Acts 8:36

And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water; and the eunuch saith, Behold, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

The request for baptism on the part of the eunuch was the immediate and direct result of Philip's preaching unto him Jesus; and in this is manifest the fact that preaching Jesus means preaching baptism for the remission of sins. There are some in our generation who fancy that they are preaching Jesus, but whose hearers never request baptism; and in that is manifest the fact that such preachers are not preaching Jesus at all. See "What It Means To Preach Christ" under Acts 8:12.

The last two sentences in this passage are Acts 8:37 in the KJV; but, despite the fact of this verse having been left out of the English Revised Version upon what appears to be sufficient textual grounds, it has been included here because it is true, being valuable as commentary, whether or not it belongs in the sacred text. It was the custom from the very earliest Christian times for converts to confess their faith upon the occasion of their baptism, a fact referred to by Paul in Ephesians 5:26 (Goodspeed translation). This writer has never read of any commentator who denied the truth expressed in Acts 8:37.