This post by christinecoltman was originally published at GRACE PLACE
Acts 8:1-25
Wizards and Weirdos; Transformed Hearts
We are continuing in our series working through the book of Acts; we can’t cover it all in one year, so we are dipping in and out as we look at some of the key moments in this exciting book. Remember, it was written by Luke to be a continuation of his first book, the gospel of Luke; just as the gospel describes what Jesus taught and did, Acts looks at the continuing teaching and ‘doings’ of Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit. After Hollie’s introduction, Anne talked us through how the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, and the role of the person of the Holy Spirit in pointing us to Jesus, equipping us and enabling us to share the gospel and uniting us with our Saviour. Last month with Jill, we looked at the first persecution of a Christ-follower; Stephen was brutally murdered for pointing out the resistance of the Pharisees and scribes to the work of the Holy Spirit. We were challenged to cultivate that open and tender heart, and to truly ‘see’ Jesus and reflect him.
We come to today’s passage; if you met with your study buddy you will know that this is the beginning of the fulfilment of what Jesus said in the great commission in Matthew 28; “Go and make disciples of ALL nations” and again in Acts 1:8, right before he was taken up to heaven he said “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”. It is so exciting that we see these words starting to come true.
Let’s read Acts 8:1-4.
Scattered
We’re going to start by setting the scene. Without a committee or organisation being set up, the gospel is spreading. And why? The threat of persecution and intimidation. With the death of Stephen, the new believers are forced out of Jerusalem and into the surrounding areas of Judea and Samaria. Look more closely at the language used to describe this ‘scattering’; the persecution ‘broke out’ and it was ‘on that day’ with all the ferocity of a sudden storm. Can you imagine the fear, the panic? ‘Quick, we have to get out of here! What is God doing? Why is this happening?’
What is amazing is that in the midst of that fear and chaos, these ordinary new believers flee, but don’t go silent! I sometimes wonder what my response would be to testing like this – I think I might go quiet and keep my head down. But no, these guys take the message of the cross with them. Luke uses the word ‘evangelizo’ five times in this chapter, meaning ‘bringing good news’; different to the word used to describe the ‘teaching’ of the apostles. The word ‘shared’ would be a better translation than ‘preached’ here in v4; that fits with the idea of this being ordinary believers like you and me, filled with and emboldened by the Holy Spirit, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ wherever they went. One speaker I listened to talked about this ‘sharing’ like a ‘leaking’ of the gospel; these people were so filled to the brim with the love of Jesus and his message, that they were embodying being the fragrance of Christ wherever they went. What a picture of the transformation of the Holy Spirit! God, in his sovereignty, taking ordinary people, transforming their hearts by the gift of his Spirit, so that despite intense persecution the message of the saving work of his son is spread further and further afield!
It is that picture of hearts transformed by the Holy Spirit that I want to focus on today. We will see two different responses to the message of Jesus Christ in this chapter; firstly the Samaritans and then Simon (or as one speaker coined it – weirdos and a wizard!). Let’s read Acts 8:5-8 as we consider the response of the Samaritans.
Read Acts 8:5-8.
Samaritans
Now we meet Philip; this is not Philip the disciple of Jesus. This is Philip, a Greek-speaking Jew, one of seven deacons appointed to help out with the issue of distributing food to the believers in the early church; we read about this last month at the start of Acts 6. He was not originally a preacher – he was a do-er! However, the Bible says he was “full of the Spirit and wisdom”.
Philip is one of the Jews who has to flee for his life, and he runs north from Jerusalem, straight into enemy territory. I think we can find it hard to imagine to level of boldness it took, for Philip to even contemplate heading in the direction of Samaria. Perhaps it was that his brain was scrambled by the persecution and he just found himself there. Or maybe it was intentional and he had Jesus’ words ringing in his ears “you will be my witnesses in Judea, Samaria…” and he jumped at the chance to make this reality! We don’t know. But it is helpful for us in our understanding just to refresh our historical knowledge here. The Jews and the Samaritans had hated each other for hundreds and hundreds of years! Why?
Do you remember Hollie’s great map last year when we looked at Israel’s history as part of our study of Hosea? There was the great divide after King Solomon’s death when the monarchy broke down; the north of Israel was made up of 10 tribes who made their new capital in Samaria, and in the south, the two tribes that formed Judea continued to have Jerusalem as their capital. Things only got worse when the north fell (remember all Hosea’s prophecies?!) and Assyria conquered in 722BC; the King of Assyria took a lot of the Jews there captive, and repopulated the area with foreigners. The remaining Jews did what God had forbidden; they intermarried, and thus they were seen as half-breeds and heretics by pure Jews. Strong words! Real hatred! The apostle John explains it simply in his gospel (John 4:9) “Jews do not associate with Samaritans”. This partly explains why in Luke’s gospel (Luke 9:51-56) son-of-thunder-John is heard requesting to call down fire upon the Samaritan village that rejected Jesus, such was his hard feeling!
