NOTES for Act 13:1-12
1 Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. |
2 As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. |
3 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. |
4 So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. |
5 And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister. |
6 And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: |
7 Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. |
8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. |
9 Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, |
10 And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? |
11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. |
12 Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. |
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In this story it is very important 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 is important because we are very inclined, for the sake of a God-pleasing cause, to find enemies for ourselves and, if we have the chance, to punish them thoroughly. What, then, happened?
As we remember, blindness in Scripture very often expresses conscious or unconscious resistance to God. Do you remember how the Lord spoke about "the blind man who leads the blind"? It is especially significant to hear words about blindness from Paul, who himself went through the experience of being blinded when he was a persecutor of the Church and of Christ. This very episode with Paul lets us understand that the blinding of Elymas is not so much a punishment as an act of God that places a person in a completely special position, the position of needing to choose, always freely nevertheless, between light and darkness, between hostility to God and faith.
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