Through The Bible - Acts 8 - Part 1

Brett Meador: Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. Notice he didn't preach how to have a happy marriage. He didn't preach how to feel better about yourself and awakening the giant within. No TED Talk for Philip. Philip was the guy who said, "I'm going to preach Jesus Christ." That's a huge theme. You can't miss it in the Bible. Jesus is always the main thing. And preaching of the word is a theme in the book of Acts, which is so important.
Guest (Male): When Saul's persecution began to scatter the church, Philip traveled to Samaria where he ministered to a sorcerer and an Ethiopian eunuch. As Pastor Brett Meador reflects on these encounters in Acts chapter eight, we study the varied responses to Philip's preaching while learning important lessons for us in today's world about evangelism and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Brett Meador: Well, we find ourselves here in Acts chapter eight and the story continues. It's quite a story. If you recall, the book of Acts is picking up where Jesus died on the cross and rose again. Five hundred people saw him after he rose from the grave. So then the church started. And in the beginning of the church, the thing that was so big is the Lord said, "I'm going to do a great work, a new thing, a new covenant, really." So here in Acts chapter eight, we see that story continue. But before we get into Acts chapter eight, I want to remind you of one of the promises that Jesus made as we back up into Acts chapter one, verse eight. It says, "But you shall receive power, *dunamis*, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and you shall be witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the world." Now, one of the things that we miss as modern-day Christians reading this is how people would have been shocked. What would have been shocking about this? To say you shall be witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, people would go, "Wow, that's a big area." But then when he says, "and Samaria," that would have been a shocker. That would be like maybe a Jew going to Iran to spread the gospel, or maybe an American going to Japan right after World War II. These are mortal enemies, really. The people of Samaria and not only Samaria, but then Jesus said the most amazing thing: "and to the uttermost parts of the world." And that's really what's happening. And the Jews, the reason they didn't like Samaritans and Samaritans didn't like the Jews, we've gone into that in depth, but it was back when the Assyrians around 720 BC took a bunch of Jews from the northern ten tribes of Israel off into captivity. And then some of them came back, some of the Assyrians came back and settled there and sort of intermixed with some of the poorest Jews. It's interesting because the Assyrians took the richest and most powerful Jews in captivity and left the poor and weaker Jews back there. And then some Assyrians came and infiltrated that area and intermarried and they became a group of people called the Samaritans. So the Jews from Jerusalem viewed them as sort of half-breed people who mixed up their religion from Judaism to an Assyrian sort of paganism and kind of did an amalgamation of religion. So the Jews were very much against the Samaritans. And that's when Jesus came on the scene. Do you remember there in John chapter four, verses one through four, Jesus made this comment to the disciples: "We must needs go through Samaria." And the disciples are like, "Samaria? Like what area? No, Samaria. That's the area we've got to go through." And they were like, "No, we can't go through Samaria." But Jesus insists upon it. And of course, he leads the woman at the well to salvation and all the men of the city come out and see Jesus. This was kind of the beginning of the work there in Samaria. And we're going to see that sort of picked up here in Acts chapter eight where the disciples left off and Jesus left off in Samaria. Also, we just saw the death of Stephen and we sort of bump into a guy who's a major part of the Bible. It's funny how the Bible sort of introduces him in a sort of mysterious way. He's a little guy sitting on the side taking care of everybody's garments and he's consenting to the death of Stephen. His name is Saul and we're going to see this at Stephen's death. But really in chapter eight, we're introduced to four interesting people. And that's what I'd like to sort of outline this chapter in, these four interesting people. The first one we're going to see here is Saul, a zealous persecutor. And that's right here. We begin in verse one. It says, "And Saul was consenting unto his death," that's Stephen's death. "And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." The apostles didn't go to Samaria. Verse two, "And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and hailing men and women committed them to prison." This guy Saul, the one who was consenting at Stephen's death, goes on a rampage. The Greek word for havoc, the idea is kind of like the worst you'd see in warfare: houses burning and being pillaged and plundered, people being killed and thrown into prison and made into slaves. And that's what Saul is doing to the Christian church. He's a zealous persecutor and we see that. These are his what I call BC days, before Christ, before Saul meets Christ and he's persecuting the church. Now, you think, "Well, that's bad." But remember, how do we really know what's good and bad? Because when the church got persecuted, we see here the church was then scattered from Jerusalem all over to Samaria and other parts. This is how God's going to spread the gospel. And oftentimes, that's one thing you can see. When persecution hits the church, the gospel spreads. The devout seem to get more solid. The fringe people who aren't really saved or aren't even real serious believers, they tend to fall by the wayside. There's a sort of a cleansing of the church. But this is what we're seeing. So we see Saul, this zealous persecutor. This tells us something of Saul. The word consenting, this Greek word *syn-eudokeo*, which means to be pleased together with, to approve together, to