20.08 | Fortune Telling & Freedom
Acts 16:16-40
‘As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.’
Acts 16:16-18
The Scriptures will happily mess with a materialist.
Materialism speaks to the understanding that the material world is all that there is. It comes in various layers of intensity—from the pure materialism of the hard atheist, to the shades of materialism that seep into much of the Western church.
We can get here for good reasons.
We may have had experiences of hyper-spiritual language, misdiagnosing wounds of the soul to be the presence of the demonic. We might have had experiences of spiritual manipulation, with bad advice spiritualised through shoddy theology and warnings of demonic punishment or promises of spiritual reward. We might have strong minds, gifted with the ability to see clearly, speak with reason, and know that within our vocation is inscribed the importance of balanced, nuanced, robust, thinking.
And yet with all this in mind, Luke readily presents us today with a girl who speaks the future. And the reason she speaks the future, he tells us, is that she has a spirit of divination.
Now if this cropped up in a church service near us, how would we respond? Would we accept it plainly? Or would we be concerned by spiritual excess, spiritual manipulation, or spiritual abuse?
I’m often struck by how the New Testament deals with the demonic. It finds a way of speaking that feels uncommon to much church experience. So much church experience seems to run to the extremes, and yet the Scriptures neither deny the influence of the demonic, nor hype it up. They hold together the realities of emotional hurts, or institutional wounding, of physical and mental health, and the importance of wise theology and healthy pastoral practice, alongside a basic understanding of the world that includes active, malevolent, spiritual powers, that personally impact and destroy lives, and which can manifest in supernatural ability.
Now that’s going to mess with many of us.
But here’s the thing.
When we come to the Scriptures, we don’t come to normalise it to our own experience or expectations. Rather, we come to be normalised to the Scriptural worldview.
Which includes fortune-telling spirits of divination, who annoy apostles and are dismissed with a word of faith-fuelled authority.
Does this mess with you?
It does me. I was tempted to write about the jailer today instead (what a story that is).
And yet, maybe the deeper need of the church in our moment and in our place is a simpler, unhyped, but clear recognition that amidst the pains and problems of the cities in which we engage, a part of what we deal with is spiritual warfare.
C.S. Lewis put it this way:
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”1
So what should we do?
Stay simple. Neither hysteria nor hiding are helpful with this. Keep our language plain, keep aware that each of us is a holistic being—where our wellbeing is impacted by things seen and material (like diet, community, sleep and hormones), and things unseen and immaterial.
Share your story. It is common, especially with people from some Western backgrounds, for people to hide their unexplained spiritual experiences. You’ll think I’m crazy, but… Our cities (and churches) are full of people who have had spiritual experiences that they’ve not had courage to share.
Mature in prayer. Jesus taught us to pray, Deliver us from evil.2 Do it. Paul teaches us to put on the full armour of God.3 Do so. Spiritual warfare shouldn’t be the sum of our prayer lives, but if it doesn’t feature at all, we’re wide open to the schemes of the enemy. Pray for the Father’s protection. Order your lives in the ways of wisdom. Plainly rebuke what you suspect may be the enemy. Seek help from a pastor or church elder if you’re not sure.
Limber up, Church of Jesus. This isn’t anything new, but something ancient. Jesus sits on a throne, and He is actively dethroning every scheme of hell and stronghold of the enemy. It’s what He does.
Reflect:
What is my church experience here? Spiritual hype and hysteria? Or avoidance of talk of the spiritual?
What might a simple, more biblical worldview be?
Lay down what needs lain down. Pick up what needs picked up.
Pray:
Father,
Give me a heart of discernment—
To perceive,
Neither with the hype of the over-spiritual,
Nor the denial of the materialist.
Father,
Give me a heart of courage,
To tackle the enemies I encounter—
Be them structural, emotional, physical or spiritual,
With faith and wisdom and truth.
Father,
Give me a heart that is free—
Exposing and extracting
Every scheme of the enemy from my life,
And enabling me
To walk in the freedom of you.
And finally,
My Father,
Keep my gaze—
That I remain ever more attentive to what you are doing,
Than the distracting noise of the enemy.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Lamentations 4-5 | Proverbs 21:30-22:5
C.S. Lewis, in his preface to: The Screwtape Letters, p.ix
Matthew 6:13
Ephesians 6:11 (for the whole section, read vv.10-20)