You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.
Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, what does it take to amaze a magician? Let's see, to amaze a magician, oh, well, you just have to do something he can't figure out.
Or he doesn't have access to the power to do it. A secret, right. Well, as the Gospel moves its way into Samaria today, signs and wonders will accompany it, and a magician will be amazed today on More Than Ink. Yes, yes, yes, here we are.
This is More Than Ink. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we are excited to be with you today. We're reading through the book of Acts, and we're about, what are we? We're at chapter eight of the book of Acts. But something, as we were following through the narrative, and it's history, it's a narrative of history.
Just recently, what we read last week seems to be like a real bummer. Stephen does his presentation, not in defense of himself, but about the Gospel. It's more an accusation of the religious leaders. And it looks like it comes to a tragic end, because he's stoned and he's killed, and sure enough, one of the guys who's presiding over this killing of Stephen is this very famous guy, Saul, who will later become Paul on the road to Damascus. But that's a sad ending, but as we started at chapter eight, we reread the beginning of it last time, that because of this persecution, which I mean the killing of Stephen just was like a trigger, and suddenly boom, and there was persecution that happened, and people were scattered. Everyone except the apostles, interestingly enough, it says in verse one of chapter eight, they were scattered. So what we're going to do today in the narrative is follow one of these guys who was scattered from Jerusalem into an area that the Jews seldom go to, because it's an area of hated people. Oh, they avoided it, actually, except Jesus deliberately went there. He did, and we're talking about the famous area of Samaria, where the Good Samaritan story comes from, where the woman at the well comes from. But historically, and I think did we talk about this last time a little bit?
You know, I don't remember talking about it last time, but we probably have before. The Samaritans were mixed breed people. They were intermixed Jews who had come back to the land after they were sent off to Babylon, and then a lot of... A few Canaanites had remained, other peoples had moved in, and so some of the Jews that returned intermarried with them, and they became these people known as the Samaritans. And they had a kind of a hybrid religion, where they adapted some parts of Judaism and mixed it with some other things. They had their own temple. They had their own temple, which they shouldn't have. So they really departed from strict Judaism. Also, they were carried away in 722 by the Assyrians, who were the chief guys in the world at the time. And later on, the Assyrians actually put people back in the Samarian area that were not Jews.
In fact, they were people that they had taken captive from other lands. So it was really quite a pagan... It's kind of a mixing pot.
... mixing pot up north. So Jews who were really pure blood Jews... Well, observant Jews avoided Samaria. They did not like it, yeah. So Samaria is just a bad place. So this scattering happens from Jerusalem after the killing of Stephen, and one of the people that gets scattered is this guy, Philip, and we're gonna follow him today. But we've seen Philip before.
We have. He shows up actually back in Chapter 6 when they appoint the seven guys to wait tables and administrate the practical things in the church body at that time. And Philip is the first guy named after Stephen. After Stephen, yeah. So that's pretty interesting that Stephen is now taken out of the picture and suddenly the story focuses on Philip. Right. So we're gonna look at Philip today. Some amazing things happen.
And so buckle your seat belts. Well, okay, so if you wanna know more about Philip, you should take your concordance and look. Yeah, exactly. In the New Testament for references for Philip, and you'll find two categories, right? You'll find Philip the Apostle 12. That's right. That's right. And then starting in Acts, you'll find this Philip. Right. And there's some interesting things we're gonna learn about him in the next little while.
Yeah. But we do find toward the end of Acts, Acts 21, 8, tells us that he actually settled in Caesarea for a while, apparently married and had daughters there. So yeah, so this is the beginning of Philip's adventures. But don't confuse him with the apostle. With the apostle, that's right. He's a different guy.
He's not that guy. It's interesting as Luke tells us what happens in the early church here, we're not following the apostles yet. Right.
And they come in and out. But let's talk about Philip. Okay. So we're starting in chapter 8, verse 4. And let's just see what this guy's doing.
Last time we saw him, he was serving tables. Right. Right. But not now. So, this is verse 4. Yeah.