cast a vote in favor of. And the reason this is an important word in our study is it may be a hint. Some Bible scholars say this is a reason to believe that even though we picture him as a young guy standing next to the clothes, he's probably a young man and he might even be part of the Sanhedrin already. And the evidence of that is right here. This word consenting means that he gave consent, probably with the Sanhedrin. He gave his vote, he made a vote, which some would say places him in the Sanhedrin. Which, if you read some of other Paul's writings, it makes sense. Paul was schooled by Gamaliel, who was the top Pharisee of the day. Man, if you were being schooled by Gamaliel, you were someone big. You were someone headed for success in the world of Sanhedrin type stuff. Paul would later say, "I was the Pharisee of all Pharisees." So it's a possibility that he was part of the Sanhedrin, which is interesting. Second point is that he was probably married. And then the big question is, well, what happened to Paul's wife? If he was married, we don't know for sure. But implication, if he was part of the Sanhedrin, that was a requirement. If he gave a vote here on Stephen, he was probably part of the Sanhedrin. So it's just interesting to think about. And there's some church tradition that says different stories. Like one story goes where Paul's wife, when he became a Christian on his road to Damascus, when Jesus knocked him off the horse and blinded his eyes and he became a believer in Christ, that his wife was happy to be the wife of a Sanhedrin member, but not happy to be the wife of a Christian who Saul was persecuting and hating. And so word has it that she left him when he became... Now that's not in the Bible. So we don't know if that's true or not. But that is what church history sort of hands down as one of the possibilities. There's another possibility that she died somewhere along the way. But we do know that Paul during his ministry was single because even Paul said that when he was talking. He said, "I wish that you all be single like me." And the purpose was so he could be effective in ministry and he even sort of applauded the idea of singleness, especially in light of ministry. So this is the first guy that we see here on our list of important people. He was the son of a Pharisee, Saul was, which is kind of like the family business, being Pharisees. And was part of the Sanhedrin. So this is all kind of interesting stuff. We're going to spend a lot of time in the book of Acts talking about this guy. But this was just a little light introduction to Saul, the persecutor, the zealous persecutor. And we'll see him saved later on here pretty soon. Pretty exciting story. That brings us to the second character of this chapter, Philip the faithful evangelist. And we pick that up in verse four. It says, "Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them." Now, we meet the next guy here, Philip. He's a faithful evangelist. There are four different guys in the Bible named Philip, just for clarity. You don't want to get them mixed up. The first two are not hard to get mixed up. The first two are sons of King Herod the Great. Herod the Great, of course, was the one who remodeled the temple in Jesus's day. It was a beautiful remodeling of the temple. Herod the Great was a tyrant. But he was also a builder and he built Masada. He built the Herodian, which is a mountain. Like he built a mountain. It's a long story. The Herodian is near Bethlehem, like ten miles from Jerusalem. And he stood on this one sort of hillside and said, "I love this area. I want to build my palace here. But I want to be able to see Jerusalem from here." And they all said, "That's impossible." And Herod said, "Nothing's impossible when you have, you know, tens of thousands of slaves." So Herod the Great built a pile, a mountain. It looks like a straight volcano cone or something like a cinder cone. And it's huge. He built it over a thousand feet high just out of dirt. And then at the top, he built his palace. You can go see it today. And you can stand in the ruins of his palace. It's an amazing thing. But his palace was there and you could sure enough, you can see Jerusalem ten miles away off in the distance because they built it up so high. He was quite the architect, builder, and all that. But this guy Herod the Great had two sons and they were both named Philip. But they were from different wives. Luke 3:1 and Matthew 14:3 tells us about those two Philips. And that's why, you know, like you'll hear places like Caesarea Philippi. That's a one named after one of the Herods. The other two Philips, so there's four of them I told you. The other two Philips, the first Philip after the two Philip of Herods, then you have Philip the apostle, the disciple of Jesus. Remember, "Sirs, we would see Jesus," they came and talked to Philip about that. Philip wasn't a major disciple in the story, but there's a few moments we bump into Philip as a disciple of Jesus. But now we come to the fourth Philip and that is we'll call him Philip the evangelist. You also could call him Philip the deacon because he was one of those seven men selected earlier in Acts chapter six about who would be the deacons of the church. Of course, Stephen was one and Philip was one of the others. So this is the second guy. Now, what is Philip doing? This is interesting. The reason we call him the evangelist, Philip the evangelist, is because he's called that in the book of Acts later on. And I think it's Acts chapter twenty-one. We'll see him introduced as "That's Philip the evangelist." Where did he get that reputation? Well, it starts right here. He's kind of the first Christian missionary. If Stephen was the first Christian martyr, Philip's the first Christian missionary because he goes to other cities and the gospel is going to go into Samaria. Now, a lot of people would have thought, "No." Even though Jesus had already gone there and met the woman at the well, there was still sort of apprehension by Jews to go... it's not like they were all kumbaya after Jesus was there. There's still some problems. But Philip goes there to share the