Liberation and Disruption | Disruptive Presence 82

David Harvey: 0:05

Hi and welcome to the Two Texts podcast. I'm here with my co-host, john Andrews, and my name is David Harvey. This is a podcast of two friends from two different countries meeting every two weeks to talk about the Bible. Each week, we pick one text to talk about, which invariably leads us to talking about two texts and often many more. This season we're taking a long, slower journey through the book of Acts to explore how the first Christians encountered the disruptive presence of the Holy Spirit. And so, john, we ended the last episode just sort of struck by the faithfulness of this amazing woman, lydia, and it felt like, felt a little bit like oh, it's sad to stop because Luke, I think, is showing us a contrast with the very next story, because we're now about to jump into another story about another woman in Philippi, aren't we Indeed?

John Andrews: 1:04

indeed, and again, we've observed the beautiful rhythms of the book of Acts, but we also have observed and they're saying more and more the contrast to and this is a definite contrasting moment, but again, interestingly, with the woman involved. So shall I jump in verse 16 and read this bit of the story quite a dramatic story, dramatic in a different way than we had from Lydia. Lydia's was pretty dramatic too, but this is a whole other, different level of drama. So verse 16 says so.

John Andrews: 1:36

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. 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. 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.

John Andrews: 2:15

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. They brought them before the magistrates and said these men are Jews and are throwing our city into uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas. The magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

David Harvey: 3:07

It's a story, my goodness, as you were, and I'm sure we'll probably talk about this in more depth, but my initial reaction as you read the story was how the message of and I think Luke's being intentionally playful with you I was looking at the Greek text again, just as you were reading it in English but the impact of the Holy Spirit is that you will become a slave and lose your hope. Right, because these men are slaves of the Most High God and the owners saw that they had no more hope but of making money, of course. But I think Luke's being a little bit playful that the message of freedom and hope actually to some brings a message of slavery and lack of hope. I mean, maybe I'm trying to be too clever there.

John Andrews: 3:54

No, no, I think, and I think there's a beautiful echo there to the Gospels. Again, some of our listeners will be very familiar with a controversial moment where Jesus enters Gentile territory and encounters a demoniac who refers to himself as Legion. And when the demons leave Legion they go into a huge herd of pigs, a couple of thousand pigs, who then promptly rush down the hillside into the water and drown. Now to a Jewish audience we're going. Yeah, come on, but to a Gentile audience. Of course.

John Andrews: 4:27

That's a serious amount of money that's just dumped itself in the water and you get the same sort of reaction. There is a very adverse reaction to Jesus. Ironically, you'd think, oh, they'd really like Jesus, because this wild man is being tamed and cured and set free, but at the cost that's a bit high economically for us. And again, it's the tension. I think we've seen this in the Gospels. It's now repeated here. I think there's a tension between the power of the liberty, of the Gospel, which we love the idea of, as long as it doesn't impact sort of the economics of my world too much. And of course this is, this is. I mean, there's a lot of stuff going around this, but ultimately Paul and Silas end up in prison because the business leaders are absolutely furious that a lot of money that they were making is no longer makeable.

David Harvey: 5:24

Yeah, my goodness, yeah, I mean that's a whole word in and of itself, john that there's things we will put up with as people and there's things we will not put up with. And one of the things we get very short tempered about is when our own economies are impacted outside of our own control. And I think that, to hark back to the last episode, we did. That's what's amazing that Lydia lays down her power as a dealer in purple. She's probably doing okay by ancient standards, right, she's probably not wealthy by our standards and even by the kind of upper echelons of Roman society, but she'll be doing okay, she'll be getting by comfortably. Now you've got another group of people who are getting by, but they're doing it in a way that, am I good as, blinds them to the evil of what they're doing. That opportunity presents itself to them and they are happy. Like you say, we don't really mind about this demonic man as long as we can keep farming our pigs here, and we don't really mind that this woman is being abused by some evil. But that has never raised itself as an issue and, more significantly, more significantly, is never raised as an issue. So during the whole court case. It's never, but at least there was some good here, and it's amazing.

