So we are still in the book of Acts, we’ve been here since October and we are only still in chapter eight. As we go through Acts we are starting to see the story unfold in a way where the good news is moving from Judea, to Samaria to the ends of the earth. Last week we read the story of Philip going to Samaria and how he was received there, we also got the side story of Simon the magician and how he responded to the good news. Now we are moving along. John and Peter have come, checked in on the new Christians in Samaria and everything seems to be going well, and now they are heading back to Jerusalem, and along the way they are embodying the good news. So then Luke keeps following Philip a bit longer.

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet.

The story begins with Philip getting some instructions from an angel. He is told to go south, down a desert road. Now Gaza was destroyed over a hundred years earlier. So this is a strange direction for him to head, but he does it anyway. So on his way, he didn’t even make it to the road, he runs into an unlikely character. This is probably one of the more interesting characters we will run into in Acts. He is a wealthy Ethiopian eunuch. We can assume right away that because he is Ethiopian, that he is black. Luke’s audience would be fascinated with this Ethiopian. It is a culture that they don’t know very well and that brings a sense of awe when they think of them. Why? Well, the odyssey speaks of the “far-off Ethiopians…the furthermost of men.” Ethiopians are people from an exotic land, the edge of the world. They are people that are from the very ends of the earth. Does this kind of description remind you of anything? Remember, last week, we talked about how Jesus’ words are creating a structure for Luke to tell his story. He is showing Jesus’ words come true.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

We are here now. The ends of the earth. You can almost taste the story going in this direction now. And to top it all off, this guy wasn’t just from the ends of the earth. He was also a eunuch. This means his private parts had been cut off. Why is this important? Well Judaism had a specific view on eunuchs, and a lot of it was inspired by a verse in Deuteronomy 23.

No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD.

So not only did this guy represent people that were at the ends of the earth and all the types of people that they couldn’t even comprehend. He also represents the very people that have been ostracized and kept away from God because of their very identity. Not only would they have been kept out of the temple, but they also couldn’t participate in the very tradition that made someone a Jew, a follower of God. Anyone think of what that is? That’s right. Circumcision. You can’t get circumcised if there is nothing to circumcise. And to top it all off, this guy was powerful. He was an important official in charge of money for the Queen of Ethopia. So here we have a powerful guy from the ends of the earth, who under any normal circumstances could not be part of the people of God. Then, if who he was wasn’t weird enough, what he was doing was even stranger. He was coming back from Jerusalem where he was worshipping. So we know he wouldn’t have worshiped like the Jews would have had normally, because he wouldn’t have been allowed into the temple. He may have been allowed in the outer courts where the Gentiles were. But that’s about it. And he was reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. So again it’s emphasized that he is wealthy because he can read.

So this is probably the strangest of strange characters that we could be running into right now. But really it all fits perfectly into where we know this story is going. Luke has set it up beautifully. He shows us literally the most unlikely of characters to show up on the road at this time reading from Isaiah. So as we read, keep in mind all the qualities about him.

The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

So we have prodding again here telling Philip what to do and where to go. Philip runs to the chariot. I like that. He runs. He hears the eunuch reading. This means of course that he was reading out loud, like you would back in these days. And we find out exactly what he is reading. It’s Isaiah 53 and he needed help understanding what he was reading. The eunuch already had an understanding of the Jewish story of God and his people but he didn’t understand what this was about. This gives us a brief look into how people would have been reading the prophets at this time. They would have read Isaiah very differently that we read it now. You see we read Isaiah as a book of prophecy, a book that was telling the Jews that their messiah was coming and was going to save the world. We don’t understand most of it still, but we see it as this book of weird poetry that is pointing to Jesus. Rather people in this time didn’t read it exactly like that. N.T. Wright puts it like this.

