The Catholic Accent Podcast

15 - Philip the Evangelist: Faith on the Move

• Diocese of Greensburg • Season 2 • Episode 5

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What if the power you want most can only be received, never owned? We follow Philip, one of the seven deacons, as he steps into the surprising vocation that earns him the name “the Evangelist.” From crowded streets in Samaria to a desert road beside a royal chariot, his story brings the early Church into focus: humble service, clear preaching, and a fearless trust in the Holy Spirit.

We begin with a jarring contrast. Simon the Magician dazzles a city and then tries to buy spiritual authority, exposing an old hunger for control that still haunts us. Our conversation unpacks why simony is more than a medieval scandal; it’s any attempt to turn grace into a product. Peter’s rebuke is sharp because the stakes are high: prayer reshapes us to God’s will, not the other way around. That tension—gift versus grasp—frames the rest of the episode.

Then the scene shifts to one of Scripture’s most human moments. Led by the Spirit, Philip runs alongside an Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah and opens the text like a door. The prophecy of the Suffering Servant points straight to Christ; understanding sparks desire; desire asks for water. A roadside baptism follows, and the Spirit sends Philip onward. Along the way we explore how deacons preach with both word and life, why knowing Scripture as a single, coherent story matters, and how the community regathers even when the mission scatters. We even trace simony’s legacy through history, from relics for sale to Dante’s fierce imagery, as a warning against commodifying the sacred.

If you’re hungry for an evangelization that is learned, humble, and alive—one that treats the Holy Spirit as gift rather than leverage—this conversation is for you. Listen, share with a friend who loves Scripture, and leave a review telling us: where have you seen grace change a heart without force?

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Jordan Whiteko, Father Andrew Hamilton, Father Christopher Pujol, Vincent Reilly, Cliff Gorski, John Zylka, Sarah Hartner

SPEAKER_02:

You're listening to the Catholic Acting podcast. We discussed the act that Jesus performed that stunned his disciples. Great to be back, Jordan.

SPEAKER_00:

You don't know us by now, you're never gonna know.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm Jordan Waco here with Father Hamilton and Father Poojil. And we're both stunned.

SPEAKER_01:

So here we are, episode five, Philippi Evangelist.

SPEAKER_02:

Another day. Faith is on the move. Another one of the deacons in the Acts of the Apostles is Saint Philip. Not to be confused with the Apostle Philip.

SPEAKER_00:

So who was Philip? Philip's one of the ones that's ordained there with Stephen, right? So the first seven to help in the needs of the church. And so we're kind of just following at this point different deacons and how they're living out the gospel. What's interesting here is that in a certain way, Philip becomes known as the evangelist. It's not really a first order thing that he's doing as a deacon, as he's taking care of the poor and and the needs of the early church, but he becomes great at preaching as well as explanation of sacred scripture. And so he gets this sense of being an evangelist, a spreader of the good news, which we see later and some of his uh different escapades around uh Jerusalem and so forth.

SPEAKER_02:

So is he so he's ordained a deacon at the same time as Stephen? Yes, he's one of that chosen seven. Okay. And he was scattered from Jerusalem after the death of Stephen. So where where why and where did he go? Was it because he was afraid that it would happen to him?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, he wasn't afraid, but he was responding to the needs of the church, and so as the church continued to grow, he went to where he was called.

SPEAKER_02:

And Philip preached, he healed the sick and he drove out the demons in Samaria. Right? There was but there was one particular encounter with Philip, and it was someone called Simon the Magician. I'm like a foremost scholar on Simon Maugoose.

SPEAKER_00:

Love Simon the Magician in his whole story.

SPEAKER_02:

That's that what's what's the Maugoose?

SPEAKER_00:

He's not mentioned much. Maugoose is just basically a delineation that he was like a magician. Okay. It's a like a wise man, but more to having to do with like celestial things, divinations, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

All the things that we're called not to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Now that Simon is different from Peter Simon, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Correct.

SPEAKER_02:

Simon Peter. Simon Peter. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

The rock. There's the rock, and there's the magician.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's important that uh you brought that up, Jordan, about Simon Peter or Simon Magus, right? The magician. And there's really a juxtaposition there of those two to show the realness of the power bestowed by the Holy Spirit and the glory of God shown through that, and then kind of this um curated spectacle that's put on by Simon the Magician. And that really what Simon the Magician wants is to buy the Holy Spirit. Now the question always becomes is can we control the Holy Spirit? No. No. It blows around as it does, right? The wind and so on. And so it's a gift. And really, that's what we should think about is that all of the things that we're given in this life are a gift. We don't control them, but we're stewards of them. And what Simon Mogus is trying to do there is he's trying to dominate control and have for his own benefit the Holy Spirit at his beck and call. Prayer isn't to change the mind of God and to make him give us what we want, but rather to change our own interior hearts to be more aligned with the movements of the Holy Spirit, of God's will in our life. You can see how those two are inverses of each other. And so beautifully in that story about Simon the the Magus, the magician, what we see is really the true way of the gospel and the way of the world, and the way in which that we're called to live is the way of the gospel.

