Simon the magician and the gospel of Jesus (2)

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God”... When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money...  Acts 8:9-18

Last time we thought about the revival that broke out in Samaria under the preaching of Philip the evangelist, and focussed on the strange figure of Simon the magician. I set out to suggest four thoughts, but ran out of space after two.

To recap...

The first thought was that, in spite of Simon’s sin and Peter’s shocked response, we needn’t doubt that Simon’s conversion was genuine. New converts still have a long way to go! And then, second, we noticed the warning this story gives us about the poison that money can be when it is wrongly used. Are our finances firmly under the lordship of Christ?

And now, thirdly, we can’t help noticing the blistering ferocity of Peter’s attack on Simon.

One commentary suggests that his words “May your money perish with you!” could be translated fairly literally as “To hell with you and your money!” He goes on to say, “I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin”.

This is no-holds-barred stuff. We might be tempted to feel that perhaps Peter is a little over-zealous, and that a gentler rebuke might have been more appropriate. Simon, after all, is floundering in a sea where he’s completely out of his depth.

But who are we to judge? - especially given that Peter’s words had an immediate effect: “Simon answered, ‘Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me’”. There are times to be pretty “in-yer-face”!

In various places the New Testament speaks about the need for “admonition” in the Christian life. In Colossians 3:16, for example: “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another...”

It’s a rather old-fashioned word, which basically means encouraging someone, though perhaps with a hint of correction and rebuke: there are times when a word of admonition might be described as “a loving telling-off”.

But Peter’s treatment of Simon is far stronger than that. Why? Because the stakes were so much higher; Peter feared for Simon’s very soul, so blunt words were called for.

The point to get hold of is that there are times we need to confront our fellow-Christians frankly if we see them losing their way. We must do this humbly, of course, and very aware that we too are far from perfect; but it might be an action that changes somebody’s life for ever. I have a vivid memory of it being done to me by a lovely Christian friend. I didn’t enjoy it - in fact I quite resented it. But on reflection I realised that it was an act of love, and I benefitted from it.

It’s easy to take the “oh no, it’s none of my business” attitude and turn a blind eye. But that can simply be an excuse for cowardice and a failure of true friendship. Like it or not, we are our brother’s and sister’s keeper.

Is there someone in your life who badly needs a word of admonition from you?

Fourth, we mustn’t miss what seems to be a genuine expression of regret from Simon in verse 24: “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.” Simon has heard Peter’s word about forgiveness: “Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you...” (verse 22).

It’s as if Peter is throwing Simon a lifeline - and Simon is eagerly grabbing hold of it.

And so we are reminded that God loves to forgive those who are truly sorry.

Is that a message you need? Perhaps you are living with a painfully guilty conscience over something you have done - and rightly so. But never doubt that God loves you, and that there is “joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:1-10). Why not bring joy to God’s heart today?

So... Simon the magician disappears from the pages of the Bible. And, as I said last time, we are left dangling, wondering what became of him.

Once you start down this track, all sorts of other unfinished stories from the Bible spring to mind, and we could speculate endlessly.

What about the woman to whom Jesus spoke at the well in Sychar (John 4)? Did she and her fellow-townspeople become full followers of Jesus? Or the rich young ruler who “went away sad” because he couldn’t obey Jesus’ command (Mark 10:17-25)? Did he later have a change of heart? Or the woman taken in adultery (John 8:2-11)? Did she indeed “go... and leave her life of sin”? What became of Zacchaeus (Luke 19)?

God hasn’t seen fit to tell us - but there is a good reason for that.

For what really matters, of course, is not “What happened to these people?” but “What will happen to me? How will my story end?”

Mmm. Challenging questions!

Lord God, thank you that your word gives us many accounts of people who were confronted by the gospel. As I reflect on them, help me not to get lost in pointless speculation, but to apply to myself  the challenges they present. Amen.

Simon the magician and the gospel of Jesus (1)

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God”... When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money...  Acts 8:9-18

If you read novels you will know the frustration you feel when the book ends but doesn’t make clear exactly what happened. You are left dangling. Did the woman get her man? Did the soldier survive the war or get killed? Did the police eventually find the culprit?

For two or three hundred pages you have lived with the characters, you have got to know them, you have developed sympathy, or perhaps animosity, towards them - so you want to know! No doubt the author has good reasons for leaving loose ends - but it can be exasperating.

I feel this about Simon the Magician, a little of whose story is told by Luke in Acts 8.

Very briefly...

In religious terms Simon is Mr Big in Samaria. In the eyes of the people, “both high and low”, he is “the Great Power of God”; everybody follows him “because he had amazed them with his sorcery”. In a word, he is a jumped up religious charlatan.

Then along comes someone new: Philip the evangelist. Philip preaches the good news of Jesus, and people in their hundreds turn to him and get baptised in the name of Jesus. The converts include Simon: he too “believed and was baptised”.

All good!

But then, following the arrival of the apostles Peter and John, Simon gets something badly wrong. He is so bedazzled by what they are able to do - imparting the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands - that he offers them money in exchange for the same ability. (This is the origin of what the early church called the sin of “simony” - trying to gain influence or power in the church by giving money.)

Peter will have nothing to do with this: “May your money perish with you!” he tells him; “your heart is not right before God”. Simon immediately asks them to pray for him - he seems to be truly sorry for what he has done.

And... that’s it. Simon drops from the scene, and the Bible never mentions him again. We are left dangling, wondering what became of him. Wouldn’t it be great to know!

The later church wasn’t slow to finish the story of Simon, with various legends about him, but they all go way beyond what the Bible says. So what can we glean from what is actually written? I suggest four thoughts...

First, I don’t think there is any reason to doubt that Simon was truly converted. He “believed and was baptised”, and showed himself enthusiastic in that “he followed Philip everywhere”. In this respect he was no different from all those other Samaritan converts.

But can this be so, given Peter’s later ferocious condemnation of him?

Yes, I think it can. As we know to this day, new converts still have much to learn, and often carry over into their new life in Christ all sorts of wrong ideas and even wrong practices. (And, of course, that doesn’t only apply to new converts!) Even a dramatic conversion doesn’t mean instant holiness, and certainly not perfection.

All of us who have baptised people, or seen them receive Christ, know the disappointment when it later turns out that they were never truly converted at all, or at best are very shallow converts. The fact is that Philip the evangelist, a Spirit-filled Christian, saw fit to baptise Simon. (I find that encouraging when I feel that perhaps I made a mistake in baptising someone.)

Second, Simon’s sin gives us a serious warning about religion and money getting mixed up.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with money as such; it is neutral. But it can be horribly destructive when religious leaders - and others - start to use it in wrong ways. There are plenty of examples around today - you think particularly, perhaps, of those “prosperity” preachers and televangelists who, it sometimes seems, line their own pockets by fleecing their hearers.

I don’t believe that pastors and teachers should be expected to live in abject poverty - “the labourer is worthy of his hire”, says Paul in 1 Timothy 5:17-18, echoing Jesus in Luke 10:7. I wonder in fact if some churches should be ashamed of the salary they expect their pastor and family to live on.

But... well, let’s just put it like this: money can spell great danger, even in very “spiritual” circles. Beware!

In more general terms, it’s no bad thing to ask ourselves the question: am I being unfaithful to God in the way I organise my finances? Is he truly the Lord of my money? Remember the word of Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:25).

Oh, I’ve run out of space. Please join me again next time...

Lord, you blessed the preaching of Philip the evangelist in Samaria, so much that revival broke out and overcame the powers of darkness. Do the same today in our towns and cities! And please help me to keep well clear of the corrupting power of money. Amen.

Looking for God? Really?

Jesus said “Seek and you will find”. Matthew 7:7

Do you have a favourite saying of Jesus? If you’ve been a Christian any length of time, and have got used to reading the Bible, I would be surprised if you haven’t. He said many great and memorable things...

“You must be born again” (John 3:7). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). “I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

There’s a handful, chosen pretty much at random. Once you start, it’s hard to know where to stop! - just writing them down has lifted and challenged my heart, and I hope it’s had the same effect on you. Some of his sayings, of course, can be hard and puzzling, but many are wonderfully full of comfort and hope.
For some reason, very early in my Christian life the little saying “Seek and you will find” lodged in my mind - just five words (or a mere three in Matthew’s Greek!). It is, in fact, part of a triple set of promises, bracketed by “Ask and it will be given to you” and “knock and the door will be opened to you”.

Basically those three sayings amount to much the same thing; perhaps it was the sheer brevity and simplicity of the middle one that specially appealed to me.

What does this promise of Jesus mean? I hope it goes without saying that he isn’t promising we will immediately get anything we happen to want. No, God isn’t in the business of writing blank cheques! - the Bible gives us plenty of examples of God not answering wrong or misguided requests.

But God is our loving heavenly Father, so we shouldn’t be shy about laying before him our needs, like any child with an earthly parent. Are we perhaps sometimes too hesitant to make our everyday needs known to him? Could it be that - who knows? - it actually leaves him a little disappointed? Let’s be bold in our praying!

The promise “seek and you will find” is one that can be claimed in all sorts of situations, but I like to apply it especially to the honest seeker after God. Jesus is saying, among other things, that anyone with a humble and genuine desire to find God will in fact do so.

Every so often we meet people who tell us frankly that they just aren’t convinced that God even exists. Fair enough - if I hadn’t become a Christian very young I can well imagine that I might have been in that situation myself for many years. But if they are genuinely open to the possibility that he does exist, I personally would have no qualms about suggesting that they pray something like this: “Oh God, I don’t honestly know if you’re there at all, but if you are I pray now that you will make yourself known to me.”

How and when that prayer is answered - well, that’s for God to decide. But if Matthew 7:7 is true, then answered it will be.

There’s one important proviso attached to this threefold promise: it comes with the expectation that we will persevere in our seeking. One commentary I looked at in fact translated it: “Keep on asking, and it will be given to you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you.” The language experts tell us that this represents a slightly more accurate translation.

Put it like this. A teacher trying to sort out a playground fight might say “Tell the truth!” - meaning a one-off, here-and-now event. But a parent might say to a child “Tell the truth” - meaning make it the habit of a lifetime, always tell the truth. In Matthew 7:7 the shade of meaning is like the second example: “never stop seeking”.

Jesus is saying, then, that the person searching for God needs to mean business; they need to be determined. The whole matter of undertaking the greatest exploration a human being can ever undertake - the quest for the very creator and sustainer of the universe, the God of all power, majesty and love, the meaning of life itself - is not to be undertaken in a casual or shallow way. This isn’t a promise for people who feel like a bit of a dabble in spiritual things.

But in a way that just makes it all the more wonderful. If you truly want to know God, you can. He won’t deny himself to you.
Here are two short prayers. Perhaps you would like to pray whichever one is appropriate for you...

Lord God, I really don’t know if you exist. But if you do I ask now with all my heart that you will make yourself known to me. Amen.

Loving Father, many people are genuinely confused and unsure about you. Please help me, by my words and by the very person I am, to be a signpost for them, pointing them to Jesus. Amen.

Perfect medicine for a hurting conscience

The tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. Luke 18:13

Do you have anything on your conscience today? I think you would be pretty unusual if you said No.

It may be something quite trivial - you snapped at someone, perhaps, or over-indulged yourself a bit last night.

Or it could be something more serious - perhaps a memory of something you did many years ago, a memory that just won’t go away. It may be something that you alone know, something tucked away deep in your conscience that makes you burn with shame.

Whatever, we all know that feeling of guilt (or I hope we do, anyway, for there is something badly wrong with us if we don’t). We haven’t just let ourselves down, we have also hurt other people and grieved God himself.

Well, the beautiful little story Jesus tells in Luke 18:9-14 is perfect medicine for a hurting conscience.

Two men go into the temple in Jerusalem to pray. The Pharisee is proud and self-righteous, and prays a prayer which is full of himself. He informs God (who, I suspect, already knew perfectly well, thank you very much) what a splendid person he is - he “fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of all he gets”. He is thoroughly religious, for goodness’ sake.

He turns a condemning eye on the tax-collector standing near him and thanks God that “I’m not like him”, or like “robbers, evil-doers and adulterers”. Oh no! - he is “not like other people” .

If you met this man in the street you would probably be a little in awe of him; he is what used to be called “a pillar of society”. But... he is proud.

The tax-collector, on the other hand, has probably lived a petty shady life (perhaps he was a friend of Zacchaeus, who we meet in the next chapter of Luke). And he knows it only too well. So when he comes into the temple to pray he’s not just carrying out a religious duty - no, he really wants to do business with God.

He hasn’t got any fancy words to use. The best he can manage (apart from beating his breast as a sign of remorse) is “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. End of prayer. (Sometimes the short prayers are the best...)

And what happened? Let Jesus tell us in his own words: “... this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God”.

To be “justified” means to be acquitted, to be “in the right”, to be discharged from God’s court of law. Isn’t that wonderful?
When that man left the temple he went home with a light step, a straight back and a head held high. Can you see him? Perhaps he even had a big fat smile on his face. I like to think so.

This wasn’t because he had done anything good, for he hadn’t, had he (though I’m sure, as with Zacchaeus, that would come very soon)? No, all he had done was admit his wretchedness and throw himself on the mercy of God. Just that. But his humble confession cut more ice with God than all the fine deeds of the Pharisee.

The story doesn’t give us a full picture, of course - I’m sure that in Jesus’ day there were good and humble Pharisees and also honest tax-collectors; not everyone should be tarred with the same brush.

But the point is clear: there is nothing God loves more than to forgive someone who is truly sorry for who they are and what they have done. In fact Jesus spells this great truth out elsewhere: “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine good people who don’t need to” (Luke 15:7).

Why does God forgive us in this way? Simple: because he loves us, that’s why. Did you know that God loves you, whatever bad things you might have done, and whatever darkness shadows your heart? Of course you did! You hear it pretty well every Sunday in church! You’ve known it since you were a child!

All right, let me ask the question another way. Have you ever really taken this great truth to heart? - taken it on board, as they say? Have you ever sat down in a quiet and serious moment and said to yourself, “God loves me. God is waiting to forgive me. Jesus died for me”?

No? Well, why not today? Why not right now?

Lord God, when I look into my heart and soul, when I think about the past, I find many things that make me burn with shame. I find darkness. But thank you that still you love me, and that you delight to forgive. Help me to receive your forgiveness today, to rejoice in it, and to live the life of a sinner washed clean as snow. Amen.

The power of the truth

Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy any more at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.” Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees.  But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ” Amos 7:12-15

“Clear off, Amos. We don’t want your sort around here. Go back where you came from. All right?”

Those weren’t quite the words the priest Amaziah addressed to God’s prophet Amos, but the message was pretty much the same: “Amos, you’re not welcome here.”

What’s going on?

About 150 years earlier, God’s people Israel had split into two kingdoms - “Israel” in the north, with Samaria as its capital, and “Judah” in the south, based in the historic capital, Jerusalem. (You can read about the split in 1Kings 12.) Under its king, Jeroboam, Israel adopted out-and-out idolatry, complete with golden calves.

And now Amos is called to prophesy, to be a “seer” - but to do so in Israel, not his homeland of Judah. And this doesn’t go down well with Amaziah, who serves as priest in the rival sanctuary at Bethel. Hence the confrontation between the two men.

Amaziah objects to Amos encroaching on “his” territory with his anti-Israel message. Amos replies that when you are called by God, sorry, but you have no choice: I never asked to become a prophet, Amaziah - no, I’m just a shepherd with a sideline in sycamore-fig trees... “But the Lord took me... and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’.”

On one level, you can see the story as a straight battle between two different forms of religion - the official religion of the state-sponsored priest Amaziah, and the God-ordained, Spirit-led religion represented by Amos.

It reminds us that, even today, we need to be wary of forms of religion which owe little or nothing to God, but are purely “man-made”. Jesus tells the woman he met at the well (John 4) that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”. Religion that is merely formal is likely to be devoid of truth and spiritually dead.

But we need to be careful too. God alone knows, and is able to judge, the hearts of men and women. We mustn’t make the mistake of assuming that someone who worships according to set patterns and in formal ways - who worships “liturgically”, as we might put it - is therefore not a true worshipper. Nor that anyone who gets excited by spontaneous worship, and who simply speaks off the cuff, is therefore bound to be a true worshipper.

No. The devil, I’m afraid, is far too clever for it to be as simple as that. The Amos-type may be just full of him or herself; the Amaziah-type may be truly Spirit-filled.

I think it was David Watson (an ordained clergyman of the Church of England) who some fifty years ago said, “All Word and no Spirit, and you dry up: all Spirit and no Word and you blow up”. Words which neatly capture the vital need to blend both submission to God’s word and openness to God’s Spirit, whether you are an officially recognised spiritual leader or a complete “layperson”.

So... don’t be taken in by the splendour of ceremony, titles, robes and what-not; they may be just clothes on a spiritual corpse. But, at the same time, don’t be dazzled by the so-called “charismatic” personality, which may be nothing but froth and bubble.

The spat between Amos and Amaziah illustrates another timeless truth: the sheer power of God’s word when it is clearly spoken, no matter who by.

As we read the Old Testament right through we learn that Amos’s pessimistic prediction - that God would ultimately bring disaster on arrogant, idolatrous Israel - came true. Israel did indeed “go into exile, away from their native land” (Amos 7:17).

Yes, Amos may have been, to all appearances, a bit of a nonentity - a jumped-up shepherd with a talent for trouble-making - but the fact is that, well... he was right and Amaziah wrong. End of.

To use a modern expression, Amos “spoke truth to power”. That is something most of us have no opportunity to do; we move in far humbler circles. But we can - and should - speak truth whenever we have the opportunity, even if only to our neighbours or the people we work with.