Yet that was not Jesus’ heart for the Samaritans. Yes, they were seen as ‘weirdos’ by the Jews; hated, mistrusted and NOT the kind of people who they’d want to associate with. But God had a bigger plan to bring these guys into his family; to unite them all and prove there was no boundary to the saving grace of Jesus’ message.
Receptive hearts
When we look at the Samaritan’s response to Philip’s teaching we see something unexpected; we see receptive, open hearts. Very different to the response Stephen had from the Jewish leaders in the previous chapter! Look at verse 6 and note the verbs; the Samaritan people ‘heard’, they ‘saw’ and they ‘attended’. This shows us they were receptive to this news. Remember Jesus’ teaching of the four soils; these guys were soil that was ready to receive the good news.
More than this, we know they were receptive, because of what we read in the account of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:4-42. She herself said “I know that Messiah is coming” and because of her conversation with Jesus; his insight, and his clear declaration of “I am he”, she believed him and spread his message to her town. You can imagine that rumours would have spread of the coming of the Messiah, so these crowds may have been curious, and expectant. If you look ahead with me in Acts 8 to verse 12, we can see the result of Philip’s evangelism (“But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”); they heard, received, believed and were baptised. And it says in verse 8 “there was great joy in that city”. Hearts and lives were being changed. Transformation had begun.
United by the Holy Spirit
But something was still missing. Read v14-17.
One commentator says that verse 16 is ‘perhaps the most extraordinary statement in Acts’. Why? Because it begs the question to be asked – how could the Samaritans have believed and been baptised without receiving the Spirit? We know from God’s word, that when someone believes in the saving work of Jesus Christ; his death on the cross for their sin and his triumph through the resurrection, at that point of repentance and faith, they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. According to Peter’s first sermon in Acts, forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit are twin initial blessings which God bestows on everyone whom he calls and who repents, believes and is baptised (Acts 2:38-39 “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”.)
I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole here, but it is such a strange circumstance that it needs addressing briefly. Firstly we need to know that this was NOT normal. This example of two stages of believing and then separately receiving the Holy Spirit is the only time in Scripture this is done and is not to be taken as the norm for us today. Remember Hollie saying Acts is a narrative and cannot all be applied to our situation? This is a good example. You can almost hear the surprise in Luke’s tone as he writes that the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon the Samaritans.
This unusual set of events brings about two things – the transformation of the Jewish believers hearts, and the unity of the new church.
United – Transformation of the apostles
The Holy Spirit wasn’t just at work in the hearts of new believers, but the old ones too! (If you can call them ‘old believers’!) One commentator talks about how the Jewish apostles Peter and John “hot-foot it” all the way from Jerusalem. As this was the first time the gospel had been received outside of Jerusalem (and inside Samaria), we wonder if they were coming to check if this was authentic faith. In coming to Samaria, there is a whole lot of heart-transformation going on for the Jewish Christians! Remember before, I mentioned John, the ‘son of thunder’ wanting to call down fire on a Samaritan village? Here he is, coming and laying his hands on those-once-his-enemies in order for them to receive the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine the mix of feelings these apostles would have been dealing with as they approached Samaria? What the conversation would have been like between Peter and John?! The disbelief “really?! This message is for…even THEM??” And here they were, with Jesus’ words ringing in their ears “you will be my witnesses…in Samaria”, with hope and excitement building in their hearts as they walked into enemy territory. The same Holy Spirit, received by them in that upper room at Pentecost, was working in their hearts; healing division, transforming those who were once self-centred and insecure into courageous and sacrificial servants. They were willing to go where they once would never have dreamt of going, in order to spread the love and message of Jesus with the crazy, beautiful idea of UNITY.
Unity of believers
The other reason I think we have a non-normative event going on here, is exactly that; unity. There was a great danger here that the new Samaritan believers could become a separate faction of ‘Samaritan Christianity’ as opposed to ‘Jewish Christianity’. Division had happened before and it could certainly happen again. So it seems reasonable to suggest that in view of their background, and to avoid the potential disaster of the church being divided just as it was getting started, that God deliberately but temporarily withheld the Holy Spirit from these new converts. In doing so, as the apostles prayed, laid hands on their former enemies and the Holy Spirit was received by them, the early church was united. This was a public sign to everyone, to Jewish Christians and to the Samaritans, that these guys were to be welcomed into the redeemed community on precisely the same terms as all Jewish converts. What a strikingly visual picture of unity! There was now one body, because they all received the same salvation and the same Spirit.
So having looked at the transformation of these ‘weirdos’ into joyful, believing, Jesus-followers, we are now going to turn our attention to the ‘wizard’ in this passage; the sorceror Simon and look at his response to the gospel.
