As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” – Acts 8:26

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 4, 2014): Acts 8

Christianity has become known as a religion of exclusions. Since about the time of Constantine, much of the world came under the rule of Christendom. And under Christendom, everyone was, at the very least, politically Christian. And so we began to decide on rules that would delineate who it was that were really Christian. The rules slowly began to limit who it was that was that could be really considered to be part of the faith – and exclusion became part of the fabric of what we believed.

But the original mark of Christianity does not seem to be exclusion, but rather inclusion. Early Christianity was responsible for raising the status of women. Women for the first time counted in the culture, and they were even considered to be valuable teachers of the faith (Priscilla is one of the prime New Testament examples of the woman teacher.) But women were just the beginning. Slaves were also recognized as worthy members of the faith. It seemed that wherever the society had created barriers to worth, the Christian faith sought to tear down walls, bringing inclusion to the places where formerly exclusion had reigned.

And as Philip finds himself on this desert (meaning unpopulated rather than dry) road, another wall is about to fall. In fact, it would seem that Luke’s inclusion of this story was to show the inclusiveness of the developing Christian faith. The reality was that the eunuch was forbidden from full inclusion in Jewish faith, but with the Christian faith, anything was impossible.

So Philip and the eunuch came upon a pool of water. The unpopulated area that they were traveling through was a fertile plain dotted with pools and streams of water. And the question that the eunuch asks is an important one. What is it that excludes me from the Christian faith? It might be that the eunuch expected Philip to tell him that the same thing that excluded him from the Jewish faith also excluded him from the Christian faith. But instead the eunuch found inclusion. God had sent Philip to meet this Ethiopian Eunuch - God had included even him.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Acts 9