After Acts chapter 2, we don’t hear baptism mentioned until chapter 8, when Philip is in Samaria. The people that are being converted are being baptized. Their situation is notable because none of them received the Holy Spirit, at least in an outward sense, until Peter and John came and laid hands on them. I discussed this a bit last week and in earlier posts, so I don’t want to replow that ground.

While Philip is in the middle of this highly successful outreach in Samaria, God tells him to go stand by a lonely road in a wilderness area. (Lots of lessons there!) An Ethiopian comes by, and the Spirit tells Philip to go talk to him. The man was reading from Isaiah and told Philip that he couldn’t understand the message without help. Philip then started with that passage and told the man about Jesus.

Let me let Luke tell the story from there:

“Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.” (Acts 8:35–39)

There are lots of social questions at play here that we need to recognize as being the point of this passage. For the purpose of our study, we’ll focus on a subpoint: after Philip told the man about Jesus, the man requested baptism. The most logical understanding of this passage is that Philip included baptism in the story of Jesus. Or do you see a better way of understanding this?

The man believed the story of Jesus and felt the need to respond. Apparently Philip had told the man that part of that faith response was baptism. That fits with the rest of the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament.