<p>8:37 <i>And Philip said: <em>If you believe with all your heart- </em></i>Philip is putting the question back to the candidate. It was not for him to judge the state of the man's heart; only the eunuch knew his own heart. The decision regarding readiness for baptism was therefore left with the candidate and not the baptizer. There is no example in the apostolic preaching of candidates being turned down by the preachers. We notice that the question as to whether the eunuch believed &quot;with all his heart&quot; was answered by the eunuch with no reference to his heart; rather simply, &quot;I believe&quot;. He knew he believed, but rarely is faith 100%. And the eunuch had the humility to recognize that, and Philip accepted that. Belief is frequently stated to be in the heart, and the passages in the later New Testament which state that may well be alluding back to the eunuch as a model convert to be emulated by us all. Belief, therefore, was not mere attendance at the temple nor simply external acceptance of religion. It was deeply personal, in the heart which only the believer knows. This may sound obvious to us, but it was a radical concept amongst the religions of the day and also within Judaism.</p><p><em>You may</em>- The Greek <em>exesti</em> occurs 32 times and is 28 times translated &quot;lawful&quot; in the context of arguments about the Mosaic law. Surely the eunuch had encountered the objection so many times whilst in Jerusalem: It is not lawful for you to come into the temple, or even, perhaps, to be baptized. Now Philip is being led to understand that the spirit of the Law did indeed encompass a personal like the eunuch, despite his physical condition and ethnicity. For if Philip simply meant 'Sure, you can...', other words would more comfortably have been chosen.</p><p><i>And he answered and said: <em>I believe- </em></i>The impression is given by the record that he really couldn&rsquo;t put the Scriptures together at all; his first comment to Philip was that he couldn&rsquo;t understand the Scriptures because he had no teacher (Acts 8:31). The way Philip opens his mouth &ldquo;and preached unto him Jesus&rdquo; (Acts 8:35) suggests the man had no prior understanding of &ldquo;Jesus&rdquo;. Philip&rsquo;s message obviously included baptism, because the Ethiopian on his initiative asked to be baptized when he noticed some water on their journey. Philip did not refuse him, but said that he could do so if he believed with all his heart (Acts 8:37). The fact Philip requested the man to ask <em>himself</em> that question would imply that Philip did not know the state of the man&rsquo;s heart. He didn&rsquo;t say &ldquo;Yes, Mr. Ethiopian, I can read your heart and I see you believe, so, yes, you can&rdquo;. The Ethiopian&rsquo;s confession that &ldquo;I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God&rdquo; (Acts 8:37) is clearly presented as sufficient for the man to be baptized. One excuse for not following the example of baptisms found in Acts is to argue that no extensive interview or theological teaching was necessary because the apostles knew the hearts of men by the Holy Spirit gifts. That of course is an argument from silence. Nowhere is that explicitly stated in the context of baptism. But the example of the Ethiopian rather suggests that Philip did not know the man&rsquo;s heart, rather did he leave the man to decide the state of his own heart.</p><p><em>That Jesus Christ is the Son of God</em>- It would be hard to argue that anything much more is required to make a baptism valid. Belief in Jesus as God's Son becomes the quintessential statement of faith in Jn. 9:35; 20:31 and 1 Jn. 5:5. If acceptance of a detailed package of theology was essential for the validity of baptism, then surely the New Testament would be specific in giving examples of this. But the evidence is quite the opposite.</p>