Okay, well let's stop there. Now we see the real valid use of signs and wonders because what they do is they pave the way of authenticity for the word. Right. They make it certain that what's being said is the truth. And so people notice this. They really notice this. And that gave that credibility to them. So that's why it says they paid such great close attention when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. They paid careful attention. Well, okay, so let's back up for just a second and remember that the characteristics of these seven men who were chosen back in Acts 6 is that they were of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom. And so at first they were entrusted with serving the tables and making sure everybody's needs were met. But then very quickly we find out that they were out preaching and ministering. Stephen certainly did.
And Philip followed right in his footsteps here. So he's out preaching and delivering people from their unclean spirits. They're crying out with a loud voice, which is exactly what they did when Jesus cast them out. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And paralyzed, you know, many who were paralyzed were healed and lamed. I mean, these are really earmarks of the Messiah. That's right. These are messianic signs.
Yeah, yeah. So clearly they can tell that this guy, when he talks to them about Christ, he's got some credibility because he's acting just like Christ. Well, you know, and in the end of Mark, Jesus had said, this is in Mark 16, 7 and a little while after, that these are the signs that are going to accompany those who are preaching the gospel in my name. They will cast out demons.
They will heal the lame. This is going to happen. They will do these things. Yeah, and you know, if we flip for a second over to the woman at the well in John 4, in their discussion, we find out that she was aware of the fact that Messiah was coming.
Right. And even though the Samaritans had kind of gone off the cliff a little bit theologically. Oh, they had their own idea of who Messiah was. But so when Philip comes in and is saying there is a Messiah and he's Jesus, they're ready to hear that because she was ready to hear that.
Well, she was. And we may talk about John 4 a little bit later, but if you remember that story, she goes into the village and tells everybody and they come out and meet Jesus and believe in him themselves. So really, even though Philip is going to Samaria to preach at this point, the groundwork had already been laid by Jesus himself. Yeah, yeah. And I've always wondered whether or not Philip used that when he went into Samaria.
Oh, that's interesting. Because that village came to Jesus and they accepted him. Right, right.
And that was probably, I don't know, a year or two years before that. So he could have come into the area and say, I'm speaking about this Messiah who has come and his name is Jesus. Have you ever talked to the people in that village? They've met him. Right, right. They've met him.
So that would just be a great inside connection that's not mentioned here. But this did make me think another odd trivia moment. Speaking about Samaria, you remember that time that Jesus was going to traverse through Samaria from the north who's headed towards Jerusalem and he sent a couple of apostles ahead of him to make a place for him in Samaria, basically. They're going to stay overnight, it sounds like. And they go in there and they're rebuffed. The Samaritans won't prepare a place for them. So the apostles come back to Jesus before they enter Samaria and they say they know you're pushing on to Jerusalem so they're not going to prepare. They're not going to be hospitable, basically. And then, I think it's James and John saying, do you want us to call down fire on them and destroy them? Like, where did that come from? Well, it kind of epitomizes how much they hated the Samaritans.
They refused you, so let's just call down fire on them. Do you want us to do that? And Jesus kind of says, chill guys, no, we're not going to do that.
Loosely paraphrased. Yeah, that was just a funny moment. So anyway, Philip is in Samaria and having great effect and people, I like how it says that the crowds with one accord paid attention to what he was being said. And there was much joy, much joy in that city. I love that.
Yeah. But now things kind of take a strange turn in verse 9. This is really an interesting account. We're still in Samaria, but listen to what happens. So there in Samaria, starting verse 9, there was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria saying that he himself was somebody great. They all paid attention to him from the least to the greatest saying, this man is the power of God that is called great.
And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. Hmm. Hmm. Can we stop there for just a second?
Sure, yeah, yeah. Because this word magic that shows up a couple of times is actually the word sorcery. Yes. So we're talking about some kind of a cult trickism. He's putting on some kind of a show that's attracting people's attention. He's masquerading and puffing himself up. He's looking like he's doing divine things.