“Rather, he was meditating deeply on the fate of Israel in exile, and on the promises and purposes of God which remained constant despite Israel’s failure to be the light to the nations, or even to walk in the light herself. Gradually a picture took shape in his praying, meditating mind: the figure of a Servant, one who would complete Israel’s task, who would come to where Israel was, to do for Israel and the whole world what neither could do for themselves, to bear in his own body the shame and reproach for the nations and of God’s people, and to die under the weight of the world’s wickedness. Only so, he perceived, could the promises be fulfilled. Isaiah was writing a kind of job description: This is what we want! A Servant who will accomplish God’s will, and rescue Israel and the world!”

- N.T. Wright.

The eunuch by reading Isaiah was entering into this narrative and desiring the same things. He thought, maybe that Isaiah was that prophet, or maybe that this prophet had already come? So who is he talking about? Philip has this wonderful opportunity to use the exact passage that he was reading to show him how the longings of Israel find their fulfillment in the story of Jesus. So he tells them the good news.

I wonder if this is weird for us to hear stories like this? Do we even have stories anymore of people like this? Can we translate this into our context at all anymore? I’m not sure if we can. After all, how often is it the case that we run into someone asking questions about the fulfillment they are asking for, and we know the answer is Jesus, does that even happen anymore?

Q: Do you have a story where this was the case for you? Where you were able to tell the good news of Jesus to someone who was already seeking?

As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

This is an interesting moment in this story. Remember that as a eunuch, the ritual to become part of the Jewish faith was impossible for him, there was all sorts of things that came in the way of him belonging to the family of God. So when he starts to hear the story of Jesus and he sees some water, he jumps at the opportunity. What could possibly stop him? No wonder he was so excited. Joining into a faith that he once was excluded from he is now embraced with open arms. No wonder he was so excited. Imagine feeling like your purpose was tied up into a religion or a life that you could never actually be part of.

All right, so this is the end of this story. The story is short, so I wanted to go through the story and at least lay out for you some basic things so that we can understand the context better and what is happening. Generally when speaking about a passage, I have a dozen books that I go through to better understand what is happening. All of them pointed to the greater story in which this story is a part and how it symbolizes something greater. However, this week, some of the readings I found online pointed towards the idea that this passage is a great lesson in evangelism. So I thought we would spend some time in the idea of evangelism this morning, if this story has anything helpful to add to out thoughts on it and where to go from there. I started getting the idea that some people use this verse or section of verses to teach about how to evangelise to people. Which got me thinking more about this story a bit more and what is happening here.

I think one of the key characteristics about this story is a lesson in evangelism, but probably not the way we would expect. Constantly what this story seems to point out and allude to is how God is prodding Philip to do one thing after another. Philip only asks one question in the entire story, and God is telling him everything else. Where to go, when to go, what to do. It is the angel that tells him to go down that road, then he is told to go to the carriage. It is almost as if Luke needs to continually remind us that it isn’t Philip here that is causing all this to happen, but it is God. God’s plan is going forward whether Philip likes it or not, and Philip is given the opportunity to join in.

This is where I struggle quite a bit with understanding my upbringing, reading the scriptures and now how I see the world. You see. Sometimes I start to think evangelism is this weird made up thing that Christians have done to somehow motivate them to do the right thing or care about people. It is this forced habit that you just have to talk to people about the “Lord” and make sure that they get saved so that they don’t go to hell.

How this story talks about evangelism is God needing to get this good news out to the whole world and so he starts spreading it and using people that want to join in on the fun to do it.

How we see evangelism now is that all our friends are going to go to hell unless we tell them to say a prayer and accept Jesus into their hearts.

