Even the Samaritans?
Over the years, I've taught three different series on the Acts of the Apostles, and I'm sure that by the time I hang it up I will have taught at least five more. Each time, I try to do something a little different—never a straight, verse-by-verse exposition of the text but always a particular angle or take on the text as a whole. Most recently, I led a group through an exploration of the first ten chapters of Acts that focused on the different characters of the story. We began with Jesus himself and then took up each major figure (and some minor characters, too) as they presented themselves in the story: Matthias, Peter, the lame beggar, Stephen, etc.
Eventually, we got to Acts 8 and read about Philip, the evangelist who first took the good news of Jesus the Christ to Samaria, where he met Simon the magician. And the text that follows that missionary journey is the epistle lesson for Sunday (Acts 8:14-17).
On Sunday, we're commemorating the baptism of Jesus, and this lesson from Acts gives us a sense of the power of Jesus' baptism and the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believers. But I think there is more to these four verses than a reflection of Jesus' baptism, and it helps to have some context.
