(a) What had Philip been doing before this episode (see Acts 8:5-8)? Why might God have led him away from all of this, in order to evangelise this one man? Do you think that God sometimes takes us away from one thing (that seemed to be working very nicely, thankyou very much) and sends us to another (that doesn’t look so promising)?

(b) We sometimes talk about ‘beginning where people are’. The Ethiopian’s starting point was a passage of Scripture (Isaiah 53). What various starting-points do people have nowadays? How do we need to adapt our approach in evangelism to take account of these different starting-points?

(c) What can we learn from this account about (i) God’s concern for people of other nations; (ii) Christ as the fulfilment of Scripture; (iii) the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism?