Today's reading allows us to see more clearly another aspect of spiritual life that is extremely important to us. It is about the incident with certain Jewish exorcists. Of course, the situation these people found themselves in was far from ordinary. But in it, as in a drop of water, was reflected that which...
Today's reading allows us to see more clearly another aspect of spiritual life that is extremely important to us. It is about the incident with certain Jewish exorcists (19:13-16). Of course, the situation these people found themselves in was far from ordinary. But in it, as in a drop of water, was reflected that which concerns everyone, regardless of whether one has to deal with the possessed or not. As can be seen, the exorcists mentioned by Luke decided to use the name of "Jesus, Whom Paul preaches". Most likely, they had only heard of both Paul and Jesus, not knowing either of them personally. But they may have seen with their own eyes that, to use modern language, the method works. And, apparently, they decided to reproduce what Paul was doing. The result, judging by the evangelist's testimony, turned out to be sad and, it seems, unexpected for the experimenters themselves. They probably counted on the mere mention of the name of Jesus working, but, obviously, nothing of the sort happened.
At first glance it might seem that this is about an attempt to use the name of Jesus as the most ordinary magical incantation. But things were hardly that simple, because it was still a matter of believing Jews, of Judeans who knew all too well about the prohibition imposed by the Torah on everything somehow connected with magic and corresponding practices. Perhaps it would be more correct to see in what happened a practice quite common in the Jewish milieu during the Gospel era of casting out demons through the invocation of the name of God. There also existed certain prayer formulas which, it was believed, allowed one to achieve the desired result with a greater degree of probability. Most likely, the exorcists mentioned in the story decided that Paul too uses some special, secret prayers to cast out demons from the possessed, allowing him to achieve success where others suffer defeat.
Not knowing the essence of Christianity as a teaching about the resurrected Messiah and about the messianic Kingdom entering the world, they seem to have taken it for some new method of exorcism. And they were severely put to shame: for the deliverance of the possessed from the power of dark forces through Paul's prayers happened not because his prayers were somehow special, but because he himself lived the life of the Kingdom, to which others also joined through his prayers.
Christianity is not a spiritual or prayerful practice that gives its adherents some special abilities or reveals to them some secrets of the universe inaccessible to the uninitiated. It is simply life in the Kingdom. A life that can and should be accepted, and, having been accepted, shared with others.
19