When we say, a church for all, do we actually mean a church for all? The big idea of this section of the book of Acts is how the church goes from a mono-ethnic Jewish church located in Jerusalem, to a multi-ethnic church in Antioch. I had told you that along the way we’d be introduced to five groups of people: the Hebrews, Hellenists, Samaritans, “good” Gentiles, and “bad” Gentiles in this expansion. Yet in the passage today, we’re introduced us to someone who is not singled out because of his ethnic identity, but nevertheless his inclusion in the church is highlighted by Luke. And he is going to press the boundaries of the church even further as we ask the question: When we say, a church for all, do we actually mean a church for all?
Acts 8:26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.”
Acts 8:34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. 36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” 38 And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
Who is This Individual? [verse 26-27]
There’s a lot of description given about this individual. He’s called an Ethiopian as to his place of origin. He’s called a court official, as to his occupation. He’s described as being in charge of the treasury of the Queen, as to his power. Though he is called an Ethiopian he is likely a Jew, for Luke explicitly introduces the conversion of the Gentiles in chapters to come. Yet the specific qualification of this individual that Luke points out again and again (5 times!) is that he is a eunuch. So what is highlighted for us in this passage is not his ethnic identity, but rather, as one commentator notes, the eunuch is portrayed as someone on the fringes of Judaism, marginalized within the people of God, who is drawn into the fellowship of Jewish Christianity through Philip’s teaching about Jesus.
What is a Eunuch?
There has been some discussion over the years as to what what a eunuch was in the ancient world. Initially the classification was reserved for those men who were either born with or suffered some physical impairment in that they were incapable of reproducing. Yet by the time of the New Testament we find that the term had expanded to include various types of eunuchs. Jesus explained why not all are able to accept marriage by matter-of-factly explaining, “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” People generally understand the third category, as those who choose to live single, celebrate lives for the sake of Christ, and the second category seems pretty obvious - those who have been made eunuchs by men - but It is the first category that is interesting - eunuch’s by birth. These would obviously include those who today we call intersex (born with ambiguous genitalia) but some, for example, conservative biblical scholar Robert Gagnon believe that it is probable that “‘born eunuchs’ in the ancient world did include people homosexually inclined”.
What Did People Think of Eunuch’s in the Ancient World?
- The Perspective of a Hellenistic Jew: Josephus (writing just a few years after Luke)
“Let those that have made themselves eunuchs be held in detestation; and do you avoid any conversation with them who have deprived themselves of their manhood, and of that fruit of generation which God has given to men for the increase of their kind: let such be driven away, as if they had killed their children, since they beforehand have lost what should procure them; 291 for evident it is, that while their soul is become effeminate, they have withal transfused that effeminacy to their body also. In like manner do you treat all that is of a monstrous nature when it is looked on; nor is it lawful to geld men or any other animals.”
- The Perspective of the Roman Writers: Lucian of Sarasota Lucian write a play called, “The Eunuch” which reveals the mocking and the contempt that eunuchs experienced in the greco-roman world. In the short play, a eunuch is brought before the judges of the city and it is debated as to whether the eunuch is fit to teach philosophy. The entire play is presented as a comedy, but at the eunuch’s expense. He is portrayed as being, “neither man nor woman but something composite, hybrid, and monstrous, alien to human nature … an ambiguous sort of creature like a crow, which cannot be reckoned either with doves or with ravens.” “Upon those remarks everyone began to laugh, as was natural, while Bagoas [the eunuch] fell into greater confusion and was beside himself, turning all colours of the rainbow and dripping with cold sweat.” The punchline of the play is one of the philosophers musing that he hopes his son will be “suitably endowed for the practise of philosophy with other tools than brain or tongue.”
There was opportunity in the ancient world for eunuchs to rise to positions of influence. Eunuchs were often trusted advisors and managers of powerful kings, for the greatest danger in the ancient world, if you were a king, would be that someone would supplant you in order to place his own descendants on the throne. Since a eunuch could have no descendants, they were not seen as much of a threat. They also often took care of the women in the harem, for obvious reasons. The Greek word for eunuch literally means “keeper of the beds”. This particular Ethiopian eunuch had risen to considerable influence in Candace’s court, so that he kept her treasury.
Now that we’ve been introduced to this Ethiopian eunuch, let’s jump back into the story.
Acts 8:26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.
So we see the Lord directing Philip, the evangelist who we had last seen leading the expansion of the church into Samaria, away from that place of successful ministry in the desert to meet with this eunuch, this “monstrosity”.
