I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about a passage in Acts chapter 16. The text is as follows:
16 ¶ And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.
18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
This seems like a pretty straightforward passage. An evil spirit was following Paul as he was going about his business, so Paul cast the spirit out. That's what you do to evil spirits. You cast them out. But I got to thinking, what exactly did this spirit do that was wrong? We often say that the Devil and his minions can not tell the truth, and are only capible of lies, but here we see a clear instance of a demon testifying of Christ. And it's not the first time.
Now, I'm not saying that devils are good. Or that we should listen to that teufel on our shoulder who tells us to be a shlub. I'm just saying this is interesting, and that I'm not sure what to make of it. Feel free to post comments with your thoughts, and maybe that will help clear me up.
Till next time, zay gezunt!
Herschel
