26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza ." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a]eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.
31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth."[b]
34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?"[c] 38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39When 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. 40Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
Hey girls!! So the other day I was reading this passage of scripture and I found it quite interesting. The Ethiopian didn’t understand what he was reading in the Bible. I know some of you don’t read your Bible because you don’t understand it and I feel that way sometimes too. But Phillip came to the Ethiopian and explained what it meant.
It was talking about how Jesus was crucified and was “led like a sheep to the slaughter… He did not open his mouth in his humiliation he was deprived of justice.” When I read that all I could say was WOW! Jesus could have proven that He didn’t do some of the things the false witnesses said he did before he was crucified but he didn’t! He died on the cross so we could go to heaven. And he did not say one word to prove that he was right about everything. Do you know how hard that is? I have experienced that before, where someone was really mean to me but made me out to be the bad guy to everyone else. But I didn't say anything about it because it would be gossip and make the situation worse. But I really really wanted to tell everyone the real story about what happened. That was a really hard for me and I was having to continually ask God to help me hold my tongue and not talk about it. And God did so much more!! He died for us! Someone just thought bad about me and I worried too much about people thought of me. And you know... I was blessed by not gossiping about it.
But anyways, back to my original point. :) When you are reading your Bible and you come to a part you don't really understand.. ask somebody for help. Maybe you sunday school teacher or pastor. Maybe you could buy a Bible with a concordance. Everything that was written in the Bible is useful to us. When just have to figure out how to understand it.
2 Timothy 3:16&17 says: 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Also if you don't read the Bible because you find it difficult to understand maybe try reading a different part of the Bible. Start in Matthew and read through the New Testament. Or read 1 Proverb a day for one month and you will have read the entire book!! There is so much truth and knowledge in the Bible that we don't know about until we read it. Well this is getting really long for a quick post but I hope you all are encouraged to read you Bibles more. Let's grow in Christ together and become stronger godly girls.
In Him,
Jessica
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