Let’s go back and read Simon’s story. Read Acts 8:9-13.
Simon
As we see in those opening words, ‘for some time’ before Philip arrived in Samaria, the area had been under a very different kind of influence. Simon was a sorceror; a magician who performed amazing signs. He could have been just a trickster, but it is much more likely that he was operating under Satanic-power. Simon was making a living from his magic; more than that he was well known in that part of the world for his ‘mighty acts of magic’; a historical record from that time recalls a Simon from Samaria who was ‘considered a god’, which matches the exclamations of the people in v10. Simon also had a very high opinion of himself. He had a boastful heart. We can see as we look at this passage that his motives are based around himself; his reputation, prestige, power, authority.
But, of all the people in Samaria, why does Luke focus on this one man? I think he wants to paint a picture of how it is possible to have all the outward appearance of belief but have the wrong motive; to warn his readers against the dangers of belief without true salvation or transformation. We’ll look at both these things; how he believes, but does not allow his heart to be truly changed.
Simon believes but not to saving faith
Once Philip arrives in town and begins preaching, we observe Simon’s reaction. He seems genuinely astounded that someone has a greater power than he does. And he’s intrigued! He wants to know what this power is! He follows Philip everywhere! The Scripture tells us he’s also astonished – isn’t that ironic? The one who is used to amazing others, is amazed himself. John Piper talks about how that amazement becomes the basis for Simon’s belief; there is nothing written here that gives us any reason to think that Simon’s initial belief was not genuine belief. But crucially, it was not enough to just believe in what he saw. He wasn’t sceptical, he accepted the supernatural. And he believed, but not to the point of saving faith. James 2:19 talks about how even the demons believe in God (and shudder); it is possible to believe but not to saving faith.
John Piper uses a clever illustration that really helped me to understand this further. How can Simon believe but not be saved?
It is an experience every mother/grandma/carer of toddlers has probably had. Suppose you have a one-year-old child sitting on your lap and suddenly in the window there is a beautiful bird and you hold out your hand to point at the bird and say, “Look, look at the bird!” What does the child look at? He looks at your hand and the sign you are making with your fingers. He might even try to imitate the sign by putting out his index finger. He sees the sign. He is excited because you are excited. He joins in imitating the sign as best he can. But the problem is he never sees the bird. The whole point of the sign is missed.
That is what happened to Simon here. He saw the signs that Philip was doing. They were better than his own magic. He got excited about those signs. He followed Philip around and wanted to imitate them. But he never saw the bird in the window. He never saw the ugliness of his own sin, the need for repentance, and the glory of Christ in the gospel who forgives and makes us new and clean. You see, the truth is, Simon’s heart was never captured by the beauty of the gospel. His heart was utterly captivated by the signs and wonders he saw. As we look at the next part of the passage, his true motives for believing are revealed.
Read Acts 8:18-25.
A heart not transformed
Luke is careful to capture Simon’s response to the laying on of hands and the outworking of the reception of the Holy Spirit in the new Samaritan believers. Simon was once again amazed and wanted this for himself. His motives were seeking the POWER he saw displayed and he wanted the ATTENTION that was now on Christ. His understanding was so limited that he thought the gift of the Holy Spirit was something that could be bought.
With Holy Spirit eyes, Peter sees into Simon’s heart and gives a clear and necessarily brutal response to his offer of money in order to receive the Holy Spirit. He is literally saying ‘to hell with your money, because that is where you’re going’… ooofff!! Hard-hitting! But you cannot BUY a GIFT God wants to give! You can’t bargain with God, not after He has given us the ultimate gift of His son’s life in exchange for ours!! The Holy Spirit is not available for purchase.
This is more than a misunderstanding on Simon’s part. When Peter says in v 21 “You have neither part nor lot in this matter”; he is talking of the matter of saving faith. Peter sees that Simon’s heart is not right with God; he still needs to repent. He is still enslaved in sin and not yet a believer. There is no transformation of his heart. The root of the problem is there in v21 as Peter says “your heart is not right before God”. Translated, this actually means ‘Simon your heart is not straight’. You have a crooked heart; it is selfish, ambitious, vain, proud and bitter.
We have already talked about the parable of the four soils this evening; the Samaritans had soil ready to receive the word. This kind of belief Simon displayed reminds me of the soil in the parable that has rocks in it; Jesus says in Luke 8:13 the seeds that fell “on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away”.
Peter tells him what he needs to do; REPENT and PRAY. Why? Repentance is at the core of our salvation; we can only know we need saving, when we know what we are being saved FROM. When we see the mess of our hearts; the sin, the selfishness, we know we need to be made right. It starts with falling to our knees and acknowledging our brokenness. I think that is why Peter calls him to pray; prayer is how we receive God’s supernatural help when we pray through the Spirit God has gifted us with as his adopted children. Peter is giving Simon a life-line here; there is still a chance for restoration and forgiveness!