David Harvey: 7:03

As you were running through this story, I was thinking about how often we see what 20, 21 centuries after this story happens. Think about how often we see court cases of people's lives being smeared, dragged out into the open horrible, abusive tales of things that they've done to one another, but the whole question of the court case is money, and so this is a story we've seen before. This is not like oh, this is how it used to happen in the olden days. This is a story that continues to play its way out that when money's on the line, we will continue to inflict huge abuses and live with huge abuses of people. I mean, maybe I'm laying on that too thick, john, but do you feel that that's part of the observation here?

John Andrews: 7:56

Oh, I would totally agree. And I think the gorgeous juxtaposition of Lydia and the slave girl. We're not even told her name, the slave girl. I think that really is a dynamic, paradoxical moment within the text as we're introduced to women who've got the freedom to go and pray. One of those women has her heart opened and becomes a follower of Jesus In humility. This relatively speaking wealthy woman opens up her home to the gospel, has her whole household baptized and we see her using her position, her influence, her wealth, whatever that looks like, for the betterment of people. She's investing now she's giving and she's become a conduit, certainly in the big picture, for the kingdom of God.

John Andrews: 8:46

And then you see this young woman, slave girl, abused. She's being used an economic slave as well as, clearly, the business. People are probably aware that something sinister and dark is going on in our life, but they don't really care because they're making a pot of money out of her. And you're seeing the other side of this. We've just seen Lydia use wealth to serve. Here we're seeing wealth used to enslave and abuse, and the kingdom is speaking to both ideas, but in very different ways, and I think there is a at one level. They're just, they're two very simple stories of a woman having her heart open and another young woman getting exercised of the demon, but their stories speak to very different social dynamics as well, and again it invites the kingdom in to reflect on those things.

John Andrews: 9:38

And if I become let's think about Lydia if I become a follower of Jesus and I am wealthy, what does that mean? What does it mean to my wealth? What does it mean to my position? What does it mean to how I make my money, how much money I have and what I do with my money? Is that relevant or not? It seems that Lydia immediately starts to bring God into that type of conversation.

John Andrews: 10:00

And of course, then the other side is when we look at our world and we look at the abuses of people, we look at people being literally enslaved in our world in order to make money for people or make our lives easier, to accumulate the sorts of things that we want and like Then we sort of want the gospel to stay far away from that as possible. Stay out of that. Because if the gospel gets into that, as we've been talking about, the disruptive presence of the spirit starts to wreck my bank balances. It starts to get into my world and actually say there are certain ways of making money and certain ways of treating people that are not acceptable in the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God will, in fact, challenge and disrupt that, and I think you're getting that in this moment. I think this is it's a sort of a strong undercurrent in the story, although it's not the ultimate, like major point of the story.

David Harvey: 10:53

It's so strong in the story, though this text is such a warning to us as Christians in the contemporary world, isn't it? I mean notice. There's two things that are just striking me really heavily. One is the men's complaint before the magistrates that our customs and cultures are at threat here, and I think there's a warning there for us when we start to see our customs and cultures as the gospel and I know these men are not Christians in this particular story, but I feel it, in this sort of approach that we're taking to this text just now, that's a resonance challenge for the church in the West.

David Harvey: 11:41

I think in so many areas we've got blurry over what is custom and what is Christian, and so often I think we've become better at defending custom over Christian, and that's backwards, and I think we've seen that over the last few years with various different things that have happened in the world, how quickly we defend the custom over the issue of Christian, and so when we start to sound like these men, I often think we need to pay attention to our own hearts when we think that wouldn't be right because I'd like being able to do X or Y, but if the gospel is calling you to do something different. Let's just be cautious. Perhaps Is that my way of saying. Does that make sense?