He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
I want you to consider this man and his devotion to the Lord. Here was a man who had travelled from Meroe, of the kingdom of Nubia, which is now located in modern Sudan south of Egypt. We’re talking about 3000km (about here to Saskatoon) not in air conditioned car travelling 100 clicks, but in a chariot travelling through desert. After travelling all that way, he arrived in Jerusalem to worship the Lord. So he finally gets to Jerusalem and joins the festivities of his fellow Jews celebrating in their Holy City. Maybe he meets some fellow pilgrims along the way and they dine together, and make plans to go up to the temple together the next day. And so they meet in the court of the Gentiles. Alright here were are, let’s get ready to bring our sacrifices to the Lord, I hear theres a place around here that we can buy some livestock, and the Ethiopian says, i’ll what out here, I’m not going in. His new friends are confused. I thought you said you were Jewish? You don’t have to stay outside with these Gentiles. “Yeah, I’m Jewish, but you go ahead”. “Did you touch a dead body or something?” “No, I’m fine” “Then what is it? You travelled all this way and you’re not going to go in with us?” “You know [looks down]” “Oh, right … you’re one of those.”
See, under the Mosaic law eunuchs were prohibited to worship at the temple. Deut. 23:1 “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD. Remember, worship at the temple was extremely limiting. Only those in completely intact states were allowed to approach the temple, and even then only some of the time, and even then only with the appropriate sacrifice. The entire temple system was a huge object lesson teaching the holiness of the Lord, all the prohibitions regarding who was able to approach on the basis of external standards, was to demonstrate to everyone that none of us would be able to approach the holiness of the Lord based on our internal purity. Regardless, that was the law, and so the eunuch had travelled all this way to worship in Jerusalem, knowing that the outer courts would be as close as he could come into the assembly of the Lord.
But the trip was not an entire loss. Rather than being discouraged in his faith, while he was in Jerusalem the eunuch was able to purchase a scroll of Isaiah - an object of near immeasurable value in the ancient world (you didn’t have bookstores like you have today). And as he returned to his homeland he began unrolling and reading the scroll:
29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.”
Acts 8:34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.
This is an unbelievable story of God’s grace. The eunuch came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord, but having been turned away from the Temple, the Lord seeks him out. Philip begins with the scripture, Isaiah chapter 53, and preaches to the eunuch the good news about Jesus that we looked at last week. That Jesus was God sent from God to reveal God to us. That Jesus bore our sins in his own body, and by his sacrificial death on the cross, our sins are forgiven. That God rose Jesus from the dead and now gives life and a future to all those who know Him.
And look how the Spirit of God moves in the heart of this eunuch! 36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” He doesn’t wait for a class to be offered! He hears and understand the the good news about Jesus. He believes in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and wishes to follow Jesus in obedience through baptism, and so seeing the water, he is ready to jump in. But look at his question: What prevents me from being baptized? That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? You only ask that question if you anticipate that there would be something that would prevent you from approach go and his people. You only ask that question if you’ve already been turned away from approaching God and his people. There’s a lot of fear in that question.
Yet the answer is so simple. Verse 37 is skipped in most modern translations, as it was likely not part of the original, but it is true nevertheless - you might find it in your margin: “He said to him, ‘If you believe with your whole heart, you may.’ He replied, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’” and then picking up again in verse 38, “And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.” The eunuch, excluded from God’s people at the Temple, is now gathered into God’s people as a full member of the body of Christ. As we said each week, these chapters of the book of Acts are demonstrating how God tore down the walls that divided people to gather together his church, Hebrews, Hellenistic Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles. Luke records each ethnic expansion of the church, but here now is a different type of social expansion singled out in the inclusion of this eunuch.
I like to think that they continued to unroll the scroll just a couple of more feet and kept on reading, because it is only two chapters later in the book of Isaiah that God makes a very special promise to eunuchs. In Isaiah 56:3-5 the word of God says:
Is. 56:3 Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” 4 For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths (this is a pun, remember “keep the beds”), who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
There are a couple of important things here.
1. There is in the gospel a promise of radical inclusion
Nowhere in the Bible do we see the sort of comments that we saw in Josephus or Lucian about the “monstrous” eunuchs, or counsel that we should hold them in detestation or avoid even talking to them. Instead God promises a place for them “within his walls” which we see being fulfilled in this passage.
2. The criteria for inclusion in the community of God is the same for all
God’s standards for holiness and his law does not change according to our situation no matter who were are. God does not have different standards, but calls eunuchs to obedience, just as he calls all to obedience. Notice verse 4: “to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant.” God’s standards for holiness and sexual ethics do not change according to our situation. Notice that this verse assumes that there will be eunuchs who do not keep God’s covenant and choose things that do not please Him. But to those who come to him, to those who hold fast to his covenant, He welcomes into his house. Now we understand that no one does this, and thus we come by grace through faith in Jesus, so that is in fact the only criteria. We saw this in that omitted verse in Acts: “if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you may”.
