NOTES for Act 13:1-12

It is very important in this story to understand that Elymas is not an enemy of the apostles and that the apostles have no authority to punish their opponents or dissenters in any way. This matters because we are strongly inclined to find enemies for ourselves in the course of doing God's work and, if we have the opportunity, to punish them thoroughly. What, then, happened? As we recall, blindness in Scripture very often expresses conscious or unconscious resistance to God. Remember how the Lord spoke of "the blind man leading the blind"? It is especially significant to hear words about blindness from Paul, who himself experienced being struck blind when he was persecuting the Church and Christ. This very episode in Paul's life helps us understand that Elymas's blindness is not so much a punishment as an act of God that places a person in an utterly exceptional position, where a choice must be made—a choice that nevertheless always remains free—between light and darkness, between hostility toward God and faith.