Here's the story:
Acts 8:9-25 (New International Version)
Simon the Sorcerer
9Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, "This man is the divine power known as the Great Power." 11They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. 12But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
14When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into[a] the name of the Lord Jesus. 17Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money 19and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."
20Peter answered: "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin."
24Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me."
25When they had testified and proclaimed the word of the Lord, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.
Here's the question: We know that Simon the Sorcerer was greedy in that he tried to "sell the gift of the Holy Spirit" but what else was his problem?
Discuss!
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4 comments:
"your heart is not right before God" -- full of bitterness! I speculate, perhaps he wanted things back to the way they were, when he was the hero, at the start of the story.
So maybe he was jealous? That's a great observation! I haven't thought about that before. Thank you for that.
I was going to say jealousy too, but then I was reminded of something that happened to me years ago, and I would also have to say he enjoyed the 'power' to be able to tell others things they wouldn't even know about themselves. I used to be a loan closer at a title company and I was closing a loan for a 'fortune teller'. Because she had bad credit, the only loan her loan officer could set her up with included a 3% prepayment penalty if she paid off the loan within the first 5 years, and her loan officer had told me to make sure she knew this, as she was going to be refinancing again in a couple months to get a better interest rate. The whole time I was trying to explain the documents to her, she kept asking if I wanted to know how many children I was going to have, and other such questions. She was so into the 'power' she thought she had over me that she paid no attention to what I was saying. Several months later when she got socked with several thousand dollars in prepayment penalties, she called my boss in a fit of rage and went on for 45 minutes solid about how I never told her about the prepayment penalty.
It sounds like this lady's psychic skills were a little lacking...but I guess that's besides the point. Thank you for this story .
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