Lately I wonder if evangelism starts to look different as time goes on from Acts and as we start to understand our faith differently. We don’t live in a world now where evangelism like Philip and the Ethiopian went through is a normal occurrence, or even close to that experience. Besides, Luke was trying to show us something by placing that story in that time. So to use this as a step by step evangelism tool, might not be the wisest way to look at this story. But people do it anyway. I found this article entitled Lesson in Personal Evangelism: Philip and the Ethiopian in Acts 8, and it gives us four steps to successful personal evangelism. 1. Listen to the Holy Spirit, 2. Move out of your Comfort Zone, 3. Be prepared to evangelize, 4. Positive Results. The desire to see this as lessons in evangelism is there, but I think they might be taking out the wrong lessons. For the last year or so, almost every Friday night, there is a few people that setup on the corner less than a block away to “evangelise.” They yell about God’s judgment and wrath and where the world is going if they don’t repent and follow Jesus. He hands out tracts, argues people on the street and he is relentless in his desire to save the masses. And somehow, hearing stories about salvation, and stories like this, gives them the drive they need to go on the streets and make converts. But I’m not sure if it is about evangelism, I’m not even sure many of us, if any, “evangelize” in the regular sense of the word anymore.

Q: Is this story a story of evangelism? Do you evangelize? Why? Why not?

So if this is a lesson,I wonder what that teaches us about it? I’d like to suggest that maybe we think along the lines of this parable in Mark

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

I wonder if this is a better way to see evangelism, that God is up to a whole lot in the world and we have the option to join in with him when the time is right. This whole story with Philip was dictated by the moves of God and he was just available, present and ready to move when the time is right. Maybe instead of gearing ourselves up and then constantly failing and feeling bad about it because we aren’t “saving people” we spend that energy to be the kind of person who God uses to share his good news through.

“Luke plants this story at the heart of the moment when the gospel is starting to go out into the wider world, to make it abundantly clear that wherever yo go, whatever culture you come to, whatever situation of human need, sin, exclusion, or oppression you may find, the message of Jesus as the one in whom all the promises of God find their “yes” is there to meet that need.”

So unfortunately, I am not going to extract a four step process out of this story so we can all be sent out of here as better Philips in the world, ready to evangelise and save all your friends. However, I do hope we see this story for what it is. A story that shows that God is up to a plan that is way bigger than we can wrap our heads around. A story that symbolizes God’s salvation reaching to the very ends of the earth and to the very people who were once kept outside of his story. God’s story reaches them. It reaches everyone and it will reach everyone and you have the opportunity to join in. You don’t need to convert people to believing your set of beliefs, you need to live as if your beliefs are real. Live the kind of life that is sharing the good news around you through the actions in your life. This is the ultimate form of evangelism, and it is through that life that God’s good news will continue to go forward.

I’ll end with a quote about Saint Patrick, since yesterday was his day, and what he discovered in his church planting and evangelism efforts.

The supreme key to reaching the West again is the key that Patrick discovered – involuntarily but providentially. The gulf between church people and unchurched people is vast, but if we pay the price to understand them, we will usually know what to say and what to do; if they know and feel we understand them, by the tens of millions they will risk opening their hearts to the God who understands them. – George Hunter III

“One of the major themes throughout Luke-Acts is the universalization of the gospel — that it is for all people from the last, least and lost to the first, most and found. This is a theme Luke found in his favorite prophetic book, Isaiah, and it is highlighted both early and often in Luke-Acts (cf., e.g., Luke 3:6 “all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” to Isa. 52:10). The story of the Ethiopian eunuch may be said to be exhibit A of this promise being fulfilled, not least because the actual text of Isa. 52:10 says all the ends of the earth shall see God’s salvation, and that is precisely where the Ethiopian comes from as things were viewed in Luke’s day.” - Ben Witherington III

Troy and I had the opportunity to go with the FMCIC to the Ghana Mission this past month. The FMCIC is coaching and working with some Ghana pastors and giving them the tools necessary to be able to get their status as their own denomination. In a culture where structured denominations is scarce there is a great need for denominations in the country that people can trust. Along with that, a small group of the pastors there have acquired land and are in the beginning stages of starting a school for women. So Troy and I were in charge of all things tech and shot a lot of video and took lots of pictures. The team we went with consisted of a wide variety of Free Methodists, from raging big oil, I want my kids to pray in school conservatives to midwife loving, tree-hugging hippies. It made for quite a trip of heated discussion. I learned quite a bit from both sides. Here is a link to all the pictures. Videos will be released on a schedule over time.

