Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 123 · May 3
Understandest Thou
“And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?”
"Understandest thou what thou readest?" That is a bold question to call out to a stranger riding in a carriage, and Philip had to run to catch up so that he could ask it.
Think about the man being asked. He is "a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure." He was important enough to ride in a chariot and to own a scroll of Isaiah, which was rare and costly. He "had come to Jerusalem for to worship." Yet the law he had travelled so far to honour had a line about men like him: "He that is wounded in the stones," it says, "shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD." He had come all that way to a people whose law shut him out.
His answer to Philip is humble: "How can I, except some man should guide me?" Then he asks the best question in the chapter: "of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?" He had been reading the passage about the sheep led to the slaughter. So Philip "began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus." A few chapters further on in that same scroll, the man would have found this: "neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree." God goes on to promise, "I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."
The warning in this story is for whoever does the running. Philip asked before he explained, and he started where the man already was. A man alone with a scroll could have answered yes, understood nothing, and gone home untroubled for the rest of his life. You could do the same with a passage you have known since you were a child.
So answer the question honestly. For this man, admitting that he needed help was the way in. He was baptized that same day, and "he went on his way rejoicing." God still sends help to anyone who admits they do not understand, and the Scriptures, read with that help, lead to Jesus.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 123 is Known Days (Psalm 37:18).