Month: June 2025

6 Now when they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus, 7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so his name is translated) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

Acts 13:6-8, NKJV.

How did such a terrible man manage to secure such a prime place by the side of such a noble man, a lofty political leader?  What was a sorcerer looking for in such a stately place that was not his typical dark altar?

Sergius Paulus, the proconsul (or governor), was “an intelligent man” – so said the report about him.  To be intelligent means to be sensible, wise, sagacious, careful, learned.  What happened to that intelligence and sagacity that seemed inactivated when it came to that sorcerer and soul-enemy?  Where was Sergius Paulus’s wisdom and carefulness when such a dark man began to position himself so close?  Some Bible translations say that he was an “assistant” to the governor; a PA (Personal Assistant), we would say.  That was how close, yet the intelligent ruler seemed blinded and fooled – by a sorcerer.

A Roman governor was no mean man, yet this one appeared to have been blindsided where it mattered most to him.  Human wisdom and political skill seemed to have been numbed by subtle bewitchment.  Natural endowment could not help where spiritual discernment was needed.  A school certificate was great, but it had its limits when it came to dealing with sorcerers.  Roman soldiers were great bodyguards, but not in matters metaphysical, where the adversaries were spirits and their arrows invisible to the naked eye.

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29.  The Samaritan Puzzle

It remains to clear the puzzle that started this trip: the apparent differences in approach to marriage, by Jesus in Judea and Jesus in Samaria, in the same New Testament.  In other words, what might have warranted Jesus’ implicit acceptance of divorces and remarriages in Samaria, in seeming contradiction to the general conception of His earlier teachings in Judea?  This is not an attempt to answer all “cases” of marital conflicts, marriage, divorce, and remarriage, but an effort at finding the possible missing link between two apparently contradictory positions of Jesus in two different contexts.

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27. The Will of God or the Will of the Parties?

Since no one can force anyone to stay in a marriage, the willingness of both parties is crucial to the outcomes between a husband and his wife. According to Paul in our passage, the decision to leave or remain in a marriage is less about ‘the will of God’ and more about the will of the man and the woman. They can continue to stay IF he is “willing to stay” and IF she is “willing to stay” (1 Corinthians 7:12-13, Contemporary English Version). In other words, it is a matter of mutual choice rather than of force. When their wills no longer align, particularly due to a ‘new state’ or a new perspective on life, peace is already at risk. If tensions escalate to the point where one party insists on leaving, Paul’s clause is likely to come into play. While this might seem like a dismissive treatment of such a serious topic, it does not undermine the fundamental truth.

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In many Christian congregations, women are usually more in number than men.  According to a survey on genders at religious events, “sociological evidence suggests that, generally, women tend to exhibit greater religious engagement than men” (https://medium.com/@elroypoet/the-examination-of-gender-and-religious-engagement-65703bb43e88).  There must be something about the spirituality of the woman that many mortals do not know; something that Satan knows and exploits to disastrous advantage.  There must be a spiritual frequency in the woman that is more easily accessible than in the man; something that disposes her more to spirits and spirituality than the man.

When the backslidden King Saul wanted to consult the dark world of the occult to divine his future, he said, “Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit” (1 Samuel 28:7).  If what he wanted was a medium, why didn’t he simply say, “Get me a medium,” or “Get me someone who deals with familiar spirits”?  Why did he so confidently attach the female gender to the dark craft?  What gave the king the impression that whom he would find in that trade had to be a female?  And she would be someone who did not merely deal with but “hath” the spirit; someone who possessed and was possessed by the “spirit” of the trade?

Well, we may dismiss that as an Old Testament tale, so let’s take a trip to the New Testament. 

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21. Called to Peace

Despite the concession made, Paul was quick to add a caution: “but God hath called us to peace,” implying that the ‘believing’ partner should endeavour to seek an amicable resolution.  In other words, going or letting go should not be a hurried consideration, because your patience could save the other (v.16).  Paul’s caution implicitly stresses the place and power of individual choices (or commitment) in staying or leaving a marriage even when the grounds for divorce might have been present.

To the extreme conservative, who is persuaded that there is no place for any kind of divorce in the Bible, when Paul says, “but God hath called us to peace,” he meant enduring every marriage at all costs, no matter the grounds to separate, because divorce is essentially a contradiction to peace.  It is doubtful that that was Paul’s definition of peace in that passage; that making peace means staying in every marriage, even when it is dangerously abusive, marked with brutal daily battles, and where it might not even have been God that ‘joined’ them together.

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