Acts 8:36-40\u00a0<\/b>\u2013\u00a0As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, \u201cLook, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?\u201d\u00a0[37]\u00a0\u00a038\u00a0And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.\u00a039\u00a0When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away,\u00a0and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.\u00a040\u00a0Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns\u00a0until he reached Caesarea.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201c<\/span>As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, \u201cLook, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?\u201d<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 This man was pushing to be right with God.\u00a0 He had been studying the Old Testament and wanted to know what it meant and he wanted to personally know God.\u00a0 After believing and receiving the Gospel as explained to him by Philip, he wanted to go the next step and he wanted the next step to be right away.<\/p>\n Verse 37<\/b>\u00a0is not included in many (most) modern translations.\u00a0 It is believed to be an interpolation inserted by a well-meaning translator.\u00a0 However well-meaning is not acceptable.\u00a0 What is in the Bible has to be what God put in and not man.\u00a0 The content of the addition is sound theology, but never-the-less seems to be an addition and not part of the earliest manuscripts.\u00a0 It appears only in the \u201cWestern\u201d family of manuscripts that originated in the Western Roman Empire.\u00a0 It is thought to be inserted by a well-meaning scribe.\u00a0 It reads \u201cPhilip said, \u201cIf you believe with all your heart, you may.\u201d The eunuch answered, \u201cI believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 The insertion, rather than a cause for concern, should give us confidence in the scriptures we have.\u00a0 The authenticity of the Bible has been continually examined so that what we have in the Bible is only what the original manuscripts contain.\u00a0\u00a0 Praise God for these diligent scholars!<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 This God-seeker stopped the carriage and went with Philip to the water to be baptized.\u00a0 Now we must remember that Philip would not have baptized the new believer if Philip did not believe that the confession of faith was sincere.\u00a0 Philip knew full well the meaning of being baptized.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away,\u00a0and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.\u00a0 40\u00a0Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns\u00a0until he reached Caesarea.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 We can see from this verse that the water was deep enough that the baptism was a submersing as it reads that \u201cthey<\/i>\u201d came out of the water.<\/p>\n The next part of this verse states that the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away and the eunuch did not see him again.\u00a0 This all may seem so very mysterious, especially if one is inclined to disbelieve the supernatural acts of God (How is possible to be a Believer and think that way?).\u00a0 \u00a0What happened here is that Philip had finished his ministry to the Ethiopian man and so the Holy Spirit whisked him away.\u00a0 Philip baptized the neophyte and was obviously with him as he dunked the man in the water, even went underneath with the man, came out of the water and helped raise the man to a standing position and then, suddenly vanished and the man never saw Philip again.\u00a0 Philip was with the eunuch and then \u201cappeared<\/i>\u201d in Azotus.\u00a0 Why would anyone doubt that the Lord supernaturally transported Philip from one place to another?\u00a0 Does that seem too hard for the Creator of heaven and earth, for the one who raised Jesus from the dead, for the one who did all the mighty miracles of the Old and New Testaments?\u00a0 Also, this was not the first time that the Lord had done this. \u00a0The Lord did the same with Ezekiel as we see in\u00a0Ezekiel 3:14<\/b>\u00a0\u201cThe Spirit\u00a0then lifted me up\u00a0and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the\u00a0<\/i><\/span>Lord<\/i><\/span>\u00a0on me.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 Ezekiel was also supernaturally transported by God.\u00a0 Even more eye-brow raising is that Ezekiel was not cooperative like Philip, but was resistant to what the Lord was calling him to do (Ezekiel 3:15<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a01 Kings 18:12<\/b>\u00a0shows that it was known in the days of the Old Testament that God could, and would, transport his prophets from one place to another.\u00a0 We also see the same evidence of this knowledge in\u00a02 Kings 2:16<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Luke used the same word (<\/span>harpazo\u0304)\u00a0to speak of the transporting of Philip as Paul used to speak of the \u201crapture,\u201d or snatching away of the church from earth to Heaven near the end of days as we know them (1 Thessalonians 4:17<\/b>). \u00a0This word means to \u201csnatch out or away.\u201d\u00a0 And the word carries with it a meaning of a forceful action.\u00a0 This indicates that the action of being snatched away is done by the will and mighty hand of God.\u00a0 Philip was not transported by his own will or action, the same applies to the coming \u201crapture\u201d of the church.\u00a0 Surely it is only by the power of God that Philip was snatched from one place to another and so it will be with the church. And absolutely God is able to do what seems inconceivable to us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The same word is used in\u00a0John 6:15<\/b>\u00a0when the Jews had come to try to seize and take away Jesus by use of their force.\u00a0\u00a0John 10:29<\/b>\u00a0uses the Word when assuring us that no-one is capable of snatching us from the secure hand of Jesus.\u00a0 Now let us finally consider\u00a02 Corinthians 12:2<\/b>\u00a0where Paul uses this word to describe how God \u201ccaught<\/i>\u201d him up into paradise.\u00a0 The person caught up is firmly believed to be Paul talking about himself.\u00a0 Paul was supernaturally transported by God from earth to Heaven and then back again.\u00a0 Now that is a journey!\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, God has in the past, and if He desired to do so again, supernaturally transported people. Family, if we are wondering how grand it would be for us be so transported, I can suggest a way to set ourselves up for the possibility.\u00a0 Start by transporting ourselves from one place to another by whatever mode we can to do the work of God.\u00a0 Let\u2019s be busy doing the work of God here on earth.\u00a0\u00a0 That is what Philip and Paul were doing when they were transported.\u00a0 Besides God will one day transport us.\u00a0 He may do it now for ministry, or perhaps we may be one of the ones transported at the rapture, or perhaps when our life on earth is over He will transport us from here to there.\u00a0 And there we shall be with Him forever.\u00a0 Praise God!<\/span><\/p>\n Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acts 8:36-40\u00a0\u2013\u00a0As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, \u201cLook, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?\u201d\u00a0[37]\u00a0\u00a038\u00a0And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.\u00a039\u00a0When they came up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[82,129,705,100,2148,94,17],"class_list":["post-1587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-acts","tag-corinthians","tag-ezekiel","tag-john","tag-kings","tag-micah","tag-psalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1588,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions\/1588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}