The Desert Road: Acts 8:26-40

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

Philip—not the apostle but the evangelist, one of the seven with Stephen. He had been successful in Samaria, seeing revival, baptizing many. Now: go south. To the desert road. Away from the crowds. Toward apparently nothing.

So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means queen of the Ethiopians). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship.

An Ethiopian—from the edge of the known world. A eunuch—excluded by Deuteronomy from the assembly. An official—treasurer for the queen. He had traveled to Jerusalem to worship the God who excluded him from the inner courts.