![]() ![]() The story of Simon Magus in his attitude to the Gospel is a very striking and instructive one. To the city thus moved comes no Apostle, but a Christian man who begins to preach, and by miracles and teaching draws many souls to Christ. Established in Samaria, he had been juggling and conjuring and seeing visions, and professing to be a great mysterious personality, and had more than permitted the half-heathen Samaritans, who seem to have had more religious susceptibility and less religious knowledge than the Jews, and so were a prepared field for all such pretenders, to think of him as in some sense an incarnation of God, and perhaps to set him up as a rival or caricature of Him who in the neighbouring Judaea was being spoken of as the power of God, God manifest in the flesh. Of such a sort were Elymas, the sorcerer whom Paul found squatting at the ear of the Roman Governor of Cyprus the magicians at Ephesus the vagabond Jews exorcists, who with profitable eclecticism, as they thought, tried to add the name of Jesus as one more spell to their conjurations and, finally, this Simon the sorcerer. What a fall from Israel's destination, and what a lesson for the stewards of the 'oracles of God'! Sadly enough, they were mostly Jews, who prostituted their clearer knowledge to personal ends, and having tacked on to it some theosophic rubbish which they had learned from Alexandria, or mysticism which had filtered to them from the East, or magic arts from Phrygia, went forth, the only missionaries that Judaism sent out, to bewilder and torture men's minds. So we find the early preachers of Christianity coming into frequent contact with pretenders to magical powers. ![]() Partly deceived and partly deceiving, he is as sure a sign of the lack of profound religious conviction and of the presence of unsatisfied religious aspirations in men's souls, as the stormy petrel or the floating seaweed is of a tempest on the seas. Demand creates supply, and the magician and miracle-worker, the possessor of mysterious ways into the Unknown, is never far off at such a time. ![]() The one true bond which unites God and man being obscured, and to the consciousness of many snapped, men's minds become the prey of visionary terrors. Such a period is ever one of predisposition to superstition. Then, as now, men's minds were seething and unsettled, and that unrest which is the precursor of great changes in intellectual and spiritual habitudes affected the civilised world. The era of the birth of Christianity was one of fermenting opinion and decaying faith. Peter is exercising this ministry of authentication and exposure, and displaying the authority that Jesus gave him in Matthew 16:19.Ĥ Tertullian, quoted in ″Apology″ 50.14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992).Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts - Alexander Maclaren'Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.' - ACTS viii.21. God is about to authenticate true faith in the Samaritan believers (Acts 8:14-17), but at the same time, Peter chastises someone for duplicity (Acts 8:20-23). He thought of both as spiritual forces that could be used to gain control of people and make money, a common attitude of the world to ″the force″ of Christianity. 23)! Simon's problem was that he understood neither the nature of Jesus' messiahship, nor the person and role of the Holy Spirit. A person can look good, have all the trappings, and still be full of bitterness and a captive to sin (v. He is a reminder to us that not all who profess faith and are baptised are truly converted. In verse 18 he offers to pay for the Holy Spirit. Simon's motivation for believing, however, is apparently commercial. (The Samaritans had an unusual experience of the Spirit, dealt with in tomorrow's reading). The proclamation of Christ and His Kingdom is what changes people.Įven Simon the sorcerer, astonished by what he saw, believed, and was baptised (v. Here, the people turn away from the flashy and spectacular magic offered by Simon and turn to the Lord Jesus and all that is involved in His kingdom (v. In Athens they turn away from idols (Acts 17:34), and in Ephesus from superstitious sorcery (Acts 19:19). It is significant that Christian repentance is a turning from sin and a turning to God. Through God's blessing, great joy came to the city. One of those who was scattered was Philip. The body of Stephen was treated with respect and his loss was keenly felt (v. It is significant that Christian repentance is a turning from sin and a turning to God ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |