Daily Devotions
What We Learn About Baptism from the Ethiopian Eunuch
Title: What We Learn About Baptism from the Ethiopian Eunuch Reading for November 13: Acts 8-9 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?" Acts 8:36 There are loads of implications about baptism we can draw out of this single verse! Preaching Jesus involves preaching baptism. The previous verse tells us that Philip preached Jesus to him. He must have told him about baptism when he did this. Baptism requires water. He asked, "See here is water..." Baptism is an immersion. This is more clear in verse 38 where it says they both went down into the water, but even this verse carries this implication. The eunuch had water in his chariot, more than enough to sprinkle on his head. He needed more water than what he had in his chariot to be immersed. Baptism has nothing to do with "church membership." He didn't say, "Hey, here's a church, what prevents me from being baptized?" The eunuch understood what baptism was all about.I believe it is safe to assume his desire wasn't to go jump in a lake and get wet. When he heard about Jesus, he wanted to become a Christian. He wanted to be in Christ and put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). He wanted to die with Christ and rise to new life (Romans 6:3-4; John 3:3-6). He desired to have his sins washed away (Acts 22:16), to have the remission of sins (Acts 2:38), to be saved (Mark 16:16; 1 Peter 3:21). And by the grace of God, through his faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, the eunuch came up out of the water a new man, and went on his way rejoicing! Father, so many are ignorant about baptism! Have mercy on their souls and grant us opportunities to share the truth with them!
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