John Andrews: 12:35

It does, it does absolutely. And again I think it's speaking to the power, the challenge of the gospel that again, in Lydia you've got what feels like a very natural invitational moment where it all proceeds like classically this is brilliant place of prayer. Lord of thems, or heart lady becomes a father of Jesus, opens up her home, everyone gets baptized. This is beautiful, this is the sort of progression stuff that we love and you get that lovely sort of in out flow. But then you see here this dynamic, powerful action of God which disrupts the world, which challenges the world, which says to the world no, these customs, these behaviors are not acceptable, whether they are practiced in the business community or whether even within the Church of Jesus Christ they are imbibed. So there are these, these ideas, and it starts to show us again that in now, in the Gentile world, we've got a different set of customs and a different set of laws that are now going to be challenged.

John Andrews: 13:48

So we've just moved out of X 15, where we've had challenge around Torah and challenge around Moses and challenge around biblical traditions and customs which had been followed for, in some cases, hundreds of years.

John Andrews: 14:04

Now we're moving into communities that aren't anchored in Torah but have their own customs, they're not anchored in Moses but have their own way of practice, and there's a whole bunch of behaviors that are totally acceptable in society which, ultimately, this new Ecclesia is going to get to and start to challenge, in terms of how wealthy people and poor people sit together in church, how male and female communicate together, how Jew and Greek sit together, how slave and free sit together.

John Andrews: 14:34

I mean, paul's going to get to all of this conversation, but we're already disrupting the customs of the day in this moment of national evangelism which touches the city, touches this girl and touches the business community in an explosive way, and I think this is a sign of things to come in terms of the church always in some ways, I think, should reflect the culture in which it finds itself, but it also will always challenge the culture, and it's that, managing that tension, that the reflective side should reflect who we are and where we are, but also challenge customs within who we are and where we are that are contrary to the kingdom of God.

David Harvey: 15:21

I mean, that's what I was thinking as well, that the like what the man say, they're not wrong, they're not wrong, that this is like. These men are disturbing your city. The gospel will do that. But my goodness, how quick we are to forget that and to try and make it and maybe that's part of the warning of the disruptive presence of the spirit is because of feeling overly comfortable in the way things are, because that might not always be as good as you think it is, because we start to miss. Then you know what the gospel is doing, john.

David Harvey: 15:58

The other thing I wanted to mention in this text we're just going back up on this similar theme, but up to the start, one day, as we're going to the place of prayer. I love that, by the way, just as an aside this is not the thing I wanted to mention, but just as an aside that we often talk a lot about early house churches like these, but it's not clear here whether, oh, now, by the end, right, they're definitely, by verse 40 of this chapter, they're definitely. Lydia's home is a key place where they meet, but at this point up here, I'm tempted to wonder if they're still just going back to the gate by the river. If that's become. Oh, this was a good place to go and meet and people in the town are knowing. Oh, by the way, these guys have got some interesting things to say. Let's go there.

David Harvey: 16:48

The almost, this notion that maybe the early churches were a little, they weren't always in people's houses, maybe they were developing. I mean, that's not the point. I just struck me to say that just now. Did you pick up on that resonance that?

John Andrews: 17:01

looked like. Yeah, I was one of the things that underlying the notes actually in prepping a game was once when we were going to the place of prayer. So the fact that that's echoed again, it ends up a very different experience.

John Andrews: 17:14

But yeah so they seem to be returning now, whether that's because believers are gathering there or it's a mission on expression, or both, but but it is, it is, it is something that they're now very comfortable with and, as you said, I think it's a great observation. By the end of the chapter, I think that seems to have moved to Lydia's house, because we've got we've got the sort of the followers of Jesus meeting there and we'll we'll probably get to that in a later podcast, I think.

David Harvey: 17:41

Yeah, it's. I actually also really like this. It's a very subtle shift, right, but in verse 13, it's a place where there are prayers and by verse 16, it's the place of the prayers. And so, and it's interesting, this language of the prayers appears way back early on in act, with their committed to breaking of bread and the prayers. So there's even in town and I'm laying, Please, don't build your house up in this but even though it's the same thing, a place of prayer the NSV indicates it by a place of prayer becomes the place of prayer. Yeah, there's even a conversion of the place happens slightly. It's like when Paul goes there the first time. It's like it's a random place that people pray. Now, the prayers that are prayed there are different prayers. It's a great spot.

