7/21/2023 0 Comments Lessons from simon the sorcererOf such a sort were Elymas, the sorcerer whom Paul found squatting at the ear of the Roman Governor of Cyprus the magicians at Ephesus the vagabond Jews exorcists, who with profitable eclecticism, as they thought, tried to add the name of Jesus as one more spell to their conjurations and, finally, this Simon the sorcerer. What a fall from Israel's destination, and what a lesson for the stewards of the 'oracles of God'! Sadly enough, they were mostly Jews, who prostituted their clearer knowledge to personal ends, and having tacked on to it some theosophic rubbish which they had learned from Alexandria, or mysticism which had filtered to them from the East, or magic arts from Phrygia, went forth, the only missionaries that Judaism sent out, to bewilder and torture men's minds. So we find the early preachers of Christianity coming into frequent contact with pretenders to magical powers. Partly deceived and partly deceiving, he is as sure a sign of the lack of profound religious conviction and of the presence of unsatisfied religious aspirations in men's souls, as the stormy petrel or the floating seaweed is of a tempest on the seas. Demand creates supply, and the magician and miracle-worker, the possessor of mysterious ways into the Unknown, is never far off at such a time. The one true bond which unites God and man being obscured, and to the consciousness of many snapped, men's minds become the prey of visionary terrors. Such a period is ever one of predisposition to superstition. ![]() Then, as now, men's minds were seething and unsettled, and that unrest which is the precursor of great changes in intellectual and spiritual habitudes affected the civilised world. ![]() The era of the birth of Christianity was one of fermenting opinion and decaying faith. Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts - Alexander Maclaren'Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.' - ACTS viii.21.
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