This first picture was my favourite moment. If you look very closely, you can see a guy have a smoke sitting on the goods of the flipped over truck.

We will have a small video we made about these drummer guys from the North.

We watched the Africa cup and Ghana in the quarter finals in the streets of Accra.

Orphanage nap time.

Shot by Troy

Shot by Troy

Shot by Troy

Rachel and I went to Costa Rica with our friends Brandon and Beth Huybers.  This was strictly a vacation.  Couldn’t have picked a better place that was friendly to tourists but still wrapped in adventure every single day.  This was by far the most active trip I’ve been on.  We went zip lining, surfing, white water rafting, beer tasting, hiking and night tours.  We found a micro-brewery called Volcano Brewing Company that also is part of a wider project of sustainable living, eco farm and new forms of energy.  Here are some pictures or you can see a bunch more here.

As we start to unfold this story of the first Christians we are picking up on some important themes, and not only that, we are starting to see that everything is connected. Everything from Genesis 1 to the law and the prophets and into the gospel stories and message is tied into this story. Without understanding the whole story, there is no way to make sense of any of these stories in Acts.

One of the great arts of Christian theology is to know how to tell the story: the story of the Old Testament, the story of Jesus as both the climax of the Old Testament and the foundation of all that was to come (not, in other words, a random collection of useful preaching material with some extraordinary and “saving” events tacked on the end), and the story of the church from the first days until now. . . . Sometimes a story is the only way of telling the truth (110). – N.T Wright

Last week we talked about the stoning of Stephen and how before he was stoned went on a sixty verse sermon about the pattern of rejecting God’s messengers. The irony of the entire speech is that God was speaking through him, and he was also rejected and put to death. With hands covering ears and screaming at the top of their lungs, they refused to change when the truth hit them and tried to stop the new true story from going forward. Then this is what Luke tells us what happens.

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

So remember we had seven people who were top quality that were chosen to take care of the widows and make sure that the gospel was actually reaching the marginalized in their areas. We heard the story of one of them last week, Stephen, and how that all unfolded. Then Luke goes into the story of another one of these seven guys. This one’s name is Phillip.

Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.

Remember, to understand what is happening in Acts, we have to understand the entire story. An important part of this story is the gospels and the words that Jesus said in the gospels and especially at the beginning of Acts. One of the last things that Jesus says to his disciples is this.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Jesus’ words here is basically a pattern for the entire book of Acts. So if you don’t think you remember anything from this series, at least remember Acts 1:8, because Luke takes this as foreshadowing and as he shows the church growing and changing he follows this pattern. When they say Judea, they mean all areas north of Jerusalem, and when they say Samaria, they mean all areas south of Jerusalem. So far in the first seven verses of Acts we have been stuck in Jerusalem, north of Jerusalem. But now, as the Christians start to scatter and bring this good news elsewhere, we are starting to see south of Jerusalem hear about what is happening. This isn’t just a geographical split of North and South, but it’s also very much an ideological split. But to understand we need a quick history lesson.

“It began with the break-up of the monarchy in the tenth century BC when ten tribes defected, making Samaria their capital, and only two tribes remained loyal to Jerusalem. It became steadily worse when Samaria was captured by Assyria in 722BC, thousands of its inhabitants were deported, and the country was re-populated with foreigners. In the sixth century when the the Jews returned to their land, they refused to help of the Samaritans in the rebuilding of the Temple. Not till the fourth century did the Samaritan schism harden, with the building of their rival temple on Mount Gerisim and their repudiation of all OT scripture except the Pentateuch. The Samaritans were despised by the Jews as hybrids in both race and religion, as both heretics and schismatics.” (John Stott)

We know from reading Luke in Acts and his gospel, especially Luke’s gospel, that Jesus has a soft spot for Samaritans. This wasn’t the case for everyone else. In fact it was the opposite. Jews hated Samaritans. As John puts it, they don’t associate with Samritans. While Jesus seemed to have done his best to break down that hate with stories about the good Samaritan, he didn’t get very far, because Jews in general don’t trust them, don’t like them and want nothing to do with them. So I’m sure that when Jesus said that they were going to witness in Samaria, that they pushed that to the back of their heads because they would never do that, never be found there. But here we are, the words of Jesus ring true and Phillip, for whatever reason, a reason we aren’t told about, finds himself in Samaria, and turns out that he’s a hit. The people love him. Spirits were leaving bodies, people who were lame were being healed. He seems to have got their attention. The story continues.

