… continued from yesterday… in honor of Crown's returning Internship students I am posting the manuscript from their commissioning on February 17, 2012…
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5. BEAM ME UP: So after they have this great moment of ministry and after they do the dunking in a water source the ministry continues to be dynamic. There is this intriguing ‘beam me up’ moment. Philip, instead of needing to do the hard work of discipleship and church planting (which is left to the Ethiopian), Philip gets whisked off in a dynamic way.
8:39: “When they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away.” We don’t even really understand what this means, but I imagine some teleportation, Star-Trek moment! The Ethiopian never saw Philip again but went on his way rejoicing and so this ‘legend’ status begins to attach itself to Philip. You know it’s really worked out for you in ministry when your legend status is growing. Now you know that you have this great legendary status when you get beamed up and everybody starts talking about you and you’re known as some mystical mysterious miracle man of God.
6. SO HOT RIGHT NOW & A BLESSED LIFE: Well, Philip found himself on the road to further ministry, on the road to Azotos and he “preached the Good News there and in every city along the way until he came to Caesarea.” We read about Philip again in Acts 21 and he’s so hot right now… he’s so legendary that when Paul and Luke come through Israel and they’re touring around Israel on their big speaking circuit they stop at Philip’s house to hang out with him. We find that Philip is called, “The Evangelist”. He has a title! He’s like the first Billy Graham. He also has four prophesying daughters (which as a Dad who thinks that having a daughter is the best thing in the world at first seems pretty awesome – then I think, four daughters? Four? And what if they were all teenagers? Each of whom, as prophets, could see right through me? That might not be so great.) My mind wants to idealize how great Philip’s life is… and my mind also wants to presume that this is the nature of blessed ministry life: a stable, fruitful, prosperous life.
But is this true?
… Part 5 tomorrow…