Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.
those who were scattered went about preaching the word - "And this, in the final analysis, is all that matters. The only reason God has left us here—the only good reason for wanting to be here—is to glorify God by proclaiming the blessed message of grace to the multitudes about us. Every other reason for living—or dying—revolves around this reason. Thank God, the proclamation of the truth does not suffer from opposition. It suffers only from indifference or perversion. In the case described in the passage above, persecution was used of God to further the truth, for 'they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word...Here it must be pointed out, however, that 'the Word' which these scattered disciples preached was not exactly the same as 'the Word' which 2 Tim. 4:2 instructs us to preach today. These disciples proclaimed the kingdom rights of Christ and called upon Israel to repent and receive Him as her King. But since Israel persisted in her rejection of Christ, God cast her aside as a nation and has now committed unto us 'the word of reconciliation' (2 Cor. 5:19). In both the disciples' case and ours, of course, the word referred to is the Word of God, but in their case it was the Word of God for that day, which in our case it is the Word of God for this day—and there is a difference.'" [see Acts 11:19] (Stam)
city of Samaria - "...was then called Sebaste. Some texts read 'a city of Samaria,' which would mean 'some smaller city in Samaria.' The Samaritans were descendants of colonists whom the Assyrian kings planted in Palestine after the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C. They were despised by the Jews because of their mixed Gentile blood and their different worship, which centered at Mount Gerizim (John 4:20-22)." (Ryrie)
"The quondam capital of the northern (Israelite) kingdom, and an important centre commanding the roads northward to Esdraelon and westward to the coast. It was first built by Omri (1 Kings 16:24). After its capture by Sargon, the Assyrian monarch (722 B.C.), its Israelite inhabitants, in common with those of the whole northern kingdom, were largely replaced by foreign colonists. It passed through various vicissitudes under the Greeks and Romans, being finally rebuilt by Pompey. Herod the Great embellished and fortified it, renaming it Sebaste in honour of the Emperor, (Sebastos being the Greek equivalent of the Latin Augustus). Its inhabitants at this period represented a mixture of various races." (Walker)
"The Samaritans are not considered Gentiles in the Scriptures, though indeed the Jews of Judaea looked upon them as worse than Gentiles. The ten tribes, it will be remembered, broke away from Judah and Benjamin in the apostasy under Rehoboam. After that the two tribes were generally called Judah and the ten Israel. Renouncing Jerusalem and the temple, the ten tribes had made Samaria their capital city, hence Israel is also referred to as Samaria in the Old Testament (1 King 13:32; 2 Kings 17:24,26,28; Ezek. 16:53, etc.). After the Syrian conquest, in which Israel was carried into captivity, the King of Syria sent colonists to repopulate the land. These intermarried with those of the ten tribes still remaining in the land and brought them to a still lower moral and spiritual level. The Lord, however, sent lions into their midst to devour them until the King of Syria found it necessary to send onf the Hebrew priests to Samaria to teach them 'the manner of the God of the land' (2 Kings 17:25-28). After the Babylonian captivity the Jews did not permit the Samaritans to help them to help them rebuild the temple at Jerusalem (Ezra 4) whereupon the Samaritans built a rival temple on Mt. Gerizim (Cf. John 4:20). Since the Samaritans had renounced Jerusalem and its authority, the Jews would have no dealings with them, but it is important to remember that whatever their heresies, Samaria represented the ten tribes, that they held to the law of Moses, worshipped the true God and looked for the coming of Messiah. There came to be, of course, an increasing number of individuals from the ten tribes who did not go along with the great apostasy nor intermarry with the Syrians, and lived in Judaea, Galilee and other places in and outside of Palestine. Thus the term Israel later began again to be applied to all from the twelve tribes who were true to the God-appointed priesthood and to the temple at Jerusalem. In the same way, Israelites from the ten tribes came to be called Jews, along with those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. If anything is clear in the prophetic Scriptures it is that one day the breach between the ten tribes and the two will be fully healed and that all ten tribes of Israel will be restored and exalted in the kingdom (Ezek. 37:15-19; Jer. 31:31-34; etc.). Thus in the proclamation of the kingdom as recorded in the four Gospels and the Acts, the term Israel refers to all twelve tribes (See Matt. 19:28; Acts 1:6; etc.). Paul later used the term in the same way (Acts 26:7; 28:20). Philip's ministry among the Samaritans, therefore, was no departure from the prophetic kingdom program, nor did it constitute the sending of the gospel to the Gentiles through Israel's unbelief. Philip went to the Samaritans to seek to win them to the true Messiah, who was to reign in Jerusalem over all twelve tribes of Israel. It was not until after the raising up of another apostle—Paul—that the gospel of the grace of God was proclaimed and salvation sent to the Gentiles through Israel's fall. This also explains the miraculous element in this passage, for these demonstrations were associated with the kingdom and ceased only when Israel as a nation was set aside. It was not prejudice, then, that kept the apostles and disciples ministering only among the people of Israel, but a clear understanding of the Abrahamic Covenant and of the prophetic program, in which the blessing of the nations depended upon the blessing and exaltation of Israel." (Stam)
