Acts 8:4-8
Philip in Samaria
4Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ[a]there.
After the stoning of Stephen, the church scattered into Judea and Samaria, in accordance with Jesus’ command to them in 1:8:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The Philip mentioned here is not Philip the apostle, but the Philip who is named in 6:5. He was one of the Seven along with Stephen, the men who were charged with making sure that the needs of the widows and orphans in the church were met. We know this because Luke says in 8:1 that the apostles stayed in Jerusalem, and because when the apostles learned that Samaritans were believing and being baptized later in this chapter, Peter and John were sent to help them receive the Holy Spirit. The authority of the Twelve was needed for that, and apparently this Philip did not possess that authority.
Two things strike me about this right off the bat. First, though the church also scattered throughout Judea, Luke, as a Gentile, chose to tell us about what happened in Samaria. Jews of that time despised Samaritans, and the feeling was mutual. Devout Jews would walk a long way around to avoid even walking through a Samaritan area. The division between Jew and Samaritan went back to the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. When the Northern kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians in 722 B.C., they intermarried with their conquerors, so Jews considered them “half-breeds.” Although the divided kingdom and their captivity stemmed from pagan religious practices, in Jesus’ time, Samaritans were strict monotheists, and though they didn’t practice mainstream Judaism, they did worship Yahweh. They only regarded the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, as true scripture, and they insisted that the true temple for Israel’s worship was on Mt. Gerazim, rather than Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. They looked for the Messiah, but they expected him to rule from Mt. Gerazim, not from Jerusalem. (If you’re interested in learning more about the Samaritans, I recommend Bible-History.com’s pages on it.)
Though Jews of that time despised and avoided Samaritans, Jesus had shown his attitude toward them in his healing of the ten lepers (Luke 17:11-19, blog), his parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37, blog), and in his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-26, blog). He had also shown compassion toward a Samaritan village that rejected him when James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven on them (Luke 9:51-56, blog), and he had made sure to specifically include Samaria in his command to be his witnesses. I don’t know if Philip went to Samaria because he drew the short straw, or if he volunteered, but there must have been many among the early believers who were reluctant to go there. That leads me to the other thing that strikes me about this. Philip was one of those who were charged with meeting people’s material needs in the church. Like Stephen, he had shown a willingness to be assigned to what some might consider an unglamorous ministry. So God used his willingness to do whatever the church needed him to do to use him in a very public way. He was willing to be a servant to others, and God exalted him.
6When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7With shrieks, evil[b] spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. 8So there was great joy in that city.
The work that Jesus had done in the passages mentioned above had planted the seeds that Philip was able to harvest here. Jesus had shown his disciples what their attitude toward Samaritans should be, and Philip followed his example. Sometimes God stretches us by putting us in the position of ministering to people we may not like. If we will let him get us past our prejudices, he can use us the way he used Philip. We may not perform miracles, but we can be a source of great joy to people who need Jesus if we will go to them and proclaim Christ like Philip did.