Demon Possession and Standard of Living - Acts 16

¹⁶ Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” ¹⁸ She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

There are several aspects of this that are interesting.  1.) The girl is possessed and that possession gives her the ability to see or predict the future.  That is an interesting talent.  Does this mean that in the spirit world they can see the future?  I don’t know.  2.) The spirit or demon in her knows from Whom these men are sent.  Somehow, those in the spirit world can see your spirit and they know if God is present over your spirit.  It proclaims Who they serve and their purpose to everyone around them as they go about their days.  Why would this bother them?  I’m sure it was annoying.  3.) I am intrigued how God used Paul to remove a spirit from someone over Paul’s lack of patience with her.  Paul didn’t remove the spirit because of pity for her or because he was led to do it, unless his lack of patience was God’s way of leading him to do it, but he did it because he had all of her yelling about them that he could take. 

¹⁹ When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. ²⁰ They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar²¹ by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

²² The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. ²³ After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. ²⁴ When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Notice how quickly people can turn against those who preach against sin and for God.  Notice that there is no amazement over the how the spirit has been removed, which is a miracle, but anger over how this will affect their income.  Truly they worshiped their economy!  A person in their right mind would fear or at least be in awe of the person who could do this.

Paul has now been stoned and beaten with rods.  Silas was also beaten with rods.  Apparently, the mafia-like owners of the servant girl didn’t like Paul messing up their cash flow.  This is the same response the Jewish leaders gave Paul and Barnabas on their first trip.  It’s a striking similarity that shows that Jewish leaders are living as worldly as the Roman Gentiles with their priority on their standard of living, rather than following the Spirit of God. 

Are we any different today?  Do possible changes to our standard of living get in the way of following the Spirit of God in radical ways?