13:4 So Barnabas and Saul, sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. 13:5 When they arrived in Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the Jewish synagogues.(Now they also had John as their assistant.) 13:6 When they had crossed over the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus, 13:7 who was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. The proconsul summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God. 13:8 But the magician Elymas (for that is the way his name is translated)opposed them, trying to turn the proconsul away from the faith. 13:9 But Saul (also known as Paul), filled with the Holy Spirit, stared straight at him 13:10 and said, “You who are full of all deceit and all wrongdoing, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness – will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 13:11 Now look, the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind, unable to see the sun for a time!” Immediately mistiness and darkness came over him, and he went around seeking people to lead him by the hand. 13:12 Then when the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, because he was greatly astounded at the teaching about the Lord.
In this passage, Paul was filled with Holy Spirit so he could be strong enough to fight against that false prophet. I pray that we grow our faith and have Holy Spirit filled in us so we can avoid going any wrong ways.
Summer is almost over. Stay healthy!!
1 comment:
hi sungeun, thanks for your reflection. elymas vehemently opposed the proclamation of the gospel, fearing rightly that his relationship with the proconsul sergius paulus might be permanently altered should the proconsul turn to the faith.
the act of "trying to turn someone from the faith" in all its various forms is practiced all the time by family members and friends who are themselves either outright non-believers, or at best, nominal christians. true christianity ALWAYS appears too radical and too extreme for those who deep down are not serious about their faith.
sometimes i think we may even do this to our own loved ones when we fear that a commitment to Jesus will drastically change our relationship with them too much.
but consider paul's condemnation of elymas's actions: he is "full of all deceit and all wrongdoing ... son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness". in other words, this attitude of trying to stop someone from committing themselves fully to Jesus is, in paul's words, directly opposed to God's will, described as "making crooked the straight paths of the Lord". the wrath of God falls upon elymas in the form of blindness, but it is really just a foretaste of God's ultimate judgment against any and all who hinder anyone from coming to the Lord.
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