Acts 8:30-35
“Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He said, "How can I, unless someone explains it to me?" He begged Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. As a lamb before his shearer is silent, so he doesn't open his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth." The eunuch answered Philip and said, "Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself, or of some other man?" Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture, preached to him Jesus.”
This passage from the book of Acts describes an encounter between Philip, one of the early Christian evangelists, and an Ethiopian eunuch, a high-ranking official. The eunuch is on a journey home and is reading from the prophet Isaiah, struggling to understand its meaning.
What does this interaction suggest about our own need for guidance when encountering ancient texts?