Only Believe!

“When they had brought [Paul and Silas] before the magistrates, they said, “These men, these Jews, are disturbing our city and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.” (Acts 16:20-22)

Paul’s trip to the Roman colony of Philippi began with him having a vision of a man pleading with him to come over there and help them. When he got to Philippi though, the only people Paul could connect with were all women! When he did finally meet the men, things did not go well.

The transition point, bizarrely, was a young slave girl who started following Paul and his friends, crying “These men are slaves of the Most High God who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17). We’re told that Paul found this ‘annoying’ (Acts 16:18) which is a poor translation. Paul wasn’t so much pissed off with the girl as disturbed. The young woman was in spiritual distress. We’re told that she (literally) had a ‘Python spirit’ that brought her owners a great deal of money.

In Greek religion, the Python spirit was connected to the oracle at Delphi and to the god, Apollo. The term “Python” comes from the mythological serpent that Apollo supposedly defeated at Delphi. This spirit was associated with fortune-telling and divination and, presumably, it was these special abilities that generated an income for the girl’s owners. When Paul invoked the name of Jesus to liberate the girl, she lost not only the spirit. She lost her income-generating potential. That didn’t go down well with her owners.

When Paul and Silas were dragged before the local authorities they were referred to as ‘these Jews’, and it’s tempting to see this as classic anti-Semitism. The irony though is that the charge against Paul was that he was being anti-Roman by advocating “customs that are not lawful for us” (Acts 16:21). The charge was outrageous, of course. The real issue was money, and they all knew that. Even so, Paul and Silas were beaten up and imprisoned.

This story raises so many questions for me:

• What was the point of liberating the young girl from her spirit if they couldn’t liberate her from slavery? Weren’t the Apostles making things worse for her?
• Didn’t the violence Paul encountered suggest to him that his dream about the Philippian man asking for his help might have just been a dream and not a message from God?
• Did almost being lynched as a foreigner make Paul question his calling as Apostle to the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:8)?

The racial tensions displayed in Philippi highlight what a crazy undertaking it was for Paul, as a Jew, to lob into a Roman colony, and start preaching about a crucified Jewish Messiah. Did he really expect people to respond enthusiastically?

Religion in the first century was entirely tribal. If you were a Roman, your religion was the Roman religion with all its special gods, stories and rituals. If you were Greek, your religion was Greek, and if you were Jewish, your religion was Jewish. People couldn’t change their religion without changing their race. Religion was something you were born into. Did Paul somehow think he could change all that?

We take it as self-evident nowadays that religion is a personal thing – that it’s a matter of belief and, as individuals, we can believe whatever we want. I don’t think this concept of religion even existed prior to the birth of the church. In the first century, your religion was as fixed as your race and your gender. Paul’s belief that Jesus was for everybody was radical. This wasn’t just a new religion. It was a totally new concept of how religion worked!

Paul’s stay in Philippi did end on a positive note. Paul’s jailor ends up taking him and Silas back to his own house where he fed them, washed their wounds, and then asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30)

Paul’s response – “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31) – is as instructive in what it doesn’t say as in what it does. Paul is telling his new Roman brother, ‘You don’t have to stop being Roman. You don’t have to change your culture or racial identity. You just have to embrace the truth. That’s all that is needed!’

Paul’s emphasis on sola fides – by faith alone – was proclaimed as something that could unify all people. Paul’s God wasn’t caught up on race, class, skin colour or gender. All of us who ‘believe in the Lord Jesus’ are one.

It didn’t take long, of course, for the church to codify ‘belief’ into a series of increasingly complex creeds that did just as good a job of excluding people as did the tribal barriers that Paul was familiar with. Even so, even two thousand years of ecclesiastical embellishments can never really dull the Gospel’s clarion call:

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.”
(Acts 16:31)

Our Sunday Eucharist

We enjoyed another wonderful Sunday Eucharist last weekend with Doug Pyeatt and Rob Gilland joining me on the panel and a great online team sharing their wisdom via YouTube and Facebook. Two shorts from the broadcast are pasted below. The other shorts are on the Sunday Eucharist Instagram page, and the entire replay is there for you on our YouTube channel.

I want to close by sharing these snippets from our “Rise up for Syria” rally, held last Saturday. The video below is of my own 5-minute speech. There were better speakers on the day and, as soon as I’ve processed their videos, I’ll post them to the www.prayersforsyria.com website.

It was good to touch base with old Syrian friends though, as I said in my address, it felt like catching up at a funeral. Many of those present were indeed mourning loved ones lost to the recent violence. I wish we’d had more people in attendance. Even so, I appreciate that the Syrian tragedy is being overshadowed by the genocide being carried out in neighbouring Gaza.

It’s rather creepy to see how various Western leaders and their media are now being critical of Israel and finally referring to the massacres in Gaza as a ‘genocide’. Norman Finkelstein is probably right in interpreting this as rats leaving the sinking ship (see here). The murderous actions of the Israeli government have become so completely indefensible that no politician wants to be remembered as having supported the genocide. Even the ever-irritating Piers Morgan seems to be advocating for Palestine now (see here)!

Of course, while the world’s governments and their media are starting to expess concern, it’s not being accompanied by action. No one has committed peace-keeping troops to Gaza to defend the remaining civilian population from extermination. No country (apart from Yemen) seems to be doing anything!

Of course, as followers of Jesus we must look for the light shining in the darkness, and I saw it shining brightly this week through my friend, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Mairead Maguire, in her passionate endorsement of upcoming March to Gaza, scheduled for June 12th. Pray for the march. Pray for Mairead. Click here.

Keep praying. Never lose hope. We’ll do our best to keep you up to date through www.israelandpalestine.org and our other channels. We are overdue for a miracle.

Your brother in the Good Fight,

www.christianswithdepression.com

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