He's looking like miracles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he's not actually. So when the people, this is verse 12 now, when the people believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, because apparently Simon had not been using that name.
Yeah, right, right. They were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed.
And after being baptized, he continued with Philip and seeing great signs and miracles performed, he was amazed. Okay. Let's stop.
Let's stop there. So yeah, it looks like this Simon guy who was making a living out of kind of fooling people that he had magic powers that he did not have. Right. I mean, even today, magicians, they say they're illusionists.
Well, that's true, but it's possible because this word sorcery, he had some sort of access to some kind of a cult activity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But where you see his pride poke out is at the end of verse 9, saying that he himself was somebody great. Right. I'm the greatest.
I'm the greatest. And in 10, this man is the power of God. Not this man has the power of God. Right. He is the power of God. Okay. Did you look at the Greek word there?
No. It is so interesting to me. I looked, what is this great power? It's the Greek words, Megastunimus. Oh, Megadunimus. Literally the giant, energetic, active power.
Yeah, yeah. And those two were just, well, we still say something is mega when it's huge. And dunimus is that word for inherent explosive power. Power, like dynamite. Like dynamite from it. So that just kind of made me laugh when I looked up those words.
Yeah. And so Luke describes clearly here 11 and says, look, they paid attention to him because for a long time he amazed them with his magic. He had something because of that. But, and there's that big turn word, but when Philip came along and preached the good news, mentioned the name of Jesus, that was a whole different thing. And I'm sure he was doing signs and wonders too, but something there really kind of catches your eye when he says when he mentions the name of Jesus, they were baptized.
There's power in the name of Jesus. So things changed when Philip came into town. And both men and women were baptized.
I'm glad he mentions that. Both men and women, it just wasn't just men. And even, believe it or not, the guy who knows how to fool people who would know if he was being fooled by Philip, the guy who should know the most, he actually believes himself and is baptized. The question is, and it becomes clear later, what exactly does he believe?
Because I was attracted by the kind of the use of the same words. The people were amazed with Simon's magic, but here we have Simon himself amazed by the great miracles he's seeing Philip do. So it's pretty clear that certainly what he believed was Philip had access to a greater power than he had. He had some sort of magic that Philip. Well, because he was amazed.
Simon himself didn't know. Yeah, he was amazed. There's that show that we watch from time to time on YouTube where the two professional magicians ask up and coming magicians to show them a trick that they cannot figure out. Because almost nine times out of 10, they know how it's going on. So when someone does something and they know they're being fooled, but they don't know how, the amazement on their face is really kind of, these guys should know. They should know when they're being fooled. And that's the situation that Simon is in right here. He should know whether he's being fooled because he's a professional at doing it. He's a professional fooler. But instead of calling it out, he says, no, I believe what he's saying. And so he believes and is baptized. But again, we've got to hold that loosely for a second. What did he believe?
Because his history as it comes up in a second here, it kind of makes you wonder about that. Do you want to go on to 14? Yeah, I will. So verse 14. Now, when the apostles at Jerusalem, right, this is the original guys, the 11, heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Yeah, let's stop there. Yeah, let's pause there for a minute. Yeah, that's interesting. So Peter and John had been in Samaria before they had been with Jesus.
Right, right. And they hear that something's happening in Samaria. So they are actually they're sent to them, Peter and John, they hear about it, they send Peter and John up to go check out what's going on. And they find out there's no evidence of the Holy Spirit in all of this stuff.
So they take care of that. And up to this point, the evidence of the Holy Spirit has been what? Speaking in tongues.
Speaking in tongues, all the way from the day of Pentecost. Right, right. So they don't see that. Even though that's not mentioned here.
No, no, no, it's not. But it is an interesting time and this has caused a lot of fascinating discussion between people about the fact that here are people who are genuine believers but don't have the Holy Spirit yet, until Peter and John come up and tell them, well that should be part of the process. And so it happens when they come up. Well, it's interesting that this is really the first organized preaching of the gospel in a foreign place. And Jesus had said at the beginning of Acts, you will be my witnesses in Judea and in Samaria and then on to the ends of the earth. So they had already been witnessing in Judea, got into great trouble and so were dispersed. So here we have them moving into Samaria.
