Acts 8 has an interesting narrative embedded in the chapter: 26 As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, [emphasis mine] 28 and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah [reading Scripture].
29 The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”
30 Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.
32 The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 33 He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” 35 So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus (NLT).
Amazingly, the Ethiopian had spent his time worshiping AND reading scripture, but he had no relationship whatsoever with Jesus. How many times have we heard people say something like the following: “Oh, I know Jesus; I go to church. “He is definitely saved; he prayed a prayer as a boy.” “She has known God all of her life.” “They worship at the church in town.”
How many people in our churches “worship” with no knowledge whatsoever of the personal relationship that is found in Christ alone. Salvation is not a well-crafted, man-dependent prayer. Salvation is the entering in by faith into a relationship with Christ and a commitment to live a life for Him out of a heart of gratitude. That relationship may begin with a prayer of contrition, or it may begin when a soul has come to the end of himself/herself and cries out inaudibly for Christ to take over. Salvation is not something “we do.” Salvation is something that Christ does on our behalf. We simply acknowledge His work on the cross as our substitute, acknowledge our sinful state in which we are totally incapable of saving ourselves, and yield our lives to His control in full faith.
What is the point of this article? (1) We definitely need to engage people in our church bodies in conversations regarding their salvation. We need to ask them specific questions like Philip asked the Ethopian Eunuch. “Do you understand the Gospel?” (2) The Word is clear that we will know believers by the fruit in their lives (Matthew 7:20). When people are evidencing no fruit of the Spirit in their lives, we must pose the question: Where is true repentance and faith in their lives? And (3) we must recognize these steps as biblical discipleship and not “judgment” on someone. Because we love people, we want to hear their stories of genuine, relationship with God.
When someone cannot explain specific and personal relationship with Christ and responds only with generalities like “I go to church” or “I have always known God” or “I prayed a prayer as a child,” we had better probe a bit deeper as Philip did to be able to explain to them the Good News of Jesus and the richness of a walk with Him.