John Andrews: 18:33

Yeah, great spot I've never seen that before.

David Harvey: 18:35

Very good, but the thing I wanted to say as well which I think is to me, is a little heavy handy the way I'll say this but I think it's fascinating that Paul refuses to accept a gospel that is causing harm. So notice this these men are slaves of the most high God, who proclaimed to you a way of salvation. Now there is nothing that that woman says that we don't find Paul saying himself at some point in his letters or in acts we're slaves of God. I mean, paul loves that introduction of himself. We're pointing you to a way of salvation. So this woman is saying nothing wrong. Everything's accurate that she's saying. And yet Paul absolutely refuses to let it happen because the context that is happening in is harming the woman. So again, I'm pushing too far here. But he silences the proclamation of what we might call the gospel, because it's not the gospel, because there's more to the gospel than just the words that are being said. I think that's what I'm trying to wrestle with there.

John Andrews: 19:47

So good, stunning piece and I think that is just profound and it will help some of our listeners to square the circle of things like Paul getting annoyed at her, because that feels a bit lacking of compassion, like what's going on there. It almost feels like Paul's fed up with her and wants her to be quiet in a sort of your annoying me sense. But of course, if you take your idea into that, then it adds something, a very, very different nuance to why Paul then quite aggressively does what he does, because it's the good news is being proclaimed, but in a way that is hurtful to the girl and hurtful ultimately to the can I say this to the reputation of the gospel itself, because this is a woman enslaved, literally enslaved, but also enslaved by demonic force and it's interesting again the echo of the gospels. How often did we see demonic forces cry out and say who Jesus was and Jesus silenced them. I mean this is it's not again, it's not a new idea. We've sort of come across this before. So again, in the same way that we saw gorgeous echoes in Lydia's story to Luke 24, we're seeing amazing echoes in this slave girl's story to some of the encounters that Jesus has with demonic forces while he's doing his ministry, and those. I think those echoes are really strong.

John Andrews: 21:23

I think you've got Jesus literally I was reading it the other day and Luke, luke, luke, chapter four, where Jesus literally silences the demons and doesn't allow them to speak, even though, in theory, what they're saying is true. They are proclaiming who he is and he says no, no. Now, I think, for our listeners to understand, then, the reason Jesus silences the demons and the reason Paul is silencing the woman is because, though the words are right, actually this is not the gospel. I think it's a superb point. It's a superb point, david. I really love that, and that certainly is a tool to help you square the circle of what seems to be Paul getting just annoyed and almost casting the demon out because he's sort of getting up his nose, sort of thing, and actually there's much more going on there.

David Harvey: 22:15

I was thinking as you were saying that I mean it's fascinating in one sense that Luke wants you to see for clear. Paul turns and says to the spirit, so he gets right to the heart of where this pain is coming from. This is not a censure of the girl, but that again is an echo of Jesus, isn't it? Notice how often the gospel texts? And then a man with an unclean spirit. But Jesus addresses the spirit, not the man with the unclean spirit.

David Harvey: 22:44

He speaks straight to the evil of the situation and I think that's quite fascinating at that sort of level that we have to be clear that the gospel Well, as you were reading, I was thinking about Galatians as is often the case for me, it is for freedom that Christ set us free. So there has to be, but don't and when you think about what Paul says, don't let your freedom become an opportunity for slavery and for sin and for the flesh and for all these sorts of things. So it makes sense actually that Paul can't approve of a gospel proclamation that is binding up even one person, if the result of this, except this, is the gorgeousness of Paul's theology, except for him himself. So I'll become all things to all people we talked about this just recently even just to win a few. I'm a slave of Christ, like it's all here in this text, but Paul's own agency submits humbly to that. So I think we need to assert that difference of your own agency humbly submitting to Jesus.

