Not Excluded

Date: Friday, September 4, 2026

Acts 8 tells what the church has long known: that persecution can’t contain the Gospel; it only spreads it faster. Believers scattered by the crackdown “went about preaching the word” wherever they landed, and Philip lands in Samaria; historic enemy territory stretching back centuries. Samaritans and Jews didn’t share meals, let alone theology. Yet here comes revival, right in the neighborhood everyone assumed was off-limits to grace.

The story narrows to one man: an Ethiopian court official, a eunuch, riding home from Jerusalem, reading Isaiah aloud in his chariot. This is a man doubly excluded. He’s first a foreigner, and then by ancient law, a eunuch is barred from full assembly in Israel’s temple. He’s reading Isaiah’s suffering servant passage, and Philip arrives right on cue to explain that it’s about Jesus. The eunuch asks the question every honest reader eventually asks: “What prevents me from being baptized?” The answer, of course, is… nothing. Isaiah himself had already promised this reversal; that eunuchs (or anyone) who hold fast to God’s covenant would be given “a name better than sons and daughters” within God’s family.

I think of every person who’s assumed church wasn’t for people like them. Either too much baggage, too far gone, too different. Acts 8 is God’s flat rejection of that assumption. The Gospel doesn’t wait for you to qualify; it runs out to meet you in the chariot, right where you are, and asks for nothing but faith (trust) that God will make good on the promise.

Devotional Prompts:

Who or what group do you (consciously or not) assume the Gospel isn’t really “for”?
How does the Ethiopian eunuch’s story reshape your understanding of who belongs in God’s house?

Prayer: Gracious God, You run out to meet the excluded and the far off. Thank You that nothing prevents us from belonging to You. Give us Philip’s readiness to explain Your Good News wherever we’re sent. Amen.