A striking passage that reveals an important apostolic encounter with a demon-possessed woman teaches us at least eight truths about biblical demonology:
Acts 16:16 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: 17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. 19 And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,
1. This woman was a genuinely demon-possessed woman—she was not just faking being possessed or just had some kind of mental illness. Paul’s exorcising a demon from her proves indisputably that she truly was demon-possessed. Demon possession has happened to humans and is real.
2. This account reveals a genuinely demonic occult activity—soothsaying that involved a woman who truly was possessed by a demon and was bringing much gain to her masters through her soothsaying. Genuinely demonic occult activities are real and do take place.
3. Lost people were profiting greatly from an occult activity that in truth was demonic. They were not just people faking being involved in a demonic activity so that they could make money through deception about things that supposedly took place through the workings of a demon or demons. Unbelievers can and do participate in authentically demonic occult activities.
4. The passage does not provide any indication that Paul and the others who were with him were astonished and amazed by what they encountered because they supposedly had never even heard of demonic occult activities that actually involved the work of demons. It also does not show that they were highly skeptical that genuine demonic activities happen. Believers must not hold that truly demonic occult activities hardly ever happen and only occur under the most extreme circumstances.
5. Just because someone engages in an occult activity for the purpose of making money does not prove that they are fake occultists engaged in a fake occult activity where there really are not any demons involved. Evil people do exist who seek to make money by engaging in occult activities where demons are in truth actively involved in those occult activities.
6. It is not true that unbelievers can neither know that they are involved in a genuinely demonic occult activity nor know that they are genuinely interacting with demons in that activity. Unbelievers can engage in genuinely demonic activities and know that they have done so.
7. There really are evil people who are involved in demonic occult activities that truly involve the working of a demon or of demons. Believers must accept that evil humans can and do engage in real occult activities in which demons are active.
8. Some believers try to subsume all or almost all occult activities under idolatry, but the passage does not provide any basis for subsuming what it reveals under idolatry. The occult is not a minor reality in the world, and it is not a lesser realm of human activity compared to idolatry.
If you disagree with any of these points, I would like to hear from you why you disagree with them.1
- We should not dismiss the truths that this passage reveals simply because it is in a narrative account in Scripture. Nor should we downplay their importance because they are from a passage that is in the book of Acts instead of in some other part of the Bible. ↩︎
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