Sharing the Scriptures Is How We Win Over New Christians and Save Souls

6 min readAug 25, 2022

Encounter in the Desert: The Apostle Philip, the Ethiopian Eunuch, and Salvation

(Acts chapter 8, verses 31–40)

Last week when we left off at verse 30 of Acts chapter 8, the apostle Philip had just heeded a command from the Lord to go near a certain chariot by running up to it and inquiring of the occupant, an Ethiopian eunuch. It seems the eunuch was reading from the Book of Isaiah, but he could make no sense of what he was reading (“‘Do you understand what you are reading?’”….), so he gladly accepted Philip’s offer of some interpretation and invited him to come and sit with him. So let’s take up where we left off last week, beginning at verse 31.

Part One of This Week’s Study Verses

“‘How can I’, he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me’? So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. The eunuch was reading from this passage of scripture: ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.’ The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’ Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” (Acts 8, verses 31–35)

Allow me to reiterate one point about this that I made in last week’s Bible study, and that was the racial and cultural differences between the Ethiopian eunuch — a Black man — and the apostle Philip, a Middle Eastern Jew. Contrast this with the segregated churches in the USA, which are situated mostly in the very wealthiest or the very poorest neighborhoods. I would say that if the apostle Philip were to walk into a wealthy church in a wealthy American neighborhood, he could and most definitely would shock the entire congregation with a fire and brimstone sermon that would have them all frozen in their seats.

What if Philip Were to Come Back Today?

Contrast that with the apostle Philip walking into an inner city Black church in any given American…