05.08 | Samaritans, Magicians & Eunuchs
Acts 8:4-40
‘Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.’
Acts 8:4
At the start of Acts, Jesus laid out His global expansion plan for His Church.
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Jerusalem. Judea. Samaria. The end of the earth.
Basic familiarity with the geography around Jerusalem told them that this was a gradual expansion—from the city of the cross and resurrection, into the surrounding region, into the towns of the Samaritans, and then overspilling into every nation on the earth.
The first seven chapters of Acts deal with Jerusalem and Judea. But then comes Acts chapter 8.
Stephen, as we remember from yesterday, has just been martyred, and this triggers a time of significant persecution for the Church. They scatter from Jerusalem. But here’s the thing: everywhere they go, they keep on proclaiming and bringing the Gospel. And we suddenly find the message and Way of Jesus of Nazareth entering new places. Godless places. Irreligious places. These places and people expand our assumptions about where the reign of God is yearning to enter.
Samaria. The history of the Samaritans was, for the Jews, rinsed with compromise. After the reign of the wise King Solomon, God’s people had split into two nations: Israel, and Judah. The people of Israel continually rejected the worship and Law of God, before their exile to Assyria. The remnant of Israel mixed with other nations (again, forbidden by the Law), drawing in some of their customs and practices. The Jews viewed them as sellouts and outsiders.1 And yet the reign of God is expanding, restoring what was lost, and adding Samaritans to the people of God.
Simon. A pagan magician, using satanic power to impress people with his supernatural abilities. Simon, today, would be a New Ager or Wiccan, likely with an appearance to match. He’s built his whole life and reputation on his supernatural abilities. And yet, when Simon encounters the power that there is in Jesus’ Name, he recognises that he is meeting something mightier than any demonic counterfeit he has ever known. His heart is exposed, and he repents. The reign of God is expanding, restoring what was lost, and adding magicians to the people of God.
The Ethiopian eunuch. Friends in South Sudan tell me that ‘Ethiopia’ in the Bible probably more accurately describes the area we now call Sudan. Either way, this is a dignitary from a foreign nation, interested in the Old Testament Scriptures, and yet, until this moment, an outsider to the work of God. Were he to read three further chapters into Isaiah, he would find a promise of God. The promise was to eunuchs—that God would give them a spiritual heritage, ‘better than sons and daughters,’ and that God’s house would, in days to come, become ‘a house of prayer for all nations.’2 The reign of God is expanding, restoring what was lost, giving spiritual heritage to the childless man who would bring the message of God to his nation, and building a house of prayer of every race and nation on the earth.
When we consider our faith, it’s so easy to think only of how it touches those places already touched by God’s Kingdom. We think of prayer meetings and worship gatherings and quiet moments of prayer.
And yet the vision of Jesus requires more of us. Because in the imagination of God He is endlessly committed to a project of invasion and increase, inviting His people to consider how our workplaces and schools, our streets, warehouses, hospitals, buildings of state, nightclubs, coffee shops, shopping centres and forgotten estates may all become places of His advancing reign.
For the reign of God is expanding, restoring what was lost, and yearning to add the most estranged outsiders to the ever-growing people of God.
Reflect:
Are there people and places that I consider beyond the reach of God’s love? Are they any less religious than the Samaritans, Simon, or the Ethiopian eunuch?
Turn this to prayer. Ask the Spirit to give you His imagination, seeing what these people and places could be if invaded by the Good News of Jesus.
Pray:
Father,
Teach me to see.
Teach me to see not what is,
But what could be;
Not what has been distorted and wounded,
But what was intended.
Teach me to see places
As you are remaking them,
And people
As you dreamed for them.
Teach me to see that there is no place and no person
Beyond the reach
Of your transforming power,
And your limitless love.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Jeremiah 34-35 | Psalm 94:12-23
You can read a little of this background in 2 Kings 17:24-41
See Isaiah 56:1-8