Saul then did all he could to destroy the Church altogether. He went into house after house, dragging off both men and women and sending them to prison.
Those who escaped went from place to place preaching the Gospel, the Good News.
One of these was Philip. The angel of the Lord spoke to him, telling him to go to the road that goes down to Gaza from Jerusalem. Philip set out, and found there an officer of the court of the Queen of Ethiopia, her chief treasurer, on his way home after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As he sat in his carriage, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and meet this carriage." Philip ran to catch up, and heard the Ethiopian reading Isaiah.
"Do you understand what you are reading?” asked Philip. "How can I," the officer asked, "unless I have someone to guide me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit with him. This is what he was reading:
“Like a sheep led to slaughter, like a lamb silent before its shearer, so He does not open His mouth.
He has been humiliated and has no one to defend Him, His life is taken from the earth.”
The officer turned to Philip and asked, "Tell me, does the prophet refer to himself, or to someone else?" Starting with this text, Philip told him the Good News of Jesus.
As they went along the road, they came to some water, and the officer said, "Look, there is water here. What is there to keep me from being baptized?" He ordered the carriage to stop, and they both went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. After they had come up out of the water, the Spirit took Philip away, and the officer saw him no more, but went on his way with a glad heart. The passage the Ethiopian officer was reading is from sections in the prophet Isaiah which tell how Jesus, Who was without sin, was sent by God to become sin for our sake.
The prophet has such a profound understanding of God's purpose and Jesus' mission that these sections are sometimes called "the Fifth Gospel." Here is more from the part the Ethiopian was reading:
Is 53:5-6; l0-12
He was pierced through for our faults, wounded for our sins.
Upon Him was the punishment that made us whole, and through His wounds we are healed.
We, like sheep, have all gone astray, each taking his own way.
The Lord has laid on Him the sins of all of us; it was the will of the Lord to pierce Him.
When He makes Himself a sacrifice for sin, He will see His children, for by His suffering the Sinless One, My Servant, shall make many to be sinless, by taking their sins on Himself.
Therefore I will give Him many, for giving Himself over to death, and letting Himself be taken for a sinner, while He was bearing the faults of many, and praying all the time for sinners.
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