The Gospel Is For All

Maybe you’ve concluded that Christianity simply isn’t for people like you.  

You know who had every reason to think that the gospel was not for him? The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. He could have said to Phillip, “I hear this good news, but look, I’m not from Jerusalem. I just got back from there. I’ve been there. I’ve looked around. Nobody looks like me there. I’m from a kingdom down in Africa. I’m not part of God’s chosen race. And besides that, I’m a eunuch and your law says something about eunuchs not coming to the temple. So it sounds wonderful and I will certainly respect your God, but I can see that to be a full blown child of God is not for me.”

You may remember that the Ethiopian was reading Isaiah when he met Philip on the road. Beginning with Isaiah 53:7-8, Philip told him the good news about Jesus. I wonder, if in the course of explaining the good news, Phillip turned to a couple other passages in Isaiah. Maybe said to the eunuch, “You know what? While you have the Isaiah scroll open, would you look at Isaiah 11. In that day the LORD will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush [Ethiopia], from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.” And maybe Phillip said, “Do you see? God promised here in Isaiah that he would save people from your country, people just like you.”    Continue at Kevin DeYoung