3. God promises a fulfilling life for His eunuch’s.
The promises God shares in verse 5 are very special and unique to those eunuchs, whether they are natural-born eunuch’s, those made eunuch by men, or simply those who are single by situation or choice. Notice the special fear of the eunuch - “behold, I am a dry tree.” The eunuch is especially susceptible to the specific pain that he or she will never bear fruit, bear children. And look at what God says, “I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.” God promises to them that they can find a place in his family. To those who are worried that they will not have any descendants to whom they can pass on their name, God says, “ I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”
There is this myth in the future and in the church that to live a full fulfilling life, one must be in a relationship, one must be married, one must be sexual fulfilled, one must bear children, and while the bible pictures marriage, sex and children as good things and blessings from the Lord, none of them are necessary to living a full and fulfilling life. If you think that you have a theological problem, because Jesus, who was fully human and the most fulfilled individual who ever walked this earth, was a single man who never married, never made love, and never sired children.
And thus we see that the church of Jesus Christ truly is a church for all. For there are many modern day eunuchs. Singles who will not or will never find opportunity to marry. Some young men and women who feel a special calling to a single, celebrate life for the kingdom of God. Divorcees who are walking with the Lord and not seeking to remarry. Those who are either born with or have something happen to them so that their opportunity or ability to have children and raise a family is hindered. Those who are intersex, transgender or experience same sex attraction. All who come to God through Jesus Christ and seek the things that please Him are to be baptized and gathered into the church. We call all people to turn from their sins and turn to Christ. We welcome all who do so into the life of the church. We call on all of you today who are here - turn to God in Jesus Christ, and find your place within his walls.
*** Additional Discussion: Every so often when I speak with people about Jesus and our faith, I will have someone ask me about homosexuality. I generally give the following answer:
First I say something like: “Because I don’t want you to think I am evading the question, i’m going to give you a short, direct answer. However, in order to start to help you to understand that short answer, I’ll need a few minutes to explain a couple of things about the Christian faith, so please hear me out." I find that it's important to be frank and concise enough to give an understandable answer, but to introduce them to the fact that the Christian faith is of enough substance that a short soundbite will not do it justice.
Here is my short answer: "Yes, the Bible teaches that homosexual acts are indeed outside of the range of acceptable sexual practice as defined by the God who created us. This is pretty clearly taught in both the Old and New Testament, which are in agreement that sexual activity is to be restricted to the marriage union of man and woman bound together a lifelong covenant. To even begin to help you understand why, I’m going to need a few minutes to just introduce some parts of the Christian answer. Obviously this is just scratching the surface, but its a start:
• Source of Authority: Christians believe that marriage and sexual relationships are not mainly for us, but designed by God and for God. That is, our source of authority is not ourselves or what we want to be true, but by God and by what He defines as truth. This is true in every area of our life, not only what we believe about sexual practices.
• Identity in Christ: Christians do not take an identity other than our identity in Christ. This is the reason why the Christian answer focuses on homosexual activity, and why we do not encourage the forming of one’s identity around their homosexual attractions. The Christians I know who experience same-sex attraction have found hope by forming their identity in Christ, rather than in the labels of their sexuality.
• Self-Control as a Spiritual Discipline: Nearly every ethical system (religious or secular) values self-control as a virtue. Christians do not believe that we are mastered by our desires, but that when we truly know God He gives us the ability to not be a slave to our desires. Thus, there is hope for the Christian who experiences same-sex attraction, that they may live at a level beyond their base desires and attractions. As one Christian brother stated in sharing his story on how he understands his experience being same-sex attracted, “God has not called me at this time to heterosexuality. He has, however, called me to holiness." As an example, as a heterosexual married man, I am at times attracted to women who are not my wife. However, I am bound by the ethics of my faith to not act according to those attractions, and thus I must exercise self-control, and do not act upon my attractions.
• Singleness as a Fulfilling Life Path: Christians do not look down upon a single, celibate life as some sort of curse. Jesus was single, as were some of the apostles, and lived a life of greatest fulfillment. For the Christian, sex and marital companionship are blessings and good things, but they are not necessary things required in order to live a life of great fulfillment. In the book of Isaiah, God promises eunuch’s (castrated men who would have been commonly excluded from sex, marriage and raising a family) that He has a special blessing for them as they seek him in faith and obedience.
• Inclusion into the Church: Christians welcome men and women from marginalized sexual groups into the church just as they do anyone else who turns from their sin to find their identity in Christ. While there are some ignorant or bigoted people in the church (as there are anywhere else in life), the Bible specifically gives precedent to the church to welcome those from sexual minorities into the life of the church as they turn to Christ, for example, the eunuch in Acts chapter 8 is immediately baptized and welcomed into the church.
Conclusion: "I love you too much to define you by your desires. I too once lived as my own source of authority, defining myself by my own desires and excusing my actions on the basis of what I wanted to do. But a friend of mine loved me too much to let me go on in my way. He told me about Jesus and that there is another way. I now seek to define myself solely by my relationship to Christ, and as I look to him as my Lord and authority, He gives me the power to live a life of self-control, no longer a slave to my own desires. I have found a new family in the church, with brothers and sisters who share the same story. My prayer for you would be that you would find the same."