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.
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.
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