One and Done

Kevin Durant was a one and done player. The controversial practice of playing one year of college basketball before moving to the NBA has not always been successful for these courted players, but Durant exploded onto the scene during his first year. One and done has been criticized by many, but the prospect of money and fame is very difficult to ignore when you are 19 years old.

The term one and done has been applied to many other activities that individuals participate in for one time only. We may talk about such things as mountain climbing or parasailing or skydiving with excitement; sharing the thrill of the moment. But when asked if there is a plan to do it again, many will respond, “No, that was a one and done.”

Today we look at a time when God did something incredible for the purpose of sharing the Good News of Jesus with someone from a foreign country, but it seems that the contact with this nation was a one and done moment. But you won’t believe what was discovered centuries after.

An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is the desert road.)  So he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. 

The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.” 

When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” 

“How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 

So Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning from that Scripture. 

As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water! What would keep me from being baptized?” Then he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any longer. But he went on his way rejoicing. (Acts 8:26-31, 35-36, 38-39, HCSB)

Philip was last seen in Samaria where he taught them everything that he had seen and heard about Jesus. That resulted in many people becoming followers of Jesus. Now Philip hears a voice telling him to go to a road that travels through the desert. No other instructions, just go. And Philip obeys.

Once Philip obeys, he is given his next instructions by God, “Go and join that chariot.” The chariot was carrying an official from the Ethiopian queen’s court. The man’s name is not given, but we see that he is charge of the entire treasury of the queen. He must have been a very important and trusted man.

This man had come to Jerusalem to worship, which tells us that he was a follower of the Jewish religion. This is not a surprise since many Ethiopians had converted to Judaism way back during the time of King Solomon, about 2000 years prior to this time.

In 1 Kings 10 we see that the Queen of Sheba (located in the region of modern day Ethiopia) visited King Solomon and was impressed with his wisdom. It would appear that the queen carried back Solomon’s religion and it spread throughout Ethiopia. Various historical documents from Ethiopia and Israel indicate that pilgrimages from Ethiopia to Jerusalem were common.

So this Ethiopian man that Philip met had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem so that he could worship God in the Temple. Now God wanted him to hear, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.”

Philip ran to catch up to the chariot, not an easy feat in itself. And somehow Philip notices that the man is reading a scroll with prophecies about the Messiah written by Isaiah. Philip interrupts the man’s reading and says, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

At first look this would seem like a rather snobbish thing to say. After all, Philip was Jewish and this man was Ethiopian. It seems as if Philip is looking up at the man in the chariot and looking down on him at the same time. “Hey, foreigner, do you have any idea what you are reading? Can you even read? That is written in Hebrew, you know?”

But the tone in his voice must have been non-judgmental, because the Ethiopian simply replied, “How can I unless someone guides me?” If we wanted to put it into a modern dialogue it might have sounded more like this:

Philip asked the man, “I see you are reading that new book from Isaiah. What do you think about it?” The man said, “I’m not really sure. Have you read it before?”

Philip was not trying to be demeaning to the man. He was simply engaging him in conversation about the book he was reading. And this opened the opportunity for Philip to help this man understand that it is about Jesus.

Philip then tells him everything he has seen and heard about Jesus. Along the way, the Ethiopian sees some water and says, “Look! There is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized right here and now?” This shows us that he believed what Philip had told him and indicated his desire to be baptized.

Sometimes the modern church has made salvation something that is too easy. We have sold people fire insurance to keep them out of hell, but we haven’t taught them to obey God; to make Him the boss of their lives. At the same time, we have sometimes made baptism something more than it should be.

Baptism is a symbol of our belief in Jesus, the acceptance of forgiveness from Him, and our desire to let God be in control of our life. It is to be our first step in obedience to God and therefore, baptism should be done as soon as we can after salvation.

The Ethiopian saw water and wanted to be baptized. It did not have to be some special holy water. It did not have to be in a baptistery in the church. It did not have to be in the waters of the river Jordan. Baptism can be done in a swimming pool, in a hot tub, in a pond, in a lake, any place that has water that allows you to be immersed for the purpose of showing your spiritual death, burial, and resurrection as a follower of Jesus.

As soon as the man was baptized, he came up out of the water and could no longer see Philip. The Holy Spirit carried Philip away. Beam me up, Scotty. Phillip was gone.

But something incredible came about because of this encounter. Just as when the Queen of Sheba carried back the religion of Judaism to Ethiopia, it appears that this man carried back the continuation of the story, the Good News of Jesus Christ, to the people of Ethiopia. Within 300 years Ethiopia had gone from a country of people that followed the beliefs of Judaism to a Christian nation. In 330 AD Christianity was made the official religion of Ethiopia.

Recently a British charity discovered the world’s first illustrated Christian book in Ethiopia. The beautiful and colorful book was written around 494 AD and contained the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

This short story about the nameless Ethiopian man could have easily been a one and done. Nothing else is ever heard about him. No other mention of Ethiopia is made in the Bible. He was a government official, but nothing else was really known about him. Yet this man may have been the reason that an entire nation became followers of Jesus.

What about you? Could your words and actions possibly lead to others coming to know about Jesus? Or was your salvation experience a one and done? Will we be able to look back years from now and see how your life, your actions, and the words you said helped others come to know about Jesus?