Читать книгу Deliver us from the Evil one - Bernardo Olivera - Страница 15

Luke, the author of Acts, did not write “scientific” history, which is the field of a modern historian. Luke is fundamentally a religious author who starts from events that really happened and presents their deeper meaning as parts of God’s plan of salvation. His work consists of two sections or volumes, his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. He shows how Jesus’ work continues and expands through the work of his followers: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The expansion of God’s kingdom on earth includes the victory over his adversary, Satan. The book of Acts tell us what occurred:

Ananias and Sapphira are tempted by Satan to give way to their greed and avarice against the promptings of the Holy Spirit, thus misleading the apostles: “Peter asked, ‘Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land?’” (5:3).

The apostles did many signs and wonders among the people: “A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured” (5:16).

Philip, one of the original deacons consecrated by the apostles, preached to a city in Samaria, with spectacular results: “Unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed” (8:7).

Peter confronts Simon the magician, whom the people acclaimed as “the power of God that is called Great” (8:10). He had received baptism because he believed in the preaching of Philip, but later he wanted to buy from Peter and John the right to baptize in the name of Jesus and to give the Holy Spirit by the imposition of his hands. Peter reprimands him and calls him to repent from his evil spirit, “For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness” (8:23).

Paul performed an exorcism on a slave-girl in Philippi, who had a spirit of divination and followed them persistently crying out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation,” (16:17). Paul finally confronted the spirit that was inside her, “‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour” (16:18).

In Ephesus, God did extraordinary miracles through Saint Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched him were brought to the sick, “their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them” (19:12).

Ephesus had been invaded by magical practices and diabolical activity, so that even “some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying: ‘I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims’,” but these evil spirits “so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded” (9:13-16). After that, “many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices. A number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly. The value of the books was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins” (vv. 17-19).

Something similar seems to have happened in other cities that Paul evangelized, causing him to tell those in Galicia, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” (Gal 3:1). He writes to the Corinthians in the same way and emphasizes that communion with Christ is incompatible with the worship of demons, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor 10:21). Among the first of the many evil tendencies that Paul describes are “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife” (Gal 5:19-20) and he warns these first Christians, “Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (v.21).

All these warnings on the part of Saint Paul show that the combat against evil spirits played an important role in the rapid expansion of early Christianity, just as Jesus had foreseen, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” (Lk 10:18).