David Harvey: 24:02

To say, jesus, I will sacrifice, I'll take up my cross and follow you if you will work through me for the gospel is a fundamentally different statement than oh, you, over there, you can suffer, so that the gospel can. I say it like this the spirit never calls us to make other people suffer for the sake of the gospel, but the spirit might call us to suffer ourselves for the sake of the gospel, and the spirit might call them to suffer for the sake of the gospel, but he never calls me to make other sufferers for that sake. Does that tie it up correctly, do you think?

John Andrews: 24:40

I think there's nothing to add to that. It's a brilliant summation, absolutely superb. And again, it does explain perhaps why Paul does what he does, because it can be a difficult read that, and I think that's a great way to understand that and also, again, sort of maybe explain Paul's own language when it comes to this, in terms of his willingness to submit to this. It's absolutely beautiful, david. No, I love it. I love it. That's a great, a great point, and sometimes I say to our listeners you should sort of rewind that back and sort of have another listen to that conversation. That's definitely worth a look. That's just superb.

David Harvey: 25:23

Did you spot as well, just moving on in the narrative, that I think Luke is drawing us back to Jesus? So much here it came out that very hour Just sounds like something taken straight from the Gospel, doesn't it that sort of that? The spirit responds the evil, spirit responds to the name of Jesus. Yes, my goodness, it's gorgeous. It's gorgeous.

John Andrews: 25:46

And of course, that is. That's the sort of $64 million moment, isn't it? Yes, when the spirit leaves her, quite literally, it seems all hell breaks loose. Within this context, when her owners realized their hope of making money was gone, then they went after Paul and Silas, and again, it's an interesting link. However, this happened and wherever this happened, it's happened in a public enough way that the slave owners know who did this. So, again, we're not absolutely sure what it all looks like, but there in no doubt that it's Paul and Silas in the team that have done this and therefore they go after them.

John Andrews: 26:32

So, again, whatever the context was, you've got a very clearly identifiable missional context. So the echo of Jesus. If you go back to that exorcism of the person that gets labeled Legion though that's not his name you get this. The crowd, the city are in no doubt. Who's to blame. So there's a very clear line of responsibility drawn back to Jesus and now drawn back to Paul and Silas, and they go after these boys and drag them before the authorities to get some form of punishment. I'm not quite sure what they're hoping will be achieved, but they want to do that.

John Andrews: 27:18

And again, it does show you that sometimes the supernatural, which is designed to help and heal and build people up and set people free, can also have a disruptive consequence in the wider world in which it sets people free, and they're always ripple effects. So, again, in the most positive way we would say, a person becomes a follower of Jesus. There's going to be dynamic, positive ripples that touch their family, but there are also other ripples that touch their world, that are that create trouble and create difficulty. And yet it's the same. They're the same ripples, but they're just hitting people in different ways.

David Harvey: 28:00

Yes, yes, I love that observation, John. It's. I mean, my goodness, there's so much to talk about in this text, isn't there? And I was thinking as well about how the stuff you were saying. Have you noticed that they take them to the marketplace before the authorities? And so in ancient Rome, I think it's worth spotting that when we talk about an ancient Roman court, it's not a place. The court is wherever the magistrate is. So you can basically and you see this even in the trials of Jesus you can barge into the magistrate's home and it becomes the court. Actually, it's not lost on me that, in this economic tension of this whole chapter, so far of Lydia, that the place that they choose to have this court is the marketplace.

David Harvey: 28:55

I mean, do you think that it is? It's interesting, isn't it it?

John Andrews: 28:58

is. It's brilliant, yeah. And again, if we were in doubt, it's Luke showing us that this is the true epicenter of this conversation, now that the kingdom is impacting this city economically, or at least the section of this city, and they're making an appeal on the base of lost wages on this woman. But yeah, the marketplace, that little nuance, it's absolutely beautiful. Love that.