the Christ - "The Samaritans were not a heathen people, though, from their mixed descent, they had proclivities which were Gentile rather than Jewish. There was at least some admixture of Hebrew blood in their veins, and they had adopted a modified Jewish sacrificial ritual. They gloried in their famous temple, built on Mt. Gerizim (John 4:20), probably in the time of Sanballat, Nehemiah's chief opponent. Their sacred book was the Samaritan Pentateuch, which presents many variations from the Jewish Pentateuch. They held a strong Messianic hope (cf. John 4:25-26), and Philip, with true wisdom, made that his avenue of approach to them in his presentation of the Gospel message, as indeed our Lord had done before him. He 'proclaimed unto them the Messiah', for whom they were looking as a nation." (Walker)
magic - "Simon was a practitioner of magic, quackery, and various kinds of sorcery. He may also have made messianic claims." (Ryrie)
the power of God that is called Great - "Simon seems to have taught, along with his practice the arts of magic, a sort of pseudo-philosophy of which we find other traces at that period and which was afterwards elaborated in the system of Gnosticism. It represented man as united to God by a series of mediators in the shape of divine emanations called Aeons or Powers. The Samaritans saw in Simon the chief of these Powers, a sort of might effluence from the deity rendered human in incarnation. We have a faint adumbration of this in the Vaisnavite sect of Hinduism, according to which the deity infused certain portions of his essence, in varying degrees, in the different avadars or (so-called) incarnations." (Walker)
"Simon was one of the numerous persons who preached all kinds of evil and forbidden things. Suetonius, a Roman historian, who lived in the first part of the second century of our era, gives the information that the whole eastern countries were astrologers, healers and necromancers. One of the greatest was Apollonius of Tyanaeus, who died about 97 A.D. He was a great sorcerer and worker of miracles. His life and supposed miracles were often compared with those our Lord. Satan had anticipated the coming of the Gospel and used this man to keep the Samaritans in bondage, to counterfeit the power of God, and to oppose the truth." (Gaebelein)
"Simon Magus, as we call him because of the magic he practiced, had exercised almost complete control over these Samaritans before the coming of Philip. We read that he 'bewitched' the people, that is literally, he drove them out of their senses, claiming that he himself was 'some great one.' And he had exercised this power over them for a long time, so that 'they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest.'" (Stam)
Simon himself believed - "Peter's denunciation (vv. 20-23) indicates that Simon's faith was not unto salvation (James 2:14-20)." [Cf. Jn. 2:23-25; Acts 8:37; 16:14; Rom. 10:9,10] (Ryrie)
those who were scattered went about preaching the word - "And this, in the final analysis, is all that matters. The only reason God has left us here—the only good reason for wanting to be here—is to glorify God by proclaiming the blessed message of grace to the multitudes about us. Every other reason for living—or dying—revolves around this reason. Thank God, the proclamation of the truth does not suffer from opposition. It suffers only from indifference or perversion. In the case described in the passage above, persecution was used of God to further the truth, for 'they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word...Here it must be pointed out, however, that 'the Word' which these scattered disciples preached was not exactly the same as 'the Word' which 2 Tim. 4:2 instructs us to preach today. These disciples proclaimed the kingdom rights of Christ and called upon Israel to repent and receive Him as her King. But since Israel persisted in her rejection of Christ, God cast her aside as a nation and has now committed unto us 'the word of reconciliation' (2 Cor. 5:19). In both the disciples' case and ours, of course, the word referred to is the Word of God, but in their case it was the Word of God for that day, which in our case it is the Word of God for this day—and there is a difference.'" [see Acts 11:19] (Stam)
city of Samaria - "...was then called Sebaste. Some texts read 'a city of Samaria,' which would mean 'some smaller city in Samaria.' The Samaritans were descendants of colonists whom the Assyrian kings planted in Palestine after the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C. They were despised by the Jews because of their mixed Gentile blood and their different worship, which centered at Mount Gerizim (John 4:20-22)." (Ryrie)
"The quondam capital of the northern (Israelite) kingdom, and an important centre commanding the roads northward to Esdraelon and westward to the coast. It was first built by Omri (1 Kings 16:24). After its capture by Sargon, the Assyrian monarch (722 B.C.), its Israelite inhabitants, in common with those of the whole northern kingdom, were largely replaced by foreign colonists. It passed through various vicissitudes under the Greeks and Romans, being finally rebuilt by Pompey. Herod the Great embellished and fortified it, renaming it Sebaste in honour of the Emperor, (Sebastos being the Greek equivalent of the Latin Augustus). Its inhabitants at this period represented a mixture of various races." (Walker)
