Transported

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

TRANSPORTED

Acts 8:36-40

36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?"   38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

NIV

There are some later manuscripts that include Philip's response to the eunuch’s question about his being baptized. These later manuscripts have Philip saying, “If you by believe with all your heart, you may”, and the eunuch answers by saying, “I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. However, we do not have those words in this transaction, just a footnote about those extra words. Nevertheless, the fact is that the Ethiopian eunuch had the natural response to the good news about Jesus by wanting to be baptized. We are not told that Philip told him about baptism as he was telling him the good news about Jesus, however, it seems right the eunuch would not know about baptism unless he was told. Still, the point is that he was baptized which does give us this doctrine of sorts, that baptism is the natural follow-through of acknowledging, or accepting Jesus as the Son of God, and as Lord and Savior. However, that is not the completion of one’s salvation, as some churches would teach. A person is saved by grace and grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ. Baptism is the response to salvation but is not required for salvation. All throughout this record of the Acts of the Apostles by Luke we see people accepting Jesus and being baptized both in water and in the Holy Spirit. This is simply the natural spiritual response after accepting Jesus, which is to be baptized and go about rejoicing. It is funny, in some sense, that we have witnessed many people being baptized and we have also seen them leaving the baptismal as mute as they entered it, with no sign of rejoicing, however, to be fair, there were some who did come up from the water rejoicing. Why shouldn’t everyone rejoice because they have followed Jesus? The other interesting event that happened at this time was that Philip was transported. We have seen science fiction shows where they have a transportation station on board their starship, and poof they get dematerialized and rematerialized down on a planet. But Philip just was taken away by the Spirit, moved without moving, somehow, and appeared somewhere else. That is the power only God can process and make happen. It didn’t happen again that we are aware of, but it happened once, and that means it is possible it happened again or can happen again. Maybe that is the way we are going to be taken up to meet Jesus in the sky. We may not be seen floating upwards as the disciples watched Jesus when he ascended. We might just disappear, not ever seen again, as the eunuch did not see Philip anymore. He just disappeared from right in front of him and appeared elsewhere to preach more about Jesus. All we know for sure is that one day we will not be seen again, but we will be transported into the presence of Jesus.