gospel. Wonder how he did it. Like interesting, Philip's name is more of a Hellenistic name. Philip is a Jew who grew up in the Greco-Roman culture outside of Judea. In fact, most people believe Philip grew up in a place called Caesarea Maritima. That's where his daughters lived, we'll learn later. But that's probably where he grew up. And so he was very influenced probably by the Greco-Roman sort of influence. He didn't look very Jewish, if you know what I mean. And he also has sort of a Greek name, in the name Philip. And so some argue that maybe that's how God used Philip. As he went off to Samaria, maybe they accepted him a little more perhaps because he wasn't quite so Jewish as maybe all the other guys. But he goes there, it says Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. Notice he didn't preach how to have a happy marriage. He didn't preach how to feel better about yourself and awakening the giant within. No TED Talk for Philip. Philip was the guy who said, "I'm going to preach Jesus Christ." That's a huge theme. You can't miss it in the Bible. If you miss it, you might find your church off course. Jesus is always the main thing. And preaching of the word is a theme in the book of Acts, which is so important. Well, he goes and preaches Jesus Christ unto them. Verse six goes on, "And the people with one accord gave heed to those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city." Isn't that great? What overcomes racism? Because that's what was going on. This was racism right here. The Jews and Samaritans, total racial issues between the two. And it was ugly. Historically, ugly racism. But Philip goes in there and preaches unto them Jesus. And one of the things we need to remember is where does joy come from in this city? It comes from the preaching of Jesus Christ. Wherever the gospel is preached, there's unity. A lot of people want conformity. A lot of people want us to try to figure it all out, like how to deal with racism. But I think the Bible teaches us first of all, we're supposed to love one another. There's definitely that. And there's no if-thens or buts about that. We're just to love one another. But then also around the cross, we're all equal. Man, we're all equal at the foot of the cross. We're all sinners. We've all fallen short. We all deserve death and hell. But in Christ, we rejoice. And we can rejoice no matter who we are, whether you're a Samaritan, Jew, or Greek, Gentile, male or female, you know, whatever. We're united around the cross of Jesus Christ. And Philip is seeing great joy. Don't you love that? Great joy. Good fruit. Now, some would suggest the reason, at least one reason why Philip's successful here is the fruit of the seed that Jesus had sown in John chapter four. Maybe Jesus planted the seed with the woman at the well and with the men that he met that day. And then Philip comes in later now and brings the full gospel and the whole town is full of joy. All of Samaria is full of joy. You've got to love that. By the way, wherever the gospel is truly received, you'll find joyful cultures and people groups. Wherever the gospel has been rejected, you'll find paganism and religion that is oppressive and dark and a bummer. I would suggest Islam is one of those dark, oppressive cultures. Even the word Islam means submission. That's what the word Islam means. One thing that I've noticed Christians don't know when we see this phrase *Allahu Akbar*, it means... we say it means Allah is great or God is great. But it doesn't mean that. You have to understand when people say *Allahu Akbar*, they're saying Allah is greater. You've got to understand that. And what are they saying? Greater than Jehovah. That's what they're saying. The God of the Jews, the God of the Christians, Allah is greater. *Allahu Akbar*. And that's why they say that almost like an idiom now. If they blow themselves up, *Allahu Akbar*, it's because the very premise of everything they believe, that Allah is better than Jehovah. But wherever the God of the Bible is appreciated and loved, you don't have this oppressive religion of submission and either be saved by submission or by the sword. But you have instead you have the gospel where Jesus died on the cross for your sins. He did the dying. You don't have to do the dying or the killing. In Islam, if you read it carefully, you're the one who's supposed to do some of the killing too. But Jesus did all the dying for the sins of the whole world that we might have eternal life. And so whenever cultures accept the gospel, you historically see people liberated, women liberated, joy, people being helped, good fruit. So you've got to love this right here, verses four through eight. Great joy because Philip the evangelist goes. He's doing miracles, casting out demons. Man, you've got to love that. And that brings us to our third important person of Acts chapter eight, and that is one Simon, a clever deceiver. Interesting. Let's take a look at Simon. This is not Simon Peter, by the way. This is a different Simon. He won't seem like he's deceiving at first, but it's just part of his deception and we'll see that as we get going. Verse nine. "But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one." Whenever somebody's saying, "Hey, I'm a great one," you might want to be a little skeptical. Can I just say that? Muhammad Ali, I think he was trying to be funny when he said, "I am the greatest," you know, "I'm the greatest of all time," you know. But this is Simon saying, you know, "I'm a great one and you should believe me." And he did, it says here, sorcery and bewitched the people. The word bewitched there means that people were just overtaken in awe by all of the stuff Simon used to do. Well, what'd he do? Well, it says he used sorcery. And so you're all picturing he's wearing a pointy hat with moons and stars on it with purple robe and he's stirring a cauldron and, you know, suddenly we've got Gandalf and stuff. That's not what's actually happening here. The interesting word, the root word for sorcery is the word we get our word *magi*, same word as *magi*, which is also where our word magic comes from. So it does seem to be some