Sadly Simon’s response is to neither repent OR pray. He doesn’t seem to have any confidence in his own ability to pray and he asks Peter to pray for him instead. He seems to be more concerned for the consequence of his sin, rather than sorry for the sin itself. He’s more interested in avoiding God’s punishment, rather than receiving God’s forgiveness. So sad! What a contrast to Stephen; Simon wasn’t consumed by Christ, he was consumed by himself! We are left ‘hanging’ by Luke in what happens next; he doesn’t tell us the end of the story, and I think that is because he wants his readers to examine their own hearts.
REFLECTION
I have been thinking a lot in my preparation for this evening about my own heart response to the work of the Holy Spirit in this passage. The Holy Spirit is clearly at work in Acts 8;
…in how the Samaritans responded to Jesus with joy;
…in how the apostles grew in faith to accept their previous enemies;
…in the unity displayed as divisions are healed;
…in how Peter sees right through Simon’s self-interest and rejection of Jesus through Holy Spirit -eyes.
Transformation… or lack of it, is evident.
God has been teaching me much in this season about the transformation of my heart. I have been challenged particularly by the softening of the heart of the apostle John, who went from being that fiery son-of-thunder, to coming and laying his hands on his enemies for them to receive the same gift he’d already been given. It is so beautiful when we see the fruit of transformation in our own lives and the lives of those around us; a cause for great joy and encouragement! I thought I’d share a bit of testimony to finish before we pray. Some of you already know this story so apologies you’re hearing it again, but I need to keep telling myself how the Holy Spirit does GREAT things, even in me, when I ask him for help and lean in to what he is doing in me!
Some of you will know that I do not do conflict; I would rather run/hide. In my marriage that often looks like the prickly-hedgehog approach to conflict; the silent treatment and avoiding eye contact! I have been working on this for YEARS as it does not honour God or my poor husband! Back in September, we had been gearing our youngest up to start swimming lessons; he’d been highly anxious about it, and we were on egg shells as to how the first session would go. R was in charge of the swimming bag – it was hanging on the front door handle ready to go. We get to the pool in plenty of time, into the changing rooms, open the bag…no swimsuit. NO SWIMSUIT! What???! Called him; he’d forgotten to put it in the bag. I can’t tell you how frustrated with him I was. SO CROSS! We had no time to go and get it, a new one from the desk costed £22, and poor C was so upset after the ramping up of pressure and energy just getting him there. We made the decision just to go home, and in the car I was swallowing down rage and just about stopping myself saying anything negative in front of the boys. Once we started driving, as I started praying out loud “Lord you’re going to have to help me, I’m so so cross”, I began to see the ugliness of the bitter hatred forming in my heart. I asked the Holy Spirit out loud to help me, because in my own strength I knew I couldn’t walk through the front door and not let rip at my husband.
Honestly, it was such a miracle; after repenting of my bitterness, and asking the Holy Spirit to work in my heart because I knew I needed him so badly, I was able to walk through the front door and there was literally no resentment; I was completely floored! God is SO GOOD! It has become a line in the sand for me, and even for the boys who knew how angry I’d been.
I want to say I’ve nailed it and learned that lesson, but no. I have also seen times in the last two months since then, when so stuck in my own self-interest and selfish motives I couldn’t pray, so the prickly hedgehog approach was back with vengeance. I’m not proud of that at all; there are no situations that justify sin in my own heart!
What encourages me though, is all the promises we are given in God’s Word. Scriptures like:
…‘He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion’ (Phil 1:6)
…‘His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life’ (2 Peter 1:3) and
…‘ask and it will be given to you’ (Matt 7:7).
When we ask for something in line with God’s will, he will answer! And it IS his will that we are made like Jesus; 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified” so we can be confident when we ask the Holy Spirit for help we will receive it. Don’t hear me wrong here – we are not sanctifying ourselves; this is not depending on us. As Eddie once said, the Holy Spirit does the work, but we must collaborate with him! And Reinier said yesterday to me, ‘the sword of the Spirit needs to be picked up, in order to slay any dragons!’
So although I’m learning transformation can be a step-by-step slow process in dealing with the sin in my heart, by journeying with the Holy Spirit, and leaning on him, and leaning on the totally-and-utterly-completed atonement of Jesus for me on the cross, I will be made more like him!
We can’t do any of this in our own strength; but we can choose to give our hearts fully to the God who made us for relationship with him. Have you allowed him the space to reveal what he wants to do in transforming your heart? Let us not shut him down as Simon did, but joyfully embrace the gift of our salvation as the Samaritans did. The same Spirit that was at work transforming the hearts of those in Acts 8 is still working today; what is he revealing to your heart?