Such people probably don’t deserve the kid of severity Amos meted out to Amaziah; we must speak the truth in a humble, gracious and sensitive way.

But let’s make no mistake: a simple word of God’s truth, spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit, is never spoken in vain. It has a wonderful way of sinking like a seed into people’s minds and germinating there perhaps many years later. It may be a word of warning, or of encouragement, or of rebuke, or simply of love, but one day, we can be confident, it will bear fruit.

You may not be an Amos. The person you speak to may not be an Amaziah. But never mind - that word you speak today may change someone’s life for ever!

Heavenly Father, thank you for the courage and boldness of Amos the truth-teller, and for the countless men and women both before and since, who have likewise “spoken truth to power”. Help me too to speak your truth at every opportunity, with patience, passion and love - and so to make known Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. Amen.

Where is Jesus in the Old Testament?

Jesus said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Luke 24:25-27

Jesus, just that day risen from the dead, joins a couple of his disciples as they walk from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus. They don’t realise who he is. They are sunk in gloom, and he asks them what’s wrong. Don’t you know! they exclaim. Haven’t you heard about the crucifixion of Jesus? You must be the only person around who hasn’t!

And then these painfully sad words: “...we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”

We had hoped... Ah - they are downcast because of shattered dreams (you know the feeling?). They had pinned their hopes on this man Jesus - indeed, they had become convinced that he was the long-awaited Messiah of the Jewish nation. And now... he was dead.

What does Jesus do? You might have expected him at least to be sympathetic. But no - in fact he gives them a bit of a telling off: “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

That seems hard, doesn’t it? True, he doesn’t leave it there. No, as he walks with them he goes right back to “Moses and all the prophets” and explains to them “what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.” And as he does this, something very wonderful happens...

But wait a minute... don’t those disciple still have a right to feel that his scolding was a little unfair? Where in the books of Moses are Jesus’ sufferings and glory foretold? Where precisely “in all the prophets”? Where “in all the scriptures”?

Oh yes, once he had explained it to them it was crystal clear. But doesn’t it seem a little unreasonable to expect them to understand it all before it had been explained?

Yet Jesus is perfectly serious. Sorry, but they should have foreseen what was going to happen, even if not in all its horrible details. These were Jewish people, and they were well schooled in the Jewish scriptures - what today we call the Old Testament.

It’s true that the Old Testament never gives an explicit prediction of the cross and resurrection. No prophet ever writes anything remotely like, “A day is coming when God will send the Messiah in the person of his own son. His name will be Jesus, and he will be put to death and raised again.” No.

But what the Old Testament does give is a long, often sad, account of how Israel, God’s chosen people, experienced suffering and vindication as a pattern over many centuries.

And what it also gives is a hint, or suggestion - amounting in effect to a promise - of a particular individual who will one day take upon himself the identity of “you, Israel, my servant” (Isaiah 41:8-9, 42:1, and throughout chapters 41-45) - as if the whole nation is summed up in him.

In a truly remarkable high point to the book of Isaiah, the “servant Israel” is narrowed down to that one individual. It will be his role to bear the suffering of the whole nation. The key passage is Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (and what a passage it is!). True, Jesus isn’t mentioned by name - but to whom else can these radiant words refer?

I think that we can be pretty sure that on that road to Emmaus, while Jesus may have begun with Moses, he will have come to a climax with these verses!

The reason Jesus is disappointed with his disciples, then, is just this. If they had only been in tune with the ways in which their God worked throughout history, and, of course, if they had only absorbed what Jesus had taught them throughout his time with them, then the terrible events of that weekend wouldn’t have puzzled or surprised them. This is the way of Almighty God! - to bring his people to glory through humiliation and suffering. And it is perfectly embodied in Jesus.

The little word “all” - “all the prophets... all the scriptures” - is key. It doesn’t mean that every single verse of the Old Testament can be related to Jesus (don’t, please, go looking for him in Ezra 10:29 or Ecclesiastes 9:5!); what it does mean is that scripture as a whole builds up a picture of a holy, powerful, loving - and suffering - God who, at the climax of history, bursts upon this world in human form.

This is the message that caused the hearts of the disciples on the road to Emmaus to “burn within them” Luke 24:32). And this is the message in the light of which you and I can live.

Let’s do it, then!

Lord Jesus, please help me to see you “in all the scriptures”. As I puzzle over many of the words of the prophets, enable me to detect that pattern of suffering-to-glory, and to understand how it is wonderfully perfected in you. And so may my heart also burn within me. Amen.