What I Love About Simon The Sorcerer

In Acts chapter 8 a Samaritan known as Simon the Sorcerer became a Christian. At least he seemed to be a Christian, because pretty soon there were doubts about the legitimacy of his conversion. He had been a magician who amazed crowds with his feats and claimed to be somebody great (verse 9). But when he heard Philip preach about Jesus, he believed the gospel and was baptized. The man who had made a living astonishing others was himself astonished by the real miracles that Philip did (verses 12-13). Maybe there was an echo of Jannes and Jambres (2 Timothy 3:8), who could do minor wonders with flim-flammery but had to admit to Pharaoh that Moses' power was from God (Exodus 8:18-19).

Then Peter and John arrived in Samaria, and Simon witnessed something else he could not do. When Peter and John laid their hands on new Christians they would receive the Holy Spirit, presumably showing the same signs that the apostles manifested on the day of Pentecost. Maybe Simon thought, "I can pull a coin out of someone's ear, and I can even saw a woman in half - but I have no idea how they do that." So in verses 18 and 19 he offered to pay Peter and John to teach him how to grant the Spirit too.

Peter turned on him brutally. "To hell with you and your money!" he said. "You thought you could buy the gift of God? You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and beg God to forgive - if possible - the intention of your heart. I can tell that you are full of poison and still bound by sin." (verses 20-23)

It goes without saying that nobody talks like this today. Some years ago I responded to Philip Yancey's lament that the church had lost its power to attract sinners with, "No, what the church has really lost is its power to confront sin." (See "The Godly Duty Of Inducing Guilt" August 15, 2004.) Many churches succeed magnificently in attracting and keeping sinners, because rather than warning them about judgment and threatening them with expulsion they assure them that God loves them unconditionally and accepts them just the way they are. In fact, these days I think that Peter would be the one excluded from our fellowships for being so hateful. A video of his confrontation with Simon would go viral, provoking laughter from unbelievers and hand-wringing from evangelicals overcome with grief that one of our own had revealed himself to be simony-phobic. Some Christians might arrange an apology tour, confessing to simonists that our treatment of them had been shameful and degrading. "Did Peter hurt you, Simon? Did he exclude you and make you feel like you were less of a person? Please forgive us!"

But Peter was a close servant of his Master, and no doubt had learned from Him to deal with corruption in a way that was sharp, immediate, vivid and uncompromising. (Meek and mild Jesus? No - read Matthew 23:27-28; Mark 9:42; Luke 19:45; John 8:44. There's a lot more where that came from.) Peter knew that you could not let a wolf into the sheepfold. All that would do is give you a fat happy wolf surrounded by bloody dead sheep. The wolf must be stopped at the gate and told, "No further. To enter, you must be defanged and declawed, and then you must go about sheepishly no matter how much your wolf nature tempts you to prey upon the flock. Either that, or be gone. Choose."

Thank heaven Simon heard Peter's rebuke with virgin ears unspoiled by "grace narrative" rhetoric that has come to dominate megachurch evangelicalism in recent years. If Simon had drunk deeply from the well of grace narrative preaching and made its rhetorical flourishes his own, he might have responded like this:

"Peter, I'm disappointed with you. I'm not offended or angry - just a little sad. You have forgotten the gospel. I see you are advising me to abandon simony, but remember: the gospel is not good advice; it's good news. The gospel I responded to is not a statement about what I have to do, but a proclamation of what Jesus has already done for me. This is not a rule-based religion, Peter! You're telling me that I have to do something - walk in integrity, reject simony - and then God will forgive me and I'll find favor with him.

"Oh Peter, don't you know that that is the way of all the other religions of the world? All the other religions are spelled 'D-O', but Christianity is spelled 'D-O-N-E'. Christ has done for me what I could not do myself. So I don't have follow a bunch of rules, a weary set of do's and don'ts - like 'Don't try to buy the gift of distributing the Holy Spirit' - or anything at all like that in order for God to be happy with me. God is already happy with me because he sees me through the righteousness of Christ! In fact, all this week I've been following the advice of a preacher I befriended on Countenancescroll who said, 'Every morning you should hear the Father saying to you, "You are my son and I am well-pleased with you."' He's right, of course. If God is pleased with Jesus, then he's got to be pleased with me no matter how sinful I've been this week engaging in simony, etc. It's only logical.

"Peter, you seem to think that just because you're more moral than I am in this area of 'personal integrity' that you're closer to God. But you're not. I've been assured by my pastor that, according to the gospel, moral people are no closer to God than the most immoral person, and immoral people are no farther from God than the most moral person. So you and I are exactly the same distance from God. Who are you, then, to judge me?

"What has happened here, Peter, is that you have made an idol out of 'good moral behavior'. You think this is all about being good. You're like the elder brother in the prodigal son story. You've been busy earning brownie points with God by being a 'good little boy', shunning simony and all that, and now you're upset because a sinner like me gets welcomed into the family of God with unconditional love. Don't you know that God's love is unconditional, Peter? Nothing I can do (renounce simony) could make God love me more; nothing I can do (practice simony) could make God love me less. Why, all the popular preachers today are saying that that is the very heart of the gospel! But not you. Your acceptance of me is clearly performance-based. That is, if I measure up to your standards of performance, if I abide by your list of do's and don'ts, then you'll take me in. But you need to know, Peter, that God's acceptance of me is not based on my performance but on his grace!"

I suppose if Simon had mouthed off in the familiar cadences of a modern grace-worshiper, Peter would have sighed deeply and cursed him dead on the spot.

But Simon did not have in his arsenal the rhetorical weapons that some evangelicals have developed to deflect rebuke and justify ongoing rebellion. Worldly and spiritually clueless as he was, Simon retained a certain simplicity that enabled him to listen, be afraid, and try to make it right. He said to Peter, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me” (Acts 8:24).

That's what I love about Simon the Sorcerer. I don't know how he eventually turned out. The Bible says nothing more about him. I just know that here in Acts 8, when rebuked and threatened with damnation he neither cursed the messenger (John 8:48), nor walked away sad (Matthew 19:22), nor accused his opponent of being theologically incorrect. Instead, he did the right thing - the very best thing he could. He quaked in fear and asked for prayer.

Do that when you are rightly called to account for wicked opposition to the will of God.