Those then that had been scattered went through [the countries] announcing the glad tidings of the word.
Stephen's death set off the first wave of violence against believers in Jerusalem, and everyone except the apostles fled. What looks like the collapse of the young church is the moment the message breaks out of the city, and it raises a sharp question: who may preach?
Nobody planned the first spread of the gospel beyond Jerusalem. One writer names what drove it out of the city.
Here we find the first general persecution. But in the hands of God it served to scatter the seed of the gospel. This also is a proof of the free activity of the Holy Spirit to make use of whomever He sees fit to select... It was not the settled plan of man. It was not the spiritual zeal of the apostles. It was the fury of the enemy that, by the wisdom of God, first spread the gospel outside the gates of Jerusalem.
The apostles alone stayed in the city. One writer weighs whether they should have stayed.
It is strange that the twelve apostles were allowed to remain. They stood at the front of the testimony, and so were special targets of the enemy's spite. It is a fair question, too, whether they ought to have gone elsewhere with the gospel... The enemy overreached himself, as he has often done before and since. It only led to the spread of the truth. Satan never meant this. His aim was to stop the testimony, not to spread it.
The English word "preaching" makes modern readers picture a pulpit and a sermon. The word behind it is simpler than that.
This is often used in the New Testament for "announcing, or making known," without the idea of preaching in a formal way, as the word is now understood. When persecution came on the church at Jerusalem, all were scattered except the apostles. They went everywhere "preaching the word."
Some readers have resisted the plain sense of the verse. One writer answers them from the Greek word behind "preaching."
All the Christians preached. "Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word" (Acts 8:4) — and those scattered were everyone except the apostles. Some critics have tried to get around this plain passage. They say it means only talking, which a man who holds no office may do. But a look at the original at once disproves the claim. It is "evangelising the word": and we read elsewhere that "the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord," Acts 11:19-21.
Another writer asks what sort of preachers these were.
Look at the devoted company scattered by the persecution that broke out over Stephen. They are a fair sample of the Church at large in her true testimony... Can we suppose that they were all evangelists with a special gift? Impossible!
So what makes a person fit to preach? One writer answers, and warns anyone who would silence a preacher.
Power makes itself felt; and gifted men should be the last to silence any Christian who can evangelise. The question is divine qualification, not human permission. Human permission is really a restraint on the Holy Spirit, an insult to Christ's grace, and a hindrance to sinners' salvation, so far as man can hinder it. How blessed is the grace of God! No apostle planned it, and no one even suggested it, yet God turned the world's scattering of the church into the sowing of gospel seed far and wide.
One of the scattered believers was Philip. The scattering had just ended his appointed job in Jerusalem.
He was one of the seven chosen by the saints and appointed by the apostles to do the work of a deacon in Jerusalem. But the ascended Lord had given him as an evangelist, as Acts 21:8 plainly shows. Here in Samaria we find him doing the work for which he had the gift, not the office to which the apostles had appointed him. The scattering of the saints from Jerusalem had put an end to the duties of that office. Gift belongs to the unity of Christ's body, so its use rises above passing circumstances and has plenty of room, even where a local charge would be out of place.
- Scattered. The believers did not choose to leave Jerusalem. The enemy's fury drove them out, and God used that fury to carry the seed of the gospel past the city walls.
- Scattered — and speaking. "Preaching" here is not a formal sermon but announcing and making known. It was something refugees did on the move.
- Scattered — and all of them. Everyone fled except the apostles, so ordinary believers did the preaching. They were not all evangelists with a special gift.
- Scattered — with no permit. The question is God's qualification, not man's permission. Silencing a Christian who can evangelise restrains the Spirit and hinders people's salvation.
- Scattered — and blessed. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed. Philip's appointed work in Jerusalem ended, but the gift Christ had given him went with him into Samaria.
And Philip, going down to a city of Samaria, preached the Christ to them;
Persecution had just driven the believers out of Jerusalem, and Philip — appointed earlier to hand out money to the poor — arrives in a city of Samaria. Who gave him the right to preach, and why did he announce Christ to these hearers in particular?