David Harvey: 29:25

And it might be that in Philippi all of the court settings happen in the marketplace. We don't know that for sure, but Luke definitely is drawing that out for us and it's beautiful for me. The marketplace is known as the Agora, and I'm just drawing a connection here. I don't think this is intentional, but I love. We're back in Galatians again. You knew that was coming Absolutely. And in 13, christ and the term that Paul uses is ex Agora's us. He takes us out of the marketplace where we were cursed and becomes a curse for us. And so there's this little. I mean, I don't think you can say this is what Luke's doing or what Paul's doing, but I love this notion that this woman has been taken out of the marketplace. She is no longer a commodity, she's no longer an object for earning money. She is a person that Jesus died for, and so, unsurprisingly, the name of Jesus does what the name of Jesus always does it takes us out of that curse and that marketplace. But then, of course, it's not lost on me that the people rush back to the marketplace to say we've got to stop this, we've got to stop this, and I think I was thinking about the work of Walter Brueggemann, he, or the Old Testament scholar. And there's a level of which this story is the story of the whole of scripture, and I drew myself to Galatians 3 because of the Agora word here the whole question of the curse and the question of slavery.

David Harvey: 31:05

Think about the Israelite story. How do you tell the story of Israel? Well, the Bible tells us how to tell the story of Israel. We were slaves in Egypt once, and that's where the story begins. I mean, I don't think I'm saying that too strongly, that you are better and stronger in this than I am, john, but the Jewish story doesn't begin in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. You begin with. We were slaves in Egypt once, don't you? And so this is a story of. We are always trying to be drawn out of slavery by God, and yet we are always trying to find new and creative ways to re-enslave others and ourselves. So good you know whether we're Jonah running the wrong direction or the Israelites going back to Egypt for help against the Assyrians.

John Andrews: 31:52

Yeah, no, I think it's a brilliant point and as we go on into the story, it's probably be set as up for our next podcast, but we'll see Paul and Silas literally enslaved in prison and yet behaving as free.

John Andrews: 32:08

So you see, again you're getting a lovely, a lovely, beautiful movement again back to this idea that, though the world around us operates to a system and a mindset that is all about enslaving others for our own benefit, or even even going back to the darkness of our own soul, that the gospel in the darkness of a prison can bring light and in the, in the enslaving of the stocks, can actually enable us to be free.

John Andrews: 32:38

So you're getting all these beautiful sort of tensions and pools within this text, within this story of a young woman set free from slavery, the conversation being held back in the place where slaves, even the Agora. They would have been bought and sold in that very context, as were human flesh would have literally been traded for. And yet this glorious idea that Jesus entered into the marketplace himself, he became flesh and blood and enters into the marketplace in order to redeem us from it in the way that this woman has been set free from her slavery. So beautiful, beautiful layers just within that and it's easy to miss those lovely layers because because the story is dramatic and brutal and extreme. But again, I think those ideas are there to be, to be followed and chewed on, because they're very powerful connectors.

David Harvey: 33:36

And notice that Luke wants you to notice. I love that idea about them being straight, them being in chains, but they're actually free. He double emphasizes they're locked up securely and they're also in stocks. He wants you to go into the next part of the story knowing like they are as best as these people can do they're locked up.

David Harvey: 34:06

I want to say this, john this is so tenuous, but I just got really excited because I hadn't thought about it but Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, galatians 3.13. Christ ex agoradus from the curse of the law and he did it by hanging on a tree, a xulong in Greek. And do you see that at the end of our passage in acts it says that they are in stocks, but the Greek word that's you there is they are on a xulong, they are attached to a. It's like they're basically chain to something, probably some wooden structure or something like that. And it's just not lost on me that we've made that connection to Christ redeeming us via a tree and now we've got two people chained to a tree. I wonder what's going to happen.

John Andrews: 34:54

Yeah, beautiful Love that Never seen that before. Come on, come on. What a great, great thought, a great thought, I think, to finish this podcast on Beautiful. Come on.

David Harvey: 35:07

So that's it for this episode. We know that there's always more to explore and we encourage you to dive into the text and do that. If you liked this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you rated, reviewed or shared it. We also appreciate all of our listeners who financially support the show, sharing the weight of producing this podcast. If you'd like to support the show, visit totextscom. But that is all for now. So until next time from John and I, goodbye.