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

Samaria already has had some action lately. There was a guy there who was a magician of sorts, and he also amazed the people of Samaria. Luke tells us that “he boasted that he was someone great.” Luke then goes on to tells us that Phillip showed up, he didn’t boast about himself, but rather he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. Luke is contrasting these two people because he wants to show us how the kingdom of God is different. It isn’t about boasting about yourself, rather its about boasting and proclaiming something that is happening despite yourself. Simon gets followers and shows his greatness. Phillip points everyone to follow Jesus and the Kingdom of God, he doesn’t make this about himself at all. Simon see this power (seemingly greater than his own), along with everyone else, and believed and was baptized. Luke though, doesn’t want us to forget that he kept following Philip everywhere and couldn’t get enough of the signs and miracles that he saw. He is a miracle jumper of sorts it seems. Let’s keep reading.

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now it becomes a bit obvious that Jews don’t like Samaritans. In no other case do people find out about Jesus and the church sends the disciples themselves to see if this was true. But sure enough, Peter and John has to show up to make sure that this was actually the case and that it wasn’t just fake. They still don’t trust Samaritans. It’s even more interesting that John would show up. Let me jog your memory a little but about how the disciples and John especially acted toward them last time. This is Luke 9.

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.

So you send the guy who was quick to call fire down from heaven on these people to make sure that this was real. If he is convinced then we can trust it. I’m sure he was chomping at the bit to be able to go back there as well, to see these folks who once rejected Jesus and he wanted to destroy come to believe and be baptised. Then from here, once Peter and John see that this was real, they lay hands on them and the Holy Spirit shows up and continues it’s work. So Jesus words are ringing true. The Holy Spirit is coming on these people, they are receiving power and the message is going from Judea to Samaria. This is all despite the feelings of hatred toward these people. All their religious histories and past are slowly falling by the wayside as this good news of Jesus is transcending culture, race and religion. Jews would be sitting around telling stories about his for a long time. For the first time in a thousand years they are on the same page with people. They are back to worshiping the same God, and are believing the same good news. This is massive! It’s one thing to see 3000 Jews believe in Jesus. It’s a whole other thing to see Samaritans believe. They are the enemy and now they are our friend. Maybe this good news is actually good news? Maybe the Samaritans can actually participate with us in this? Then the story starts to get interesting.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

Simon wants in on the action. Whatever happened to all these other people, did not happen to Simon. He was upset, or maybe he just saw a business opportunity? He didn’t want to miss out it seems. He believes, he got dunked in some water. But now, he wants the real stuff. The power part. The Spirit part. You know the part that will give him the kind of followers that Phillip was getting. The kind that would make him great. Peter, our classic hothead, snaps. “You and your money can go to hell.” OK, so let’s just talk about this for a bit.

Q: Why did Peter snap here? Why was it so offensive what Simon said?

Peter has this captivating ability to see in someone’s character something that transcends the question. He can see what drives people. One of the most interesting things that I have found about Acts thus far is the view on money and how it intersects with the faith. There is an overwhelming amount of rebuking going on when people use their money poorly, or view money in the wrong way. Ananias and his wife Sapphira died because of how they viewed and treated money. It’s not just how they treat money though. It’s how money is allowed to be talked about and used within the kingdom of God. You’ll notice that no one here ever cares about how Caesar is spending their money or how governments are spending money or how non-believers are spending money. What they care about, and what the early church seems to have all sorts of guards up against, is how Christians interact with their money.

