Acts 8:5 - Printer Friendly

What does Acts 8:5 mean?

ESV: Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.

NIV: Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there.

NASB: Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming the Christ to them.

CSB: Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them.

NLT: Philip, for example, went to the city of Samaria and told the people there about the Messiah.

KJV: Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.

NKJV: Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.

Verse Commentary:

Philip is a Jesus-follower and a deacon in the church (Acts 6:1–5). He is not the disciple (Matthew 10:3) or Herod Antipas' brother (Matthew 14:3). He and Stephen were deacons of the church in Jerusalem. Their responsibility was to oversee the donations given to the Jesus-following widows. With the other church members, they learned from the twelve apostles (Acts 2:42). First Stephen (Acts 6:8–10) and now Philip have been "promoted" to teachers in their own right. Where Stephen gave a great apologetic dissertation about Jesus in the moments before his consequent death (Acts 7), Philip is called "the evangelist" because of his preaching in Samaria, Judea (Acts 8:26), and up the Mediterranean coast from Azotus, also called Ashdod, in Gaza to Caesarea (Acts 8:40).

Samaria was the district between Galilee to the north and Judea to the south. When Solomon's son Rehoboam alienated the northern ten kingdoms, Jeroboam led them to secede. In order to unify them apart from Judah, Jeroboam made two golden calves and placed them in Bethel and Dan so the people wouldn't return to Jerusalem to worship God and, thus, reunite with the southern kingdom (1 Kings 12). Generations later, because of their ongoing idolatry, God allowed Assyria to take away many of the people in the northern kingdom of Israel; they were replaced by people from other conquered lands who combined their own pagan practices with nominal worship of the Hebrew God (2 Kings 17).

When King Hezekiah of the southern tribe of Judah found the law and reestablished the Passover, he invited the Israelites who still lived in Assyrian-controlled territory (2 Chronicles 30:1, 6–11). But by the time the people of Judah had returned from their own exile in Babylon, the people of Samaria were so intermarried that devout Jews looked down on them as less than Gentiles. Josephus records that the Jews did not let the now-called Samaritans help rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 4:1–5). In response, the Samaritans built their own temple on the hill Gerizim, but it was destroyed in the second century BC. It is this hill the woman at the well refers to when she asks Jesus where God-followers should worship (John 4:20).

Jesus responds to the woman that soon God will not be worshiped at any specific place (John 4:23–24). Stephen's speech in Acts 7 gives the justification for Jesus' bold pronouncement in that God was with the Israelites before the temple was built and He is and has always been too great to be confined to a human dwelling.

Now, Philip gets to tell the Samaritans that the time Jesus prophesied has come. They are free to worship God, through Christ, where they are. Despite hundreds of years of cultural separation with His chosen people, God has provided a way to be reconciled to Him. They are not dependent on the good will of the Jews to have a relationship with the One they had abandoned.

Acts 8:4–8 describes Jesus' second stage of spreading the gospel coming to fruition (Acts 1:8). As Saul's persecution of the church in Jerusalem grows more violent, Jesus-followers flee to Judea and Samaria. Philip, a fellow deacon of the martyred Stephen (Acts 6:1–6), goes north to Samaria. He expels demons, heals, and preaches the gospel to a people that the Jews traditionally revile. When Philip's ministry takes hold, the church will send Peter and John to formally establish the Samaritans as legitimate believers. (Acts 8:14–25).

Chapter Summary:

Jesus told the apostles they would spread the gospel (Acts 1:8) and persecution makes that happen. Upon the death of the first Christian martyr (Acts 7:54–60), a young Pharisee named Saul builds on the momentum to arrest and, if possible, execute Jesus followers (Acts 8:1–3; 26:10). The apostles mostly stay in Jerusalem, but the church members flee, spreading the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Important encounters in this passage include a magician named Simon and the conversion of an Ethiopian court official.

Chapter Context:

Acts 1:8 gives the outline of the book of Acts; Acts 1—7 describes the spread of the gospel through Jerusalem; Acts 8:1—11:18 shows the gospel spreading in Judea and Samaria; Acts 11:19—28:31 sees the gospel spread to the ''end of the earth,'' finalizing in Rome. Ironically, although Paul is the central figure in spreading Jesus' good news to the ends of the earth, his early persecution of the church in Jerusalem is instrumental in spreading the gospel through Judea and Samaria.

The summary of the book of Acts is provided in Jesus' words in Acts 1:8: ''But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.'' In Acts 2:1–13, the Christ-followers receive the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:14—7:60 describes the rapid growth of the church in Jerusalem. Chapters 8—12 find Jewish persecution inadvertently spreading the gospel throughout Judea and Samaria. And in chapters 13—28, Paul and his companions spread the good news throughout the Roman Empire.

Accessed 5/6/2024 3:15:19 PM