Martin begins with past studies of inner texture of the story in the Acts of the Apostles where an Ethiopian eunuch, riding home on his chariot after his visit to Jerusalem, converts to Christianity as a result of Philip's interpretation of a scriptural passage to him. The past studies Martin cites were produced by interpreters guided by a theological ideology that devalued social and cultural meanings and established boundaries around New Testament study that shut it off from cultural anthropology and social history. Yet their thematic observations help to establish the beginning for her study. In past studies of the Ethiopian eunuch episode, interpreters observed the role of the Holy Spirit in the preaching and evangelism in the episode itself⁷⁷ and in the broader narrative of Luke-Acts.⁷⁸ Also, interpreters observed Philip's "witness" to the death and resurrection of Jesus in the story and the theme of witness throughout Luke and Acts.⁷⁹ Moreover, they observed the "joy" of the Ethiopian at the end of the story (8:39) in relation to the theme of joy throughout Luke and Acts.⁸⁰ Thematic inner textual features, then, establish the beginning point for Martin's analysis.⁸¹

As Martin works with the inner texture of the episode and the overall narrative, she observes an ideological phenomenon that provides a transition to intertextual analysis. In the story about the Ethiopian eunuch and throughout Luke and Acts, there is a presupposition that Old Testament prophecy is fulfilled in the experiences and activities recounted about Jesus and early Christianity. The Ethiopian eunuch is reading in the 53rd chapter of the prophetic book of Isaiah about the lamb that does not open its mouth as it is led to slaughter. Philip, of course, uses the opportunity to tell the eunuch "the good news of Jesus." But for Martin, this moment in the story has taken us to Isaiah 53. After a moment in Isaiah 53, Martin observes that three chapters later in this same book Isaiah prophesied that eunuchs who keep the sabbath, who choose the things that please the Lord God, and who hold fast to the Lord's covenant will go to God's holy mountain, be made joyful in God's house of prayer, and their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on the altar, because the Lord's house "shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" (Isaiah 56:4, 7-8). This prophecy reverses the prohibition in Deuteronomy 23:1 that forbids eunuchs from entering "the assembly of the Lord."

Since the eunuch has, according to the story in Acts, gone up to Jerusalem to worship and is now returning home in his chariot (8:27-28), the intertexture of the story in Acts must extend beyond Isaiah 53 to Isaiah 56. The temple has become a "house of prayer for all peoples" as this chapter predicted, since the eunuch has just worshipped at the Temple and is now returning. But the intertextuality of the story with Old Testament scripture extends even further than this. The eunuch is not simply a