Acts 8:5-8
He preached Christ unto them
Scattered by the persecution, he goes to Samaria rather than away from trouble. The city that Jews had no dealings with receives the word with great joy.
People of the Bible
Philip the evangelist
Took the message to the people Jerusalem would not speak to, then left a crowd to meet one man on a desert road.
Also called One of the seven
He is not the apostle Philip. This is one of the seven chosen with Stephen to handle the food distribution, and the persecution that follows Stephen’s death is what puts him on the road. He goes down to the city of Samaria, which is the last place a Jerusalem believer would choose, and preaches Christ there. The response is a revival: unclean spirits crying out, palsied and lame people healed, and great joy in that city.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Philip the evangelist
- 01
- 02
Acts 8:26-29
Go toward the south, which is desert
He is pulled out of a successful mission and sent to an empty road. The instruction gives no reason and he goes.
- 03
Acts 8:30-35
Understandest thou what thou readest
The man is reading about a lamb before its shearers and asks whether the prophet means himself or another. Philip begins at the same Scripture and preaches Jesus.
- 04
Acts 8:36-39
See, here is water
The question comes from the man in the chariot, not from Philip. They go down into the water, and then the Spirit catches Philip away.
- 05
Acts 21:8-9
Philip the evangelist, one of the seven
Twenty years later Luke stays in his house at Caesarea and gives him a title and four daughters who prophesied. He is still where the road left him.
Why it matters
Then the angel sends him away from it. Arise and go toward the south, unto the way that goes down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. He finds one man in a chariot, an Ethiopian official reading Isaiah 53 aloud and getting nowhere, and runs alongside to ask whether he understands. The conversation begins at that Scripture and ends at water by the roadside. Then the Spirit takes Philip away and the eunuch sees him no more, and goes on his way rejoicing.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
