Seven years ago, I changed the way I taught evangelism. I made this change because I started delving into the conversion stories of scripture and discovered that they contained a treasure trove. Now I teach students, churches, and dioceses about evangelism through the lens of these biblical stories. I’ve been astonished at the difference this approach has made. Students have learned that the sharing of faith is not dependent on finely honed arguments, superior communication skills, lovely evangelistic resources, sales tactics, or market-trend analysis. These stories teach us that the best sort of evangelism is God-dependent, Christ-centered, Holy Spirit-initiated, and based on both prayer and respectful human interaction.
I have gathered what I have learned into a book, and on June 25th, A New and Ancient Evangelism: Rediscovering the Ways God Calls and Sends will be released in North America by Baker Academic. What follows is a small excerpt from Chapter Two, which explores the conversion of the man known to many of us as the Ethiopian eunuch, found in Acts 8:26-40. In this story Philip, one of the Seven chosen to help lead the early church, is told by an angel to go to a certain place. There he encounters an important Ethiopian official (a eunuch) who is on his way back from worshipping in Jerusalem. As this man rides in his chariot, he reads aloud from the book of Isaiah, in what we now know as Chapter 53. Led by the Spirit, Philip approaches the man and strikes up a conversation that quickly results in the man’s conversion and baptism.
I hope you find this excerpt thought-provoking, and I hope it encourages you to consider who the Spirit may be prodding you to invite into a life-giving conversation. To discover other truths about a thoroughly biblical form of evangelism, and to read what precedes or follows this excerpt, the book can be pre-ordered through Amazon, Indigo, or your local Christian bookstore. Enjoy!
A Poignant Passage
We know little about the history of this Ethiopian. He was likely forcibly castrated as a slave; it is also possible that he suffered an accident that resulted in castration. Least likely, he may have been born with what today would be called ambiguous genitalia. We simply don’t know. We do know that he had no say in his condition and no power to change the stigmatization that was inextricably connected to it, both within Judaism and in the broader Greco-Roman culture. Because of his physical deformity, he was also cut off from God. He was relegated to being part of a ridiculed and despised group. He would never have children to carry his name into the next generation. And he simply had no say in any of this.
Let’s now consider the passage the Ethiopian eunuch was reading.
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. (Isa. 53:7-8), quoted in Act 8:32-33)
Is it any wonder this passage caught his attention and resonated so deeply? While we can’t know what this man was thinking, we can guess why the Ethiopian asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” (8:34). How could Isaiah, a prophet of God, understand so deeply what this eunuch himself felt? Or did the prophet know another who was so despised and rejected, so wrongly judged and shamed? About whom was the prophet speaking?
Good News for the Suffering
Philip’s response is summed up in one sentence in this story: “Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus” (8:35). Christians looking for a script for sharing the gospel will be disappointed, for Philip took quite a different approach: listening first, asking if help was needed, awaiting an invitation, and responding to a question only with what he knew about Jesus, the person who Christians throughout the ages have identified as fulfilling Isaiah 53. One who suffered at the hands of others. One who suffered humiliation. One for whom justice was denied. One whose life was taken from him.
And yet that was not the end of the story for the one written about by the prophet, as Philip must have conveyed. The resurrection of Jesus turned his humiliation and death upside down. What looked like a horrible defeat was revealed to be an ultimate victory. The victory of God. The good news. God, in Christ, had atoned for the sin of all the ages, and he was now reconciling the whole world to himself. I often wonder if Philip showed the Ethiopian eunuch a passage in Isaiah located just three chapters after the passage he was reading. If he did, it would surely be part of the good news that Philip spoke of that day. Isaiah’s long-promised Suffering Servant had come, and as a result everything had changed.
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people,” and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 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. (Isa. 56:3–8)
The story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts takes place among a series of stories about the sharing of the gospel with more and more outsiders. Philip seems to have been particularly called to this work. First we read about him preaching to the Samaritans. Next we learn about him discipling and baptizing Simon, who was formerly a sorcerer. This conversion is followed by him being sent to reach the Ethiopian eunuch, after which he was whisked away to the city of Azotus and then to villages and towns up the Mediterranean coast, until he finally reached Caesarea, where he settled. The church in Jerusalem may have been persecuted and scattered, but it was now reaching farther and farther out across the ancient world.
Loving God as the Starting Point
When churches think about how to encourage their members to share the faith, they often start looking for a new program or the latest resources in evangelism. Yet this story, and most other conversion stories in the Bible, suggests that evangelism begins with something else entirely: a deep love for God that results in a commitment to spending time with God. Our efforts to cultivate missional churches must begin with teaching our people that the Christian disciplines of silence, solitude, meditation, and prayer are the birthing ground for sharing the gospel with others. Philip’s amazing interaction with the Ethiopian eunuch began with hearing something, an instruction from an angel of the Lord.
In the West, these spiritual disciplines have often been viewed merely as the way we ourselves are fed in the faith, and so they have become disconnected from the church’s calling to share the gospel. But if we don’t see these disciplines as attending to God, how can we be attentive to God’s prodding, direction, and guidance in sharing the faith? The Ethiopian eunuch came to know about God’s amazing love for him demonstrated in the life of Jesus, the Suffering Servant, because Philip heard God’s direction. As we see in so many biblical conversion stories, and as we see in research on churches that are effectively reaching new people today, learning to listen for God’s direction is key. God most desires us to be a people of prayer. The Great Evangelist wants to teach and guide us, if we only make listening and speaking with him a priority, not just for our own sake but for the sake of the world God loves. As we seek to be a people who reach out with the gospel, our first question should be, Is this goal grounded in a deep love for God as evidenced in a commitment to prayer?
Content taken from A New and Ancient Evangelism by Judith Paulsen, ©2024. Used by permission of Baker Academic.
