NOTES for Act 8:24

It happens to us to listen sometimes from relatives, sometimes from other people something, close by meaning to: "You live improperly, and if it continues like that, you will end up badly". And we - in reply: "hey why are you cursing!". We don’t like much to see in ourselves the cause of troubles or even misfortunes, that we are ready to find it in the fact that we were rebuked.

Such is the case here with Simon the magician, who rebuked by the apostles for heathen approach into Christian life and called by them to personal repentance, which means to an internal change and to conversion to God, asks them to pray for him, thinking like that their "charm" will be stricken off. As if it was not the internal paganism of Simon, but rather the words of the apostles that lead him to future spiritual disaster.