"The Samaritans are not considered Gentiles in the Scriptures, though indeed the Jews of Judaea looked upon them as worse than Gentiles. The ten tribes, it will be remembered, broke away from Judah and Benjamin in the apostasy under Rehoboam. After that the two tribes were generally called Judah and the ten Israel. Renouncing Jerusalem and the temple, the ten tribes had made Samaria their capital city, hence Israel is also referred to as Samaria in the Old Testament (1 King 13:32; 2 Kings 17:24,26,28; Ezek. 16:53, etc.). After the Syrian conquest, in which Israel was carried into captivity, the King of Syria sent colonists to repopulate the land. These intermarried with those of the ten tribes still remaining in the land and brought them to a still lower moral and spiritual level. The Lord, however, sent lions into their midst to devour them until the King of Syria found it necessary to send onf the Hebrew priests to Samaria to teach them 'the manner of the God of the land' (2 Kings 17:25-28). After the Babylonian captivity the Jews did not permit the Samaritans to help them to help them rebuild the temple at Jerusalem (Ezra 4) whereupon the Samaritans built a rival temple on Mt. Gerizim (Cf. John 4:20). Since the Samaritans had renounced Jerusalem and its authority, the Jews would have no dealings with them, but it is important to remember that whatever their heresies, Samaria represented the ten tribes, that they held to the law of Moses, worshipped the true God and looked for the coming of Messiah. There came to be, of course, an increasing number of individuals from the ten tribes who did not go along with the great apostasy nor intermarry with the Syrians, and lived in Judaea, Galilee and other places in and outside of Palestine. Thus the term Israel later began again to be applied to all from the twelve tribes who were true to the God-appointed priesthood and to the temple at Jerusalem. In the same way, Israelites from the ten tribes came to be called Jews, along with those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. If anything is clear in the prophetic Scriptures it is that one day the breach between the ten tribes and the two will be fully healed and that all ten tribes of Israel will be restored and exalted in the kingdom (Ezek. 37:15-19; Jer. 31:31-34; etc.). Thus in the proclamation of the kingdom as recorded in the four Gospels and the Acts, the term Israel refers to all twelve tribes (See Matt. 19:28; Acts 1:6; etc.). Paul later used the term in the same way (Acts 26:7; 28:20). Philip's ministry among the Samaritans, therefore, was no departure from the prophetic kingdom program, nor did it constitute the sending of the gospel to the Gentiles through Israel's unbelief. Philip went to the Samaritans to seek to win them to the true Messiah, who was to reign in Jerusalem over all twelve tribes of Israel. It was not until after the raising up of another apostle—Paul—that the gospel of the grace of God was proclaimed and salvation sent to the Gentiles through Israel's fall. This also explains the miraculous element in this passage, for these demonstrations were associated with the kingdom and ceased only when Israel as a nation was set aside. It was not prejudice, then, that kept the apostles and disciples ministering only among the people of Israel, but a clear understanding of the Abrahamic Covenant and of the prophetic program, in which the blessing of the nations depended upon the blessing and exaltation of Israel." (Stam)
the Christ - "The Samaritans were not a heathen people, though, from their mixed descent, they had proclivities which were Gentile rather than Jewish. There was at least some admixture of Hebrew blood in their veins, and they had adopted a modified Jewish sacrificial ritual. They gloried in their famous temple, built on Mt. Gerizim (John 4:20), probably in the time of Sanballat, Nehemiah's chief opponent. Their sacred book was the Samaritan Pentateuch, which presents many variations from the Jewish Pentateuch. They held a strong Messianic hope (cf. John 4:25-26), and Philip, with true wisdom, made that his avenue of approach to them in his presentation of the Gospel message, as indeed our Lord had done before him. He 'proclaimed unto them the Messiah', for whom they were looking as a nation." (Walker)
magic - "Simon was a practitioner of magic, quackery, and various kinds of sorcery. He may also have made messianic claims." (Ryrie)
the power of God that is called Great - "Simon seems to have taught, along with his practice the arts of magic, a sort of pseudo-philosophy of which we find other traces at that period and which was afterwards elaborated in the system of Gnosticism. It represented man as united to God by a series of mediators in the shape of divine emanations called Aeons or Powers. The Samaritans saw in Simon the chief of these Powers, a sort of might effluence from the deity rendered human in incarnation. We have a faint adumbration of this in the Vaisnavite sect of Hinduism, according to which the deity infused certain portions of his essence, in varying degrees, in the different avadars or (so-called) incarnations." (Walker)
"Simon was one of the numerous persons who preached all kinds of evil and forbidden things. Suetonius, a Roman historian, who lived in the first part of the second century of our era, gives the information that the whole eastern countries were astrologers, healers and necromancers. One of the greatest was Apollonius of Tyanaeus, who died about 97 A.D. He was a great sorcerer and worker of miracles. His life and supposed miracles were often compared with those our Lord. Satan had anticipated the coming of the Gospel and used this man to keep the Samaritans in bondage, to counterfeit the power of God, and to oppose the truth." (Gaebelein)
"Simon Magus, as we call him because of the magic he practiced, had exercised almost complete control over these Samaritans before the coming of Philip. We read that he 'bewitched' the people, that is literally, he drove them out of their senses, claiming that he himself was 'some great one.' And he had exercised this power over them for a long time, so that 'they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest.'" (Stam)
Simon himself believed - "Peter's denunciation (vv. 20-23) indicates that Simon's faith was not unto salvation (James 2:14-20)." [Cf. Jn. 2:23-25; Acts 8:37; 16:14; Rom. 10:9,10] (Ryrie)
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