kind of a trick or magic of some kind. And one of the things we have to kind of say is, "Wow, if he's doing magic tricks, then should we believe that?" And one of the things you have to be really careful, the Bible doesn't pull any punches on this. Enemies of God in the Bible did magic tricks. And whether they were real magic or like dark arts like Satan-powered type magic, we can sit around and argue that all day long. But the people thought for sure that Simon was powerful. And they took it even to the next level, we'll see here in a minute. But how do you know if a person is doing powerful things through God or through Satan or magic or, like it says here, sorcery? The key is to measure it against Bible, against scripture. We're going to see Simon seemingly repent and go along with the disciples and even buy what they're saying. But there's going to be a problem with this. Simon's setting himself up to be some kind of great one. Jesus always humbled himself. So already we should say, "Wow, Simon's questionable because look at, he's giving himself out," verse nine, "out that he was some kind of great one." That should be a red flag right there. Jesus, in Philippians chapter two, was said that he made himself of no reputation, took upon himself the form of a servant. And this guy Simon's building himself up. That reminds me more like Satan than it does Jesus. What was Satan's big fall? Pride. Pride. Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." And we're going to see that here. But in verse ten, it says concerning Simon who giving out that he himself was some kind of great one, "To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God." People are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. It's so sad when people believe the lies. I mentioned in a service somewhere recently that there are only two genders. And so on Yelp, somebody put a review and said that I claimed that there were two genders and I arrogantly made that claim. But it's interesting because, you know, the world is, you know, beating this drum that there are many genders. This crazy world we're living in, what is really a woman? Can men give birth to children? And man, there's people and a lot of our young people particularly have fallen for this. It is interesting. Have you guys noticed a slight change of the tide just a little bit? I think the world's getting a little weary. I think reasonable people are starting to say we kind of have to stop the multiple gender thing. It's just that it's so tragic that people take heed. And that's what you're seeing here. They all gave heed, verse ten, to this guy Simon the deceiver, the sorcerer we might call him. And they believed that he was the great power of God. Don't forget there's a lot of people, we might laugh at them, we might think they're idiots, but we should be heartbroken that they're being deceived. They're being deceived by the academic world, the academic society. They're being deceived by woke-ism. And it, to me, it is just from Satan himself, these worldviews. And we shouldn't sort of laugh and be disgusted, perhaps, as much as we should be heartbroken for people that are so deceived.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador, pausing in our passage in today's word that we'll see next time is setting the stage for a powerful lesson about the difference between human deception and the genuine power of God. And I hope you'll stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment to talk a little bit more about this passage in Acts. But first, our teacher Brett Meador is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church, just outside of Portland, Oregon. Each day, Pastor Brett will bring you a verse-by-verse study of God's word. If you missed any portion of our time today, you'll find all of his studies online at todayswordradio.com. I also want to mention that in addition to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn, Oregon, we also have other locations in the Portland area. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link "Locations." Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link "Locations." Okay, Pastor Brett has joined me. Brett, we're at another exciting point in the growth of the church as we study the book of Acts. And it's also a time and place where a future apostle has been persecuting the church. But Philip the evangelist gives the church some pretty important lessons here, doesn't he?
Brett Meador: He does. You know, Philip's an amazing guy. You know, he was one of those also those dynamic deacons that we read about in Acts chapter six. Like Stephen, he's a powerful reminder really of if we're faithful in the little things, God opens up so much more for us to do. And Philip goes down to Samaria, starts preaching Christ. People are getting saved, lives are being changed. And then he came, as he was preaching Christ in the good news of the kingdom, suddenly he realized there was hope, joy, and reason for living, that the people responded to his preaching in a way that was profound. I love that Philip knew that Jesus really was the answer for even the people of Samaria. The Samaritans were not really liked by the Jewish people. But Philip was able to come into a place and just say, "Jesus is the answer for you as well." And Simon the sorcerer and the Ethiopian church, all those people hear the good news. And it says there in Acts 8:35, "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus." That's the key. No matter who you're preaching to, talking to, whatever culture, people group, Jesus is still the answer for all those folks.
Guest (Male): Yes, he is. And that's a great reminder for all of us that no matter who we're speaking to, that we need to talk to people about Jesus because he's the reason for our hope. Thank you, Pastor Brett. Well, I want to mention that if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or today's word, just go to todayswordradio.com. Well, next time, Pastor Brett will describe from the book of Acts how the Samaritans now responded to the truth of God's word.
Announcer: Today's word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.