<p>8:36 <i>And as they went along the road, they came upon some water; and the eunuch said:</i> <em>Look, water-</em> The preaching of &quot;Jesus&quot; involved the message about baptism. There was more content in 'preaching Jesus' than literally just saying 'believe in Jesus'. Or it could be argued that the message he had read of the death and resurrection of the human Lord Jesus, whose experiences were representative of his own, naturally led to a desire to identify with Him. And perhaps the eunuch had seen Jews being baptized into Jesus during his stay in Jerusalem; and perhaps the brethren had refused to baptize him because he was a Gentile. The initiative in requesting baptism was clearly from the candidate; infant sprinkling is therefore no way Christian baptism. The act of baptism is therefore a response to the message of the Lord's death and resurrection. For baptism by its nature is designed as an identification with those things, rather than a sign of assent to a theology we have heard and accepted. This is what the great commission envisaged- preaching the message of Christ's death and resurrection, baptizing people into that, and then subsequently teaching them &quot;all things that I have commanded you&quot;.</p><p><em>What is stopping me </em><i>from being baptized?</i>- The Greek word is generally used in the context of forbidding people, Gentiles especially, from coming to Christ. Peter uses it in reasoning that baptismal water could not be forbidden for the Gentile Cornelius (Acts 10:47; 11:17). The Ethiopian may well have come up to the temple, searching for the God of Israel, and was now returning depressed at his rejection by Judaism. But now he finds acceptance in Christ. He is described as &quot;a man from Ethiopia&quot; (:27), and not a diaspora Jew. Luke has written of diaspora Jews in chapter 2, so it's rather surprising he doesn't mention the fact if the man indeed was one. However, the fact he was reading Hebrew could suggest he was a Jew, or at least, a very serious proselyte; and the conversion of Cornelius later, in Acts 10, is certainly set up as if it was the opening of the door to the Gentiles. But all the same, eunuchs weren't allowed into the temple; so even if this man was a Jew, he was an excluded one. The fact he was a senior minister in a gentile Government would also suggest he was not that devoted to Judaism externally, although in his heart he was, and had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and learnt to read Hebrew.</p>