the situation (11:20–24).
As we saw earlier, the Samaritan schism had lasted for centuries. But now the Samaritans were being evangelized, and were responding to the gospel. It was a moment of significant advance, which was also filled with great danger. What would happen now? Would the long-standing rift be perpetuated? The gospel had been welcomed by the Samaritans, but would the Samaritans be welcomed by the Jews? Or would there be separate factions of Jewish Christians and Samaritan Christians in the church of Jesus Christ? The idea may seem unthinkable in theory; in practice it might well have happened. There was a real ‘danger . . . of their forming a new and separate church for themselves’.
Is it not reasonable to suggest (in view of this historical background) that, in order to avoid just such a disaster, God deliberately withheld the Spirit from these Samaritan converts? The delay was only temporary, however, until the apostles had come down to investigate, had endorsed Philip’s bold policy of Samaritan evangelism, had prayed for the converts, had laid hands on them as ‘a token of fellowship and solidarity’, and had thus given a public sign to the whole church, as well as to the Samaritan converts themselves, that they were definitely Christians, to be welcomed into the redeemed community on precisely the same terms as Jewish converts. To quote Geoffrey Lampe,
at this turning-point in the mission something else was required in addition to the ordinary baptism of the converts. It had to be demonstrated to the Samaritans beyond any shadow of doubt that they had really become members of the church, in fellowship with the original ‘pillars’ . . . An unprecedented situation demanded quite exceptional methods.
This seems to be the only explanation which takes account of all the data of Acts 8, reads the story in its historical context of the developing Christian mission, and is consistent with the rest of the New Testament. It is also becoming increasingly accepted on both sides of the charismatic divide. Although J. I. Packer calls it no more than a ‘guess’, he adds that it ‘seems rational and reverent’. Similarly, Michael Green sees the delay as
a divine veto on schism in the infant church, a schism which could have slipped almost unnoticed into the Christian fellowship, as converts from the two sides of the ‘Samaritan curtain’ found Christ without finding each other. That would have been the denial of the one baptism and all it stood for.
In any event, the action of the apostles appears to have been effective. From now on, Jews and Samaritans were to be admitted into the Christian community without distinction. There was one body because there was one Spirit.
To sum up, the Samaritan happening provides no biblical justification either for the doctrine of a two-stage Christian initiation as the norm, or for the practice of an imposition of hands to bring about the supposed second stage. The official visit and action of Peter and John were historically exceptional. These things have no precise parallels in our day, because there are no longer any Samaritans or any apostles of Christ. Today, because we are not Samaritans, we receive forgiveness and the Spirit together the moment we believe. As for the laying-on of hands, although it can be an appropriate and helpful gesture in various contexts, its use as the means by which the Spirit is given and received lacks authority, whether in episcopal confirmation or in charismatic ministry, because neither bishops nor Pentecostal leaders are apostles comparable to Peter and John, any more than Philip was, although directly appointed by them.
3. Philip the evangelist and an Ethiopian leader (8:26–40)
Soon after the departure of Peter and John from the Samaritan city, Philip was given another evangelistic commission. He was told to Go south. The person who gave him this instruction is called an angel of the Lord, although in later stages of the story it is ‘the Spirit’ who directed him to the Ethiopian (29) and ‘the Spirit of the Lord’ who then took him away again (39). Philip was sent to (and along) the desert road that goes down about 60 miles from Jerusalem to Gaza, which was the most southerly of the five Philistine cities, and near the Mediterranean coast. Whether the Gaza in question was ‘old Gaza’ which had been destroyed in 93 bc, or ‘new Gaza’ which had been built further south some thirty-five years later, we are not told. In either case, the road was well used, for it continued past Gaza to Egypt and so to the African continent.
a. Philip meets the Ethiopian (8:27–28)
The ‘Ethiopia’ of those days corresponded to what we call ‘the Upper Nile’, reaching approximately from Aswan to Khartoum. The man from that region to whom Luke introduces us was not only a eunuch but an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake . . . ‘queen of the Ethiopians’. ‘The Kandake’ is known to have been a dynastic title for the queen mother who performed certain functions on behalf of the king. The Ethiopian official to whom Philip was sent was her treasurer or chancellor of the exchequer, presumably a black African. But he had gone to Jerusalem to worship (27), a pilgrim at one of the annual festivals, and now on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the scroll of Isaiah the prophet (28). This may mean that he was actually Jewish, either by birth or by conversion, for the Jewish Dispersion had penetrated at least into Egypt and probably beyond, and perhaps by now the promise to eunuchs of Isaiah 56:3–4 had superseded the ban of Deuteronomy 23:1. It seems unlikely that he was a Gentile, since Luke does not present him as the first Gentile convert; he reserves that distinction for Cornelius. He regards the Ethiopian’s conversion rather as another example of the loosening of links with Jerusalem (foreseen by Stephen in his speech) and of the liberation of the word of God to be the gospel for the world. It is especially significant that this African, who had gone to Jerusalem to worship, was now leaving it and would not return there. The story ends with Luke’s statement that he ‘went on his way rejoicing’ (39), well away from Jerusalem but accompanied by Christ.
b. Philip shares the good news with the Ethiopian (8:29–35)
Told to go to that chariot and stay near it (29), Philip ran alongside it, close enough to hear the man reading Isaiah the prophet (because everybody read aloud in those days), and close enough to shout to him the question, Do you understand what you are reading? (30). Replying that he could not understand unless someone [explained] it to him, he invited Philip to come up and sit with him in his chariot (31).
Calvin contrasts the Ethiopian’s modesty, in that he ‘acknowledged his ignorance freely and frankly’, with a person who is ‘swollen-headed with confidence in his own abilities’. He goes on: ‘That is also why the reading of Scripture bears fruit with such a few people today, because scarcely one in a hundred is to be found who gladly submits himself to teaching.’ The fact is that God has given us two gifts, first the Scriptures and, second, teachers to open up, explain, expound and apply the Scriptures. It is wonderful to note God’s providence in the Ethiopian’s life, first enabling him to obtain a copy of the Isaiah scroll and then sending Philip to teach him out of it. As Professor Howard Marshall writes,
The way in which the story is told bears some structural resemblances to another story in which a Stranger joined two travellers and opened up the Scriptures to them, took part in a sacramental act, and then disappeared from view (Luke 24:13–35).
So we are to picture the Ethiopian with the scroll of Isaiah 53 spread out on his lap, and with Philip now sitting beside him, as the chariot jolted its way further south. The verses Luke quotes speak of a human sufferer who is led like a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent. He experiences deep humiliation, is deprived of justice and is killed (32–33). The Ethiopian asks, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else? (34). In reply, beginning with that very passage of Scripture, Philip told him the good news about Jesus (35). Now there is no evidence that anyone in first-century Judaism was expecting a suffering rather than a triumphant Messiah. No, it was Jesus who applied Isaiah 53 to himself, and understood his death in the light of it. It was, therefore, from him that the early Christians learned to read Isaiah 53 in this way. The Ethiopian’s heart was so well prepared by the Holy Spirit that it seems he believed immediately, and went on to ask for baptism.
Chrysostom contrasts the conversion of the Ethiopian with that of Saul of Tarsus, recorded in Acts 9. ‘Verily’, he says, ‘one has reason to admire this eunuch.’ For, unlike Saul, he had no supernatural vision of Christ. Yet he believed, ‘so great a thing is the careful reading of the Scriptures!’