SPEAKER_02:

So he was trying to buy his way to heaven, is what you're saying. In a way, really. Which so many people do nowadays. They try. They try. They try.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it doesn't work out. The toll's too heavy. There's not much actually in sacred scripture in the Acts of the Apostles about Simon the magician. What we know about him is that in Samaria, he was working different types of magic. And so maybe they were it was imitating what the early apostles and those that were disciples and Philip and Stephen were able to do. But in a real way, what Philip and Stephen were doing in the other apostles was different from the magic that he was doing. So he was doing things by appearances, but maybe not holistically healing or something else and so forth. But he had gained a lot of power, recognition, and fame. So he was called the magician not because he knew like sleight of hand. He wasn't like pulling straight rabbits out of his hat. Like it was other things. We don't know exactly what that would mean, but think about like in the time of Moses, whenever there's the sorcerers or the different people around Pharaoh that make like uh staffs into snakes. Okay. And somehow they were able to do that, but the way in which that like Moses was able to do it with God's power was greater, indifferent, something that they had not seen. And so Simon the Magician's similar to that.

SPEAKER_01:

Because for Simon the Magician, it's all about manipulation, manipulation of the natural elements to find or show something. So it's a different type of magic.

SPEAKER_02:

So as a self-proclaimed student of the magician, uh Father Andrew, what what can you tell me?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm not necessarily his student knowing his ways. I don't have anything up my sleeves other than French cuffs. But fancy. But with the budget really did go up in there, too. Yeah, but uh, but what we see is that he's very famous and he hears Philip preach or sees some of the signs that Philip works, and he's actually moved by it to the point that Philip gets him to be baptized. So it seems that there's a changing of heart somewhat of Simon there to be baptized. Now, later on, the apostle Peter comes and there they're praying and they're making different things happen and preaching. And what Simon the Magician wants is he wants authority. He wants to be able to, by having money, pay off the apostles for their authority and power and have it for himself. That's what then becomes in the long tradition of the church known as Simony, named after Simon Magu, Simon the Magician, and Simony is buying and selling of church offices, which we see is a big problem throughout the late medieval time into the Renaissance time.

SPEAKER_01:

And even holy objects like relics that would be considered simony of the buying and the purchase of relics, buying offices, buying any type of church.

SPEAKER_02:

So we still do this Simon Simoning? No Simon?

SPEAKER_01:

We we It's one of the greatest sins. Militate against Simoning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But you said, but so what so relics are just bestowed upon people. They're not like how do we get relics if it's not they're cared for.

SPEAKER_01:

So wherever the relic's from, it's given to a shrine or a specific priest to be cared for. But like you'll see just recently in the news with Carlo Acutis, um, somebody received one of his relics and we're selling it on eBay for thousands of dollars. So that would be the prime example of Simony.

SPEAKER_02:

So this one mention in story of Simon the Magician is included to kind of steer you away from that path, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00:

It it speaks to us of continual conversion, right? That the charisma as a message isn't just static, that this is what God did for me then, it's what God has has done for me in the past and continues to do for me as a disciple, as I follow him. Because that's what we strongly believe as Catholics, that we are only saved certainly by God's grace, but we have to cooperate with that grace. We have to apply the merits of Christ's death, his life, death, and resurrection to our own lives. And we only do that by saying yes to God. We have free will, and we have to align it with the will of God. Thy will be done, not my will be done.

SPEAKER_01:

And we see this, especially when we look at Philip the Evangelist, as a as a prime example, moving from Jerusalem into these other areas of need in the church. So where are those other areas? Where does he go from here? Another fun story. He encounters the Ethiopian eunuch.

SPEAKER_02:

And so the Ethiopian church traces its origins to Saint Philip. What is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian servant that leads to this development?

SPEAKER_01:

What's interesting is that Moses actually, as working in Pharaoh's court prior to his conversion, actually conquered Ethiopia and brought Ethiopia to the Pharaoh and said, Behold Ethiopia and all its splendor and all its riches. And now we see Ethiopia again, except Christ going there and winning their hearts for him.

SPEAKER_00:

And so it's a different kind of conquering. Yes. We should start with what is a eunuch, just so that we're clear on that. Eunuchs don't try this at home. Do not try this at home, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, they have those in Game of Thrones and stuff, so people probably are familiar, but you can mention it if you're not.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's good to just clarify terms. Eunuchs were those that were like castrated males that were around usually royal courts. They posed no threat in a physical sense towards the queen or the courtiers and so on. And so that's what a eunuch was.

