Acts 8:29-33: a reflection

29The Spirit said to Philip, “Go near, and join yourself to this chariot.” 30Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31He said, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” He begged Philip to come up and sit with him. 32Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. As a lamb before his shearer is silent, so he doesn’t open his mouth. 33In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will declare His generation? For his life is taken from the earth.”

Philip is sent by the Spirit to a specific chariot on a desert road: Go over and join this chariot. He runs up and finds an Ethiopian official reading the prophet Isaiah, and asks, Do you understand what you are reading? The man answers with disarming humility: How can I, unless someone guides me? And he invites Philip up to sit with him and explain. Out of that encounter, arranged by the Spirit and opened by the man's humility, comes his coming to faith.

Notice the two things that had to meet. First, God's providence: the Spirit orchestrated the encounter, sending Philip to just the right chariot at just the right moment, where a searching heart was reading the very Scripture that pointed to Christ. God arranges such appointments more than we know. And second, the man's humility: he did not pretend to understand what he did not; he admitted, How can I, unless someone guides me? and welcomed help. His teachable openness was the door through which understanding came.

Both are worth holding. On one side, be available to be sent, as Philip was, alert to the promptings that might place you beside a searching heart at just the right time; God still arranges these encounters, and often uses ordinary people in them. On the other side, cultivate the eunuch's humility about God's word: How can I, unless someone guides me? A teachable willingness to be helped, to admit what we do not understand and welcome guidance, is the door through which God's truth comes. Be available to be used, and humble enough to be taught.

Lord, you sent Philip by your Spirit to just the right chariot, and the Ethiopian humbly welcomed help: how can I, unless someone guides me? Make me available to be sent, alert to the moments you might place me beside a searching heart. And give me that same teachable humility about your word, willing to admit what I do not understand and to welcome guidance. Use me, and keep me humble enough to be taught.