Paul performs a good deed today for a slave girl trapped in a hopeless situation. As we will see tomorrow, this good deed will cause Paul and Silas to be beaten severely and thrown into prison.
"Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling." (Acts 16:16) Bible scholar William Barclay says, "The ancient world had a strange respect for mad people because, they said, the gods had taken away their wits in order to put the mind of the gods into them." Their pagan superstitions led them to believe that when a person was mentally unhinged it meant the gods had emptied that person of his or her own personality and intelligence and had placed the mind of a god there instead. You would think it might have occurred to them that if madness was a sign of possession by a god, the god must be mad too.
The literal translation of Luke's words is, "She was possessed by a python spirit." The python was closely associated with the cult of Apollo. Perhaps you've heard of the Oracle of Delphi (also known as a Pythia), a priestess of the cult of Apollo who would make predictions while under the hallucinogenic influence of vapors that arose from underneath the pagan temple of Apollo. Modern excavations of the ruins have found fault lines running beneath the chamber from which the oracle would make her predictions. It is now believed by many geologists that these fault lines produced a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane that produced a deficit of oxygen, causing the priestess to fall into a trance and see her visions. Traces of ethylene have been found there as well. Ethylene produces a very sweet odor and induces hallucinations. The ancient historian Plutarch attributed the oracle's visions to the presence of ethylene. The predictions given by the oracle were more often than not so cryptic and so open to translation that the hearers were scarcely aided by them. Picture yourself sitting down on the sofa with someone who is deeply under the influence of a hallucinogenic substance and trying to make sensible conversation with them. The senseless things that come out of their mouth will be comparable to the senseless things that came out of the oracle's mouth.
The slave girl in our passage today was believed by her owners and by the pagan community to be possessed by a pythia, the same type of spirit they believed possessed the oracle. This young lady's owners take advantage of her questionable gift by profiting from it. In her case we can only assume she is truly possessed by an evil spirit, for she doesn't make her predictions while sitting in a temple chamber filled with hallucinogenic fumes. For further proof of her possessed state we will find Paul casting the spirit out of her.
"She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, 'These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.'" (Acts 16:17) Just as the demons in possessed persons frequently called out the identity of Jesus Christ when they were confronted by Him, the demon in this woman can't help but confess to the validity of the gospel message. As the Lord's brother James once observed, "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that---and shudder." (James 2:19) These demons are not worshiping the Lord, and they are not saved by their acknowledgement of Him, but they can't deny the truth. There is one God. There is one way to be saved. All other gods and cults and doctrines are useless. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to save souls from death.
"She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, 'In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!' At that moment the spirit left her." (Acts 16:18) Why did it take "many days" for Paul to decide to cast the spirit out? Perhaps the woman didn't want the spirit cast out; she no doubt enjoyed a certain amount of luxury and popularity due to her gift even though she was a slave. Or it could be that, knowing a huge uproar will ensue when he delivers her from bondage, Paul didn't want his missionary work at Philippi to be hindered.
The slave girl is in her right mind again, but her deliverance causes her owners to go out of their minds with rage. "When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities." (Acts 16:19) The fortune-telling business must have been booming. Her owners have been making their living off of her sad condition. They've been exploiting her awful spiritual situation for their own gain and, seeing that they will have to go back to working for a living, they drag Paul and Silas to the authorities to have them punished.
The pagans at Philippi may not be happy about what has happened, but God has not forsaken Paul and Silas. As they sit in jail in tomorrow's study, and as they sing the praises of God in spite of the intense pain from the beating they received, God will break off their shackles and open the prison doors. The jailer and his whole household will come to faith in Jesus Christ and be baptized. The enemies of the gospel will tremble in fear when they find out they have unlawfully beaten and imprisoned Roman citizens without a trial.
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