By Mark Grace, CCCNZ Ambassador
Na ka puaki te mangai o Piripi, a, timata mai i taua karaipiture, kauwhautia ana e ia a Ihu ki a ia.
‘Ona fa‘amatalaina loa lea e Filipo, ma ‘ua amata i le tusi lava lea ‘ona tāla‘i atu i ai Iesu.
Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
Acts 8:35
Hot on the heels of the significant ‘Quiet Revival’ UK Bible Society report has come the ‘Finding Jesus: Finding Pathways to Faith in Adulthood’ report by the Evangelical Alliance in the UK.
The EA surveyed nearly 300 people who had come to faith in the last five years. Strikingly, the two leading factors in people’s journey to faith were attending church and reading the Bible. That shouldn’t surprise us, after all, as my friends at The Word One to One say, ‘God’s Word does God’s work best’, but I think it does.
When God, by his Spirit, is drawing people to himself through his Son, we’ll often see an openness and interest in his Word.
The Ethiopian official in Acts 8:26-38 is a case in point. But I want you to see something in the story: how God uses Philip.
Look at Philip in Acts 8:4-8, and then look at Philip in Acts 8:26-38.
In Acts 8:4-8, Philip’s preaching of the good news is reverberating around the Samarian city, but in Acts 8:26, an angel redirects him to the desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza.
In Acts 8:4-8, Philip is seeing many healed and delivered through the preaching of the gospel but in Acts 8:26-38 the Spirit of God leads him 100 km away to a single chariot, to point the Ethiopian official to Jesus through the gospel from the Bible.
So often just volunteering in ministry in our church family can take up much of our available time, but may our service in ministry not be at the expense of being willing or able to read the Bible with those seeking God in our ministries.
If you’d like to get started reading the Bible with seeking friends or colleagues, do check out The Word One to One.