c. Philip baptizes the Ethiopian (8:36–38)
As they travelled along the road, they came to some water, presumably in a wayside wadi, and the Ethiopian said: Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptised? (36). The following verse (37), found in the text of the niv margin, is a Western addition, not found in the earlier manuscripts: ‘Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” The eunuch answered, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”’ The two sentences seem to have belonged to an early baptismal liturgy. They were probably inserted into the text by a scribe who felt certain that Philip, before baptizing the Ethiopian, would have made sure that he had believed in his heart, in contrast to Simon Magus, whose heart was ‘not right before God’ (21). At all events, the Ethiopian gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptised him (38). The water was a visible sign of the washing away of his sins and of his baptism with the Spirit. Incidentally, the words ‘went down into the water’, as J. A. Alexander comments, ‘can prove nothing as to its extent or depth’. Total immersion may be implied, but in that case the baptizer and the baptized will have been submerged together, since the same statement is made of them both. So the expression may rather mean, as the earliest paintings and baptistries suggest, that they went down into the water up to their waists, and that Philip then poured water over the Ethiopian. Several manuscripts add that ‘the Holy Spirit fell on the eunuch’, and some scholars accept these words as original. But it seems more likely that they were added specially ‘to make explicit that the baptism of the Ethiopian was followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit’.
d. Philip is parted from the Ethiopian (8:39–40)
Luke implies that immediately after they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away (39) and he appeared at Azotus, that is, Ashdod (40a). Some understand this trip as ‘a supersonic ride’, undertaken ‘with miraculous velocity’, and, to be sure, the Greek verb for ‘took away’ (harpazō) normally means to ‘snatch’ (neb) or ‘seize’, as at the rapture. But I think Campbell Morgan was right: ‘It is not at all necessary that this should be accounted a miracle. I am never anxious to read miracles in, where they are not; any more than I am anxious to rule out miracles, where they are in.’ At any rate, the eunuch did not see him [Philip] again, but went on his way rejoicing (39b), without the evangelist but with the evangel, without human aid but with the divine Spirit who not only gave him joy but also, according to Irenaeus, gave him courage and power in his own country ‘to preach what he had himself believed’. Philip also went on evangelizing, working his way north along the coast, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea (40b), where, later if not already, he made his home (21:8).
4. Some lessons about evangelism
Luke has brought together for us two examples of Philip’s evangelistic activity, and it is instructive to compare and contrast them. The similarities are plain. In both instances the same pioneer spirit was shown by Philip, who won the first Samaritans and the first African to Christ. To both audiences the same message was proclaimed, namely the good news of Jesus Christ (12, 35), for there is only one gospel. In both situations the same response was given, for the hearers believed and were baptized (12, 36–38). And in both cases, the same result is recorded, namely joy (8, 39).
The differences are striking too. I am not now thinking of how the Spirit was received, or of the apostolic delegation to Samaria which had no parallel in the conversion of the Ethiopian. I am thinking rather of the people evangelized and of the methods employed.
Take the people evangelized. The people with whom Philip shared the good news were different in race, rank and religion. The Samaritans were of mixed race, half-Jewish and half-Gentile, and Asiatic, while the Ethiopian was a black African, though probably a Jew by birth or a proselyte. As for rank, the Samaritans were presumably ordinary citizens, whereas the Ethiopian was a distinguished public servant in the employment of the Crown. That brings us to religion. The Samaritans revered Moses but rejected the prophets. Recently they had come under the spell of Simon the sorcerer and his occult powers. They ‘gave him their attention’ (10) before they ‘paid close attention’ to Philip (6). The Ethiopian, on the other hand, had a strong attachment to Judaism, perhaps as a convert, and this led him both to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to read one of the very prophets the Samaritans rejected. So the Samaritans were unstable and uncritical, while the Ethiopian was a thoughtful seeker after the truth. Yet despite their differences in racial origin, social class and predisposing religious condition, Philip presented them both with the same good news of Jesus.
Consider next the methods Philip employed. His mission to the Samaritans was an early example of ‘mass evangelism’, for ‘the crowds’ heard his message, saw his signs, paid attention to him, believed and were baptized (6, 12). Philip’s conversation with the Ethiopian, however, was a clear example of ‘personal evangelism’, for here was one person sitting alongside another person, and talking to him out of the Scriptures, privately and patiently, about Jesus. It is also noteworthy that the same evangelist was adaptable enough to use both methods, namely public proclamation and private testimony. But, although he could alter his method, he did not alter his basic message.
It is this combination of change (in relation to contexts and methods) and changelessness (in relation to the gospel itself), together with the ability to discern between them, which is one of Philip’s abiding gifts to the church.