The scattering that emptied Jerusalem was meant to crush the young church. One writer reads the outcome as a defeat for the enemy who caused it:
Satan often outwits himself. No wonder: whatever his power, he is only a creature, and so he cannot see the end from the beginning. He brought about the murder of Stephen, and a general persecution of Christians followed. He no doubt imagined he had scored a great triumph. But an all-wise God ordered it otherwise. Among those who fled Jerusalem at that crisis was Philip. He was one of the seven whom the assembly had set apart to look after its poor. Going down to Samaria, he at once preached Christ to the people.
Philip held no office as a preacher. His right to preach came from somewhere other than the church that had appointed him to handle its funds:
Philip had earlier been appointed to the work of a deacon in Jerusalem (see Acts 6:1-6)... but as soon as the assembly was broken up, his duties ended. He then started out to preach, using the spiritual gift the Lord (not the apostles) gave him... No apostle appointed him to that spiritual gift. No laying on of hands gave it, and no one else's intervention gave it. He got the office of deacon in that way. He received his gift as an evangelist from the ascended Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus. He went out and used it, and preached in Samaria — a city ripe for blessing.
What Philip announced was not a system of ideas but someone alive:
CHRIST Himself is the good news. Philip preached Christ in Samaria (Acts 8:5), and there was great joy in that city (v. 8). He told the Ethiopian eunuch "the good news about Jesus" (Acts 8:35), and the eunuch went on his way rejoicing (v. 39). May God help us to remember that our business is to "announce Him as good news."... It is not a doctrine we preach. It is Christ Himself. He is the living, loving Saviour.
Another writer draws out the order: what came first in the preaching, and what came after:
Christ is preached first. "Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ." (Acts 8:5.) And what wonderful effects that preaching produced!... Philip did the same with the eunuch. He "opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus." He did not begin by preaching repentance as the price of salvation. So in Paul's conversion, Christ reveals Himself to him; repentance followed, no doubt.
The wording shifts later in the same chapter, and that shift is deliberate:
Note, he preached Christ to them. Compare verse 35, where the same Philip deals with the eunuch: he "told him the good news about Jesus." Why the difference? Simply this. The Samaritans, though a foreign race, had for centuries taken Jewish ground. They had their own temple on Mount Gerizim. They had the Jewish scriptures. They spoke of "our father Jacob," and claimed the Jewish hope — the coming of the Messiah (John 4:12, 25). Philip therefore took them on their own ground, and announced the Christ to them.
Philip was not the first to speak of Christ in that region:
He went to the city of Samaria and preached. The power of God was with him, and wonderful blessing followed. That is always what happens when a servant of God moves in the direct line of God's purpose. The Lord Himself had done the sowing among the Samaritans, as John 4 records. Then many had said not only that this might be the Christ, but that He truly was the Christ. Now Philip came to them and preached Christ as the One who had died, is risen, and is now in glory. And so a great time of reaping took place.
Commentators do not settle which city this was, but they agree on the contrast with Jerusalem:
To what city in that province he went is not clearly stated. Some have supposed it was the capital. Others have suggested Sychar, the town of John 4. It is enough for us to know of the work that went on... What Jews refused, Samaritans gladly received. Malice filled hearts at Jerusalem. Much joy spread through the people of that city in Samaria. For Philip preached Christ to them.
- Scattered. The persecution meant to end the testimony only spread it. The enemy's win became God's advance.
- Sent. Philip's job of caring for the poor ended. His gift as an evangelist came straight from the ascended Lord, not from human appointment.
- Subject. He preached a Person, not a doctrine: Christ died, risen and in glory. Repentance followed that message; it did not come first.
- Suited. He said "the Christ" because the Samaritans were already waiting for the Messiah. He met them on their own ground.
- Sown and reaped. The Lord had sown at the well in John 4. Philip reaped the harvest: joy filled that city, while malice filled Jerusalem.