Sunday Stretch: Vol. 78

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

I’m writing to you this week from a lunch break at a conference put on by the great folks at Church Anew, all about renewing our love of Scripture, and “not giving up on the Bible.”

Sometimes when I gather with groups of other ministry leaders, I find myself fighting to quell that cynical voice in my head. Maybe I can blame my journalism background, but sometimes I’m most comfortable observing, on the outside looking in.

Still - in the midst of gathering over a shared love of the Word and a hope for the future, I found myself moved almost against my will. God’s word shared in community becomes a free thing, moving of its own accord, raising questions and ultimately, moving us toward acceptance of love, for ourselves and one another.

So! A thank-you to all the organizers and speakers and volunteers over at Church Anew. I think you might be able to access some recordings from the event here. I’m grateful for the inspiration. Let’s get to the texts …

Bible Stories

Acts 8:26-40

Acts 8:26    Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south^a to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) ²⁷ So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship ²⁸ and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. ²⁹ Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” ³⁰ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” ³¹ He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside 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 silent before its shearer,

so he does not open his mouth.

³³ In his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.”

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” ³⁵ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. ³⁶ As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”^{a  38} He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip^a baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

For me Acts 8 is one of those Bible texts that shouts at me every time I read it, demanding that I pay it my full attention. Like many parts of Scripture, this text is full of layers and historical questions. The Ethiopia referenced here is distinct from the modern-day country of Ethiopia, encompassing a much-larger region of Africa and likely covering most of modern-day Sudan and South Sudan.

When I first read this passage, I focused most on the “Ethiopian” part of the story, intrigued by the story of “Queen Candace” and learning about a place and a people whose faith in God long predated my own European ancestors, who too-often assumed people who look like us are the ones who are most “Christian.” Later in seminary, I got to study and learn with a group of scholars and pastors from the modern-day Ethiopian church, and again I found myself inspired by the richness of their tradition and faith and overlapping and ever-shifting theologies of orthodoxy and Evangelicalism in modern-day Africa.

Still, as I re-read this passage in 2024 America, I find myself stopping instead to focus on the word I’d quickly run over in the past. Eunuch. That’s not a word we hear often. But we have