12th Day of Easter, Thursday April 23: Acts 8:1-25

Today’s bit of Acts introduces Saul as a character, who was mentioned yesterday as the young guy who watched the coats for the witnesses who stoned Stephen for blasphemy. Saul approved of the killing, and joined the campaign of terror against the church, imprisoning disciples. The original readers of Acts were not just remembering hard times 20 and 40 years before the writing – but in their time, and as we know, in the generation ahead of them at Roman hands. They and we also know that scattering the Jerusalem church created the rest of us.

Philip is the next paragraph. Was that Philip the apostle, or the deacon? Does it matter any more? He’s taken the franchise to Samaria, in flight from Jerusalem, and is doing good and speaking truth in public. A competitor, Simon the Magician, joins the movement. Here’s another clue to how the movement grew, by amalgamation with other God-fearing religious seekers and their communities. Acts’ narrative shows us how to build alliances, increase catholicity and diversity, while discipling ourselves, lest in trying to become everything, we end up nothing.

If Philip is the advance man in Samaria, Peter and John come out from Jerusalem to check quality control on behalf of the franchisor, in Acts’ version of history. They find that Philip has been offering a water baptism of repentance, like John the Baptist in the gospel volume – but they bring the empowering gift of the Spirit from Pentecost, and patterned on the dove at Jesus’ baptism. Simon Magician shows he doesn’t get it, and is still a charlatan trying to sell supernatural tricks.