So this is the first time really that the gospel is coming to an you and other people. And so that probably plays into why Peter and John came. Jesus said to Peter, I'm giving you the keys of the kingdom. You're the one that's going to open the door to the Gentiles.
Yeah. And there's another part here that's, and this is a little speculative on my part, but you'll see in a second here that Peter and John have a very successful ministry throughout all of Samaria pretty soon here. It could very well be that with them coming up from Jerusalem, which is the high holy monkey mucks coming up from Jerusalem, actually always come down from Jerusalem. But the fact that the center of Christianity, the followers of Jesus themselves, not a secondary one like Phillip, come up, it's like a goodwill tour in a way. So they follow up, the Holy Spirit comes because of that. But then I think because of what happens here, it lays the groundwork of respect for the other Samaritans at the end of doing ministry with.
That would not have happened if Phillip just kept doing what he was doing in Samaria. It needed the apostles and their connection as first line witnesses to Jesus. First generation witnesses.
Yeah. So I think that's part of what's going on here. I think that's why the Holy Spirit was withheld until they came up. So it would be an obvious open door to introduce who they are and actually lay the foundation for more evangelism from them in just a second. But it's important that we notice here how it is described the coming of the Holy Spirit. So Peter and John come down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen. This is very passive on the part of Peter and John. They're not bringing the Holy Spirit.
That's right. The Spirit is active himself. And it says when they laid their hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit. It's not Peter and John that said, here's our hands, boom, we give you the Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself will come at this laying on of hands, this extension of the authority of Jesus.
Yeah. And you're right to point out in 15, it's a very passive thing. They pray that the Holy Spirit might come. There's no assurance in that statement, but they just pray for it. They pray that it'll happen.
They don't conjure him up, which is important in this story because that's what Simon had been doing. Super important. And we're going to see that in a minute. Well, let's just go to that.
So we're in 18. I'll read that. What do you say?
Okay. So now, when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money saying, hey, give me this power also so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter for your heart. Your heart is not right before God. So repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.
For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. And Simon answered, well, pray for me to the Lord that nothing of what you have said may come upon me. But you see, it's interesting because we were talking about the fact that Peter and John can't just conjure up the Holy Spirit by doing the right formula or the right incantation. But when Simon sees it, he sees the laying on of hands and says, aha, there's something about the laying on of hands.
I got to buy that secret. Right. Because they prayed before and the Spirit didn't come. But when they did the hands thing, you know, so show me how, which is actually a typical response from an illusionist magician. Show me how you manipulated this. It's literally a hands thing. It's a hands thing. Show me how you did that.
So when I do it, it'll work for me too. Peter's response to him is just amazing though. And this sounds to me like Peter's response to Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. He looks right into their heart by the power of the Spirit and says, your heart is not right. And again, the issue is lying to God about money. There it is.
Either I can deceive God about my money or I can buy God's power with my money. Darn money. Isn't it interesting too that he was pretty closely, Simon was pretty closely affiliated with Philip for a while. He hung around. And Philip didn't spot this. Isn't that interesting. Now Simon might have changed. It might have taken this event for Simon to really show his colors. It didn't become apparent because the Holy Spirit had not fallen. But I also, going back to Ananias and Sapphira from chapter 5, I also wonder whether it was the relative maturity of Peter and John so that when they came, God could use their discernment in a different way that Philip couldn't. That's an interesting thought.
I really don't know. But it is interesting that Philip didn't catch this because what Peter says is so scathing. Your heart is not right before God. Well, he calls him a repent of this wickedness. That wickedness is this evil twist in your thinking. It's a wicked mind. Yeah. And I mentioned about Simon's pride a little while ago.
Everyone thought I was great because of this. Right. Clearly that's what he's aiming at doing here. He is still seeking power and control. That is really what the occult is all about. It's seeking to manipulate power for one's own glory. Yeah, and building prestige and celebrity so that people honor you as being some kind of specially connected guy to God.
