Unusual Customs
Is it wrong to want to free someone from slavery?
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as 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. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. - Acts 16:16-24
The demon that possessed the girl held her in slavery, forcing her to do its will.
It just so happened that the will of the demon made the girl's owners a great deal of money. So, we have two forms of slavery here, possession by demon and possession outright.
We don't know what happens to the girl after the demon is sent form her. Do her owners treat her harshly, forcing her to do harder labor than before, or do they let her go?
When Jesus freed people of the demons that possessed them, their lives became better. We have to assume the case could have been the same for the girl, but the story focuses on Silas and Paul, who were punished for their involvement.
They destroyed a business that was quite lucrative.
You could say the lesson here is to be willing to face the consequences of your actions, even if you feel what you are doing is right and the world sees it differently.
But Paul acted out of anger, didn't he?
He was very much annoyed, so he called the spirit out.
If you take the position of the Romans in this story, you would be angry with Paul for interfering in their ways. They were fins with the girl being a slave to her masters and to her demon. She was, after all, a slave, and her masters had found a way to earn a living through her.
So, to them, it was wrong to interfere. The intruders with their foreign customs were to blame.
We struggle with this dilemma today. Is it right to interfere with the customs of a people when we believe them to be wrong?
At first we may say it is wrong, but then how do we deal with what we see as atrocities?
It is an interesting challenge for us to look at the stories in our Bible and ask the questions we would ask ourselves today. How would we view this today? What position would we take?
Would we support Paul's actions, or accuse him of interfering?
When we challenge our thinking, we gain insight and understanding. Maybe that is what Bible Study is all about.
More to come...