Acts 8; The Socercer

All of us come to scripture with some form of cultural glasses on. As a kid I grew up in a full-blown modernist world and this greatly influenced our interpretation of scripture. Since witchcraft and sorcery did not exist in a modern world, then Simon was renamed. Of course, he was not literally renamed since that would have been tampering with scripture; yet, he was taught not as Simon the sorcerer but as Simon the con-artist. We are not sure how he did it, but he could trick people just like David Copperfield. This produced a little confusion for me since the modernist explanation of a miracle is not the breaking of natural law but rather such a complete understanding of natural law that one can manipulate and control outcomes. So, if that was a miracle and that was also pretty much the definition of being a con artist, Simon always gave me problems.

It wasn't until much later in life that I had to deal with the occult. While in Venezuela, I learned that there was much more going on at times than simple tricks. If the good side of the spiritual realm exists with miracles, prayer and God, then surely the evil side of the spiritual realm exists with its power, dedication and Satan.

In the text, Simon apparently laid aside his evil ways of sorcery but his heart lagged behind in changing. The ego boost he received from being called the Great Power of God was intoxicating. When he saw the apostles performing miracles for the good-guys, he wanted in on the action. Peter saw through the situation and called him out. Peter spoke to his heart where pride was as big an evil as sorcery.

The last line of the movie "Devil's Advocate" is spoken by Satan and is, "Pride. Definitely my favorite sin." We are so quick to condemn sorcery but are fine to let pride slide. We would never overlook a witch in our fellowship, but we turn a blind eye to egocentrism. We could not fathom a cordial relationship with the leader of a cult, but we could actively pursue a relationship with prideful stars and leaders. We contemptuously condemn Simon for his former ways of life in sorcery but would we have called him out on pride? In our fellowship we hold tightly to the idea of restoring New Testament Christianity. Perhaps we need to do a better job of restoring the heart of it as well . . . and calling out each other on issue of the heart . . . which are just as diabolically dangerous as sorcery ever was.