“Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city” (Acts 8:5-8.) “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.” Samaritans don’t care about Jerusalem’s rumors, but might listen BECAUSE of them. Additionally, the Samaritans don’t have a “temple,” don’t care about the one in Jerusalem, so they don’t believe anything someone says about it matters. We thus see that the Samaritans are vastly more prepared to receive the gospel because they care about what this God can DO for them, not what He requires of them (they already have a host of religions + gods with each one’s individual requirements.) We thus see that the Gospel of Matthew is written to the Jews to prove to the Jews—from Scripture—that Jesus is the Messiah while the Gospel of Mark is written for folks such as the Samaritans who don’t care about genealogies or Abraham but about what this new God of yours can do . . . preferably for me. Thus, Philip gets God backing his preaching with supernatural events that EVERYONE knows are impossible (except for God): “And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.” “With one accord” a people the Holy Spirit prepared recognizes the “signs” as impossible and realize that whoever that “Simon” guy is (v.9), these events are beyond even his ability, which means we are standing in the presence of the real God . . . the only logical thing to do is to pay attention. Notably, the church continues preaching AND God continues enabling miracles to support that preaching, anyway, in spite of whatever “persecution” is occurring back in I-Don’t-Care-About-You-Anymore Jerusalem. “Give heed to” here is “prosecho,” which has as the original meaning “to bring a ship to land.” Think about both the work and knowledge required to do that, then think about the movement implied in that definition, and one sees this is the perfect word for what the Samaritans are doing here. They are “bringing the ship into port” by bringing Philip’s words into their mind; they are applying knowledge and effort to remember those words and apply them in subsequent decisions and choices. And, as we know that very few are able to do the work of bringing a ship to port, very few are willing to do the work of hearing a teaching (especially God’s) and applying that teaching to denying one’s own wants in favor of what God wants. “For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed.” We ran into these characters before; I still marvel that in Israel in the 1st century, temple and Scriptures notwithstanding, there were many who had so dabbled in demonic activity (Ouija Board, Astrology, “luck” fetishes, whatever) that they had become possessed by demons. I especially marvel at the dad pleading for his boy, his CHILD who was demon possessed . . . what in hell were you doing, dad? However, that the Samaritans have demon possessed people is expected because the Samaritans weren’t exactly pagans: they were some attempt to mix The Old Testament (the Pentateuch, really) with local + Assyrian paganism. Satan loves that kind of thing and quite a few demons would love to take the efforts as an invitation move in. The rest of the Samaritans see the demons merely evicted with words (no rituals, no arguments with the demons, no pleading with God: statements in Jesus Christ’s name and it leaves.) That’s power. Oh, and this evicting the demon occurs even today among some missionaries who—for obvious reasons—must remain low key about it. “Crying with a loud voice” = demons accidentally broadcasting their defeat. The gag is that on occasion, the demon would try to bargain with Jesus (Matthew 8:31-32), talk Him out of it, or at least slow Him down. This time, there is no chit chat. Jesus Christ’s disciple speaks and the demon hasn’t a choice but MUST obey the One he knows is his Creator (or else.) Much of that scream is the agony of defeat and what defeat means for a demon. Then there’s the human sitting in his or her right mind, calmly listening to the gospel. “And there was great joy in that city,” not least on the part of those who were healed or delivered. The lame that were healed were much like the cripple back in chapter 3 that started the Sadducees on this path to attempting to extinguish (ha ha ha ha ha ha) the church. Again, people know what’s possible, and only the over-educated are so blind as to try to work up some way (any way) to explain away an obvious miracle . . . and we see that today in too many people who so value the lies they’ve learned that they won’t listen to the truth lest they be forced to admit they’d wasted their time. Welcome to the club. Lame is lame, and a healed lame takes years (if at all) or is the finger of God. “Palsies” is similar to lame: “paraluo” means “to loose on 1 side.” The “palsied” were people crippled or lame by a disease that had degenerated the nerves (stroke?) such that one side of their body worked and the other side didn’t. Modern medical technology can set broken bones or even straighten arthritic joints, but this is beyond current technology. This is joy at God’s power, the typical result of the Holy Spirit’s work, and the over-educated choose to miss out on that joy, more’s the pity.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:38:14 +0000
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