While preparing a talk on Acts 8, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Official, I was struck by something I’d never noticed before. It wasn’t strictly relevant to the talk, so it didn’t make the cut (despite how much I wanted to keep it in. Gotta keep killing those darlings!) But here it is… a little snippet from the cutting room floor.

The very next story Luke tells us in chapter 9 is the conversion of Saul, which also takes place on a road between two major cities. The Official is on the desert road between Jerusalem and Gaza (8.26), while Saul is on the road between Jerusalem and Damascus, having procured letters from the High Priest authorising him to arrest any Christians he might find in the synagogues (9.1–3).

The contrast between these figures couldn’t be much starker:

The Official didn’t understand the Jewish Scriptures and humbly asked for help. Saul was learned and had devoted his life to understanding them.

The Official was not welcome into the people of God on account of his status as a gentile eunuch. Saul was one of the religious elite.

‘Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless’ (Philippians 3.5–6).

In fact, arguably it was Saul’s job to keep people like the Official out!

The Ethiopian Official travelled to Jerusalem to worship; a 3,000 mile round trip because he was hungry for God. Saul intended to travel to Jerusalem bringing Christians he’d arrested, for their imprisonment or execution.

These men couldn’t have been more different. Yet God met each of them on a desert road and turned their lives around. There is nobody the gospel cannot transform. Nobody is outside of the saving reach of Jesus Christ. The gospel is good news for everyone.

The rest of Luke’s book continues with Saul’s story. We see how he became Paul – Apostle to the Gentiles (9.15) and went on to write wonderful truths about how the gospel of Jesus tears down the very barriers that once kept the Eunuch from the family of God (Eph 2.11–22; Gal 3.28–29, etc).

We read nothing more of the Official. Only that he ‘went on his way rejoicing’ (8.39). But the church Father Irenaeus wrote that he was, ‘sent into the regions of Ethiopia, to preach what he had himself believed.’ (Against Heresies, 3:12:8)

So, on desert roads, the Lord raised up two new evangelists, taking the gospel to lands unreached. May he do it again.

In this Quiet Revival we are seeing people come from far and wide into the Kingdom. Those who have previously been self-sufficient and hostile to the gospel, and those who have grown up in a post-Christian world, with no experience of Christian faith in their homes and upbringings. And from this harvest, I trust he is not simply raising up converts, but new missionaries for the Kingdom.

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Photo by Juli Kosolapova on Unsplash