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Acts 16:16–18
“As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation’” (vv. 16–17).
Returning to our study of Acts, we recall that Lydia heard the gospel, believed the message, and was baptized when Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke proclaimed Jesus to her at Philippi (Acts 16:11–15). She and her family would be the first members of the Philippian church, which was later the recipient of one of Paul’s epistles. Lydia was the first in Philippi to believe in Jesus, but she was not the last to experience the deliverance of God. Today’s passage tells us about another female rescued by Christ in Philippi.
One time when Paul and the other missionaries were going out to the place of prayer at the riverside, they “were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination” (v. 16; see also v. 13). The Greek indicates that people believed her to be the mouthpiece of Apollo, who was closely associated with the giving of oracles. Divination is strictly forbidden in the Scriptures, since it is a means of trying to peer into things that God has not revealed and, as today’s passage demonstrates, occurs through contact with demons (see also Deut. 18:10; 32:17). Many people did not recognize the connection of divination with evil, however, so fortune-telling and other such things were popular in the gentile world of the first century. Apparently, many people in Philippi came to hear the girl’s involuntary utterances of fortune because customers who paid to hear her speak had made her owners wealthy (Acts 16:16).
Although the girl was possessed by evil, she went around after Paul and his co-laborers, announcing that they served “the Most High God” and proclaimed the way of salvation (v. 17). Even those who are in reality opposed to God can speak the truth, and truth remains truth even when the individual proclaiming it is not actually committed to what he proclaims. In any case, Paul eventually tired of the ruckus created by the girl even though she was declaring the truth about him, and he exorcised the spirit from her in the name of Jesus (v. 18).
Deliverance came to that poor demon-possessed slave girl in Philippi that day, and Paul’s encounter with her illustrates some key truths about redemption. Matthew Henry comments, “Paul shows the way of salvation indeed, that it is by breaking the power of Satan, and chaining him up, that he may not deceive the world (Rev. 20:3), and that this salvation is to be obtained in the name of Jesus Christ only, as in his name the devil was now cast out and by no other.”
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Sometimes the faith of people is shaken when professing Christians, especially former preachers, start to deny what they once confessed. Truth, however, is not based on the fidelity of the preacher to that truth. The gospel is true regardless of who has proclaimed it and whether the person who proclaimed it perseveres in faith.
For further study
- Psalm 119:89
- Mark 1:39
- Acts 8:4–8
- Philippians 1:15–18
The bible in a year
- Psalms 28–30
- Acts 21:1–16