Bible Study Lesson for Acts 8:1-8: Philip in Samaria

In this chapter we move into the second major section of Acts, when Christianity spreads from Jerusalem into Palestine and Syria. It begins with a story of persecution, but goes on to describe how many people in Samaria were converted. Here we will read the story of Simon the Sorcerer and the Ethiopian Eunuch, both non-Jews.

These first few verses seem almost like they should have been included in Chapter 7, but this is where the cut off was made.

Read Acts 8:1. Paul, himself later, while giving his testimony will confirm that he approved of Stephen's death. Read Acts 22:19-20. The persecution begins and the believers flee Jerusalem. Only the apostles stay, probably as an encouragement to the believers both in prison and those scattered abroad. By staying in Jerusalem, as well, fellow believers would know where to contact the apostles as necessary.

Read Acts 8:2. Who exactly these "godly men" are, we don't know. Perhaps the apostles, perhaps non-believers who respected Stephen, even though they had not come to Christ yet. At least we know that Stephen's body was treated with respect and buried.

Read Acts 8:3. The violence of Stephen's stoning, like other mob actions, continued to escalate, growing bigger and wilder and more horrific. And Saul was in the midst of it. My commentary says that the Greek meaning behind the description "began to destroy" is similar to how a wild animal ravages its prey. Here it says that both men and women were put in prison; we know, from Paul's own testimony later, that some of these believers died as a result. Read Acts 22:4.

Read Acts 8:4. The "infant" stage of the Church is over; the believers had matured enough to leave the nest, go forth and preach the gospel, and reproduce the house church environment they had been living in in Jerusalem. This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the Great Commission, promised by Jesus. Read Acts 1:8. When we read in Acts we get the sense that something like this had to happen to force the believers to go out and preach outside their comfort zones. There is no mention made of the apostles advocating sending out mission trips at this point.

Read Acts 8:5-8. Philip, remember, was one of the Seven deacons chosen in chapter 6. Perhaps as a Grecian Jew he was a bit more open about preaching the gospel to the non-Jews. In any case, his visit to Samaria to preach the good news was quite an incredible feat in those days. Jewish people had very little to do with Samarians because of racial and religious reasons. Let's take a brief rabbit trail and review where the Samaritans came from. Read 2 Kings 17:24-33. The peoples brought in by the Assyrians, therefore, were not Jews, but they took on some of the Jewish customs and religion, and intermarried with the Jews left behind during the Assyrian in exile, resulting in this "half-Jewish" culture that the "true" Jews despised so. In Jesus' (and now Philip's) day, to associate with Samaritans was to be made "unclean." Read John 4:9.

The fact that part of Philip's ministry in Samaria included the cleansing of people from evil spirits should not come of any surprise, now that we know something of their history. The Samaritans had been playing at idolatry from centuries and that made them ripe for demon possession and oppression. As we know, demons often will step in and take on the roles of false gods in pagan cultures.

It is quite ironic that the Samaritans response to seeing miracles and signs is to rejoice and to pay close attention to Philip while the "high and mighty racially pure Jews" response is to imprison and kill. This happens multiple times in the story of the early church: the gospel is preached to the Jews and it is rejected, but Gentiles accept it gladly. Read Acts 13:44-48.

To be continued...

Source
Philip Yancey and Tim Stafford (notes). The Student Bible. NIV Version