I was at a seed starting class in Waterloo this weekend, and one of the things that kept coming up over and over again was how important it was that everything was right. The soil needed a certain amount of moisture, temperature needed to be right, needed to be transferred at the right time and the list went on. The beginning stages of plants are so crucial for their development that anything that went wrong would set the whole thing off track. I see the early church sort of in the same way. The reason why Peter is so harsh here is because this is the very beginning and every thing matters. If you let a little but of dysfunction, idolatry or mis-directed desires then it could set the whole thing out of whack, especially when it comes to greed and money with humans.

I’m sure this can stem back to Jesus’ words on money and God. You can’t serve both. They are mutually exclusive. The early church believed this deeply and Luke tells the story in such a way to remind us over and over again that these two worlds cannot overlap. They are different. You cannot try to make excuses and say that you can, or that it is different now. If you serve God, you cannot serve money. If you serve God, you have to look at money entirely different. If you serve God, then you control money, not the other way around. This is why we see people selling their things and then using that money to take care of one another. Serving God means you care about people, you care about the kingdom, not care to have more money and make more money and be more powerful.

Remember at the beginning, when Luke tells us that Simon boasted in himself and Phillip proclaimed the kingdom of God? Well it turns out that Simon really didn’t change at all here. Sure he believed and he even got baptised. His heart hadn’t changed. He had no way of grasping that the good news was not good news of power or of saving your butt. He had been operating from a certain perspective and tried to fit this good news into that one. So the idea of a gift did not fit. He wouldn’t do anything for free, or at least if he wouldn’t do it if he wasn’t getting an ego boost and some more followers. So he thought everyone was like this. So he’ll give them what they want, so he can get what he wants. The problem is, they want nothing to do with it. He didn’t want the gift of the Spirit like everyone else. He wanted the power to lay hands on people and have the spirit come upon them. This was still a grab for power. He didn’t get it.

Then to top it off, after Peter rebukes him, what really concerned Simon isn’t so much that he couldn’t receive God’s pardon and receive the Spirit, but only that he could escape God’s judgment. He still only cares about himself, and there is no room for this in the church. If you are here, just because you don’t want to go to hell, or you want to be right and everyone else wrong, or you don’t want bad things to happen to you….you are hear for the wrong reasons. This isn’t what the kingdom of God is about.

This was a gospel that is worth dying for as we just saw through Stephen. To treat this as merely a commodity to be bought and sold is to not understand anything what is happening. We tend to do this with all sorts of things. It’s probably thanks to some of our capitalist upbringing. But we have learned, like Simon, to turn everything into a commodity. We think everything has a dollar value and we have very little understanding of gifts or being motivated by anything rather than money.

After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.

So the story ends with Peter and John going from town to town “preaching the gospel.”  The last thing I wanted to bring attention to, because I think it’s important to note as we move deeper into Acts is some of the wording that is being used. There is a word here that is used that when it gets translated to English means “good news” or “gospel”. The word is

εὐαγγελίζω – euaggelizō – yü-än-ge-lē’-zō  (link)

So when you hear the phrase throughout the Bible “preach the gospel” the word in the Greek is euaggelizō. Now the problem is, that in Greek, there isn’t another word that is thrown in there that gives us another meaning. So what English translators did, to best explain what is going on here, is translate this word to mean “preach the gospel” but really what this word when said as a verb doesn’t mean preach, it is just a word that is a verb form of the word good news. It would be better translated as “gospelize the gospel.” I remember when I first heard about this word in Greek class at Tyndale. It blew my mind. It not so much that this was a bad translation, but in how we view the phrase today we always default that to meaning “preach” which always mean speak about it, talk about it, proclaim it loudly. Still, almost every weekend, we have street preachers down here on the corners downtown Sarnia “preaching the gospel.”

But this isn’t what it means. It doesn’t mean to talk about it. It means to make the good news into a verb. Gospelize the gospel. Make the gospel alive. Live the gospel. So when Peter and John head back to Jerusalem and the text says that they were “preaching the gospel” we can read that as “gospelizing the gospel.” They weren’t just going into towns and getting asked to preach sermons, they were living out the reality of the good news to everyone around them. So now, for the rest of your time reading Acts and even the Bible, when you see the phrase “preach the gospel,” you can understand what it really means, and what it meant to them.

The role of the Christian now to “preach the gospel” now has entirely new meaning. It doesn’t mean to preach. It doesn’t mean to speak it to everyone, shove it in their face and constantly talk about it. What it does mean though is to live out the good news as if its a verb. The gospel is living and active. It can be made into a verb, and the only way it becomes good news is if it is lived out through us. That is it. It is not just news that you tell someone about. It’s news that you show off through your life. Dan Oudshoorn recommends we call it “embodied proclamation” so that we don’t forget that there is also a verbal component.

Q: What should good news/gospel look like as a verb in our lives?

As the gospel starts to flow into new cities and amongst people that they never thought would get it there is this constant reminder that the gospel is specific. This new way of living is specific and there is no way to get around that fact. If you aren’t willing to die. If you aren’t willing to stop holding onto your money. If you aren’t willing to give up control. Then you cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. Simon, the magician, tried to control God. He wanted power to administer the gifts, not the gifts themselves. As a magician, he was constantly attempting to control divine powers through techniques and formulas. You can’t control God. His spirit shows up when you want it to. You can create the right environments, you can’t pray for it to happen, it just happens, and there is nothing you can do besides accept the free gift. Any attempt to control or stop it only seems to make it bigger. There is no formula.

But the church is ruthless in its demands. Not just anyone can walk in there and control it. This is working on God’s timing and God’s style. Simon was successful, he could get crowds, it would have been easy for the disciples to pass along the gift to pas around the Spirit and get this movement a real boost. Remember, they are looking to grow this right now, they are trying to get this message out there. Simon could have been a big part of that. But they choose not to. They aren’t looking for success, they recognize that preaching the gospel isn’t about getting crowds and getting people saved. It is about living a specific way. It is about living a life of repentance. A life that make good news actually good news to you and the rest of the world. So friends may we preach the gospel, live the gospel, gospelize the gospel wherever we go.

We hear the story of the wind at Pentecost,
Holy wind that dismantles what was,
Holy wind that evokes what is to be,
Holy wind that overrides barriers and causes communication,
Holy wind that signals your rule even among us.

We are dazzled, but then – reverting to type -
We wonder how to harness the wind,
how to manage the wind by our technology,
how to turn the wind to our usefulness,
how to make ourselves managers of the wind

Partly we do not believe such as odd tale
because we are not religious freaks;
Partly we resist such a story,
because it surges beyond our categories;
Partly we had imagined you to be more ordered
and reliable than that.

So we listen, depart, and return to our ordered existence:
we depart with only a little curiosity
But not yielding;
we return to how it was before,
unconvinced but wistful, slightly praying for wind,
craving for newness,
wishing to have it all available to us.
We pray toward the wind and wait, unconvinced but wistful.

Walter Brueggemann Prayers for a Privileged People

“What do we make of an evangelism, which, while including even the Samaritans, does not hesitate to exclude those like Simon who do not fit the lifestyle or theology of the community of the Spirit? In a time when the community was fighting for its very life, it fought not by reducing its witness to the lowest common denominator, a catchy slogan fit for a billboard or bumper sticker, but rather by building walls about itself, by carefully defining itself, and by rebuking and excluding those like Simon who did not change their heathenish lifestyle and attitudes. Rather than baptizing the status quo or resorting to mushy affirmations of popular practices (“Even though I disagree with some of Simon’s techniques, he does draw a lot of people, and he does a lot of good”), the church demands repentance (8:22).

“We will leave the interpreter to find his or her own examples of ‘simony’ in the church today. It should not be too difficult – in a world of television evangelists, ‘super churches,’ and politically powerful preachers – to think of someone who like Simon projects himself as ‘somebody great’ and equates the gift of the Spirit with worldly standards of power and success.”

(William Willimon in his book Acts[John Knox Press, 1988], pp.69-70)