SPEAKER_02:

Were they usually like uh like the armies, you know what I mean? Like that's how it was in Game of Thrones, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not familiar with that's a bishop question.

SPEAKER_00:

Continue then. But nonetheless, so there is a Ethiopian eunuch. He's part of the Ethiopian royal court to the queen, and he is traveling, and led by the Spirit, Philip the evangelist, goes down, and there he's told to catch up to this chariot that has the Ethiopian eunuch, and he comes upon him and he's reading the prophecies of Isaiah, talking about the one that was the lamb led before the shears who kept quiet, that was slaughtered in that sense. And the Ethiopian eunuch asks Philip, What does this mean? What's this all about? And because Philip has knowledge of Jesus Christ and how it connects with the ancient prophecies of Judaism, there he's able to explain it. And from there, then the Ethiopian eunuch accepts Christ as the fulfillment as the Messiah, and they come upon water over to the side of the road, and there's water there. And essentially the Ethiopian eunuch asks, why not be baptized now? Like, why not just go right into baptism? And so they stop the chariot, the cart, and there then the Ethiopian eunuch is baptized. And as he rises from the water, then it says, and I love this, it was actually right at my diaconal ordination. I chose this, that Philip is snatched up and that he's taken by the Spirit somewhere else. A very clear sign of how the Holy Spirit is working in the early church. Was he taken up in a whirlwind, like maybe was some of the prophets of the Old Testament? We don't know, but I don't think that he just hid behind a tree, and then you know nobody knew that he was. Simon the magician came back and he made him vanish. Smoke bombs, run away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, okay, so Philip going from there, Philip also preached in Caesarea, where Paul and Luke stay with him. And here Philip is referred to as the evangelist because of his great preaching ability as a deacon. How do how do deacons preach the word of God? How can we be servants of that word?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think he preached a lot. First of all, I think it's it's so great to see that the community, even when they separate to go preach in different areas, they always end up back together, right? Because as we've been talking about, that communal aspect is so important. But deacons and specifically Philip, he really preaches the gospel with his life and with uh the way he he's able to capture hearts. I mean, to have somebody like that Ethiopian eunuch, you encounter them, and then within a very brief amount of time, they ask for baptism. He must have been extremely compelling in his telling of the gospel.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, what's very interesting with both, as we have Stephen and Philip, they clearly know scripture and the prophecies of Judaism, right? Think about what Stephen did is he was building on everything before the Sanhedrin. That's like trying to give like a dissertation in front of a board of a bunch of doctors that are experts on the topic that you're speaking about. That's tough. And then you have later Philip explaining to the eunuch about what the prophecy of Isaiah is. And so his great knowledge and connecting all those things together really opens people's eyes. Even in my own preaching, one of the things that I try to do is make sense of the old in light of the new. It's beautiful to be able to see the whole entire story of sacred scripture as everything falling into place because it becomes intelligent design. It's not that these are just stories that were written down in any which way, but there's a beautiful continuity that flows through all of it where you can see Christ prefigured and then brought to the fullness of realization in the New Testament. And so they were able to connect that whole story and make it known to the people of God. And I think that's why Philip was so um well renowned as an evangelist and as a preacher of the good news.

SPEAKER_02:

So how can we be servants of the word to be evangelizers and share it with others?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think to be an evangelizer, we have to recognize that it's it's nothing static. It's always something that's living and moving because we believe that that holy scripture is inspired by God and divine inspiration, and that word inspire comes from the Latin inspirode, but to to breathe, which is a constant moving, right? If we stop breathing, we die. And just like scripture, we're breathing with scripture, we're learning it, and we're breathing it out in practice, and so faith is moving because it's always leading us to Christ, but it leads us to each other, and it leads people then to Christ and then to the community.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks for listening to the Catholic Accent podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't forget to follow, like, and subscribe to our show. Dante Ligieri and his famous The Divine Comedy, right? Everybody knows the inferno. By the way, everybody, read Peradisia. We talked about this in one of the previous episodes. As well as uh Purgatorio, you need all three levels. Then the West Dante in Hell, he places those that buy and sell office in the church upside down in baptismal fonts with their legs kicking in the air. Why he does that is because there is a legend about Simon Magoose outside of sacred scripture that he later went and he decided to try to go back to his old ways of living. Then he was doing magic again, and he was jumping off a parapet, and there Peter was seeing all of this, and people were starting to follow Simon Magoose because of these signs or wonders. And so Peter prays, and from there, then Simon Magoose comes out of the air and he hits into the ground and his head's stuck in the ground and his feet are kicking in the air. And so it's a sign of his fall and a sign of the sin of Simony trying to buy and sell office named after Simon the Maugoose.