And I have something you don't have. This made me think of an acquaintance of ours who allegedly came to the Lord but continued to hold on to this need, just like Simon, to be someone who is special and different and kind of called down in a different kind of way. In a way, you could tell it was really to protect his sense of, I don't know, specialness amongst people. He wanted that special edge that people didn't have.
He knew something they didn't know and that kind of thing. That motivation is just very clearly here in Simon's case that's what he wants. And he's basically building up his own pride using the ministry itself. Now that also is a danger amongst modern celebrity pastors. Oh boy is it. And so this is not a foreign concept where people use purportedly their connection with God to enhance their own celebrity and their own sense of respect from people and you think it gets you somewhere.
They work hard to give the impression of having great spiritual power for the sake of their own personal gain. But these two expressions that Peter uses, I see you're in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. Oh my gosh. That's bad. The bitter, bitter gall of jealousy, I think, is just making Simon bitter, that he has no access to this power that these guys have. And until these guys came in town, including Philip.
It wasn't an issue. Yeah, it was a one man show in town. Now he's not a one man show. And everybody thought he was the great megastudamus. He's been usurped.
Yeah, exactly. But this bond of iniquity, Peter says, you are still enslaved to your sin. You are still enslaved in unrighteousness. Yeah, it has you. You don't have it.
It has you. But his response in 24 is hopeful. Pray for me to the Lord that nothing but what you said may come upon me.
Well, I don't know if that's hopeful. Because Peter had said to him, now pray to the Lord if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. He's urging Simon to put his own heart right before the Lord.
But in the New American Standard when you get into verse 24, it says, pray for me yourself to the Lord. Like, I'm not going to do that. I'm just fed up with you guys. So that's reading a little bit into the text. But we don't know what the end of Simon's story was. I'm just saying there's a glimmer of hope there. I don't know if he's just mouthing the words or if he's sincere. Well, he's saying I'm not going to pray. You pray. Well, I don't think he's saying I'm not going to pray.
He's saying pray with me. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, he's not denying he's going to pray. But anyway, we don't know.
We don't know. But it does cast a shadow on Simon's conversion and all that kind of stuff. But thank God that he sends his men Peter and John who threw his spirit inside of them.
They have great discernment. They understand where Simon's coming from. Because if this hadn't been nipped in the bud right here, who knows what Simon could have done to undermine all the evangelism in the area after that.
Well, let's finish up the last couple of verses, 25. Now, when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, we're talking about Peter and John, they returned to Jerusalem preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. So not just this one, but they went back home to Jerusalem and in the process stopped at every place they went and talked about Jesus. And probably passed through Sychar where they had been before, where Jacob's will was. Could very well be.
Yeah, could very well be. So let's go see those guys again. It's interesting to me that Peter has not yet had this specific call to the Gentiles. Right. That's going to happen several chapters down the road. But here he is leading the charge to proclaim the word in Samaria, following along with Philip. And how do we not know that for Peter, it was quite developmental for him to see Philip having success in Samaria.
That's a good thought. So that his heart's more open than it was before this passage about the Samaritans. I mean, so much so that when they went back home, instead of just keeping their eyes down and not making eye contact back to Jerusalem, they're actually engaging the villages. Yeah. Well, we know Philip was a Greek speaking Jew. So he already was a little bit more cosmopolitan than Peter, right?
A little bit more comfortable among people who were other. Right, right. Well, listen, next time when we come back, we're going to continue with Philip. We got part two of Philip, but an amazing thing happens. I mean, Philip is so successful in Samaria. God decides, I'm taking you out of Samaria. I'm going to move you somewhere else.
But what he does with them is just astonishing. But I admit, this is not how I'd move my chess pieces around the board. But you could read ahead.
But he pulls Philip out and we'll find out what happened. And I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy.
And this is More Than Ink. And join us next time. And we'll see you then. Bye. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself, and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Well, I like it. That's probably good enough. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Rhythm City.
