September 12, 2024

Passage Read: Acts 12-13
Meditation Verse: 13:10

Thought

Elymas was a Jewish false prophet, who served the proconsul. When the proconsul invited Paul and Barnabas to explain the Gospel to him, Elymas opposed them and worked at turning the proconsul away from the message. According to Paul in his rebuke, Elymas was turning the straight way of the Lord into a crooked way. He was twisting everything Paul said, every Bible passage Paul quoted, distorting its meaning and confusing the proconsul. Of course, when Paul rebuked him and blinded him, the proconsul believed.

Application

A false prophet is one who takes the plain meaning of Scripture and twists it to mean something entirely different from what is written. I need to be careful how I handle the Word of God. To the crafty, everyone else is crafty, including God, but to the trusting, every Word of God is straightforward. I don't want to be someone who assumes God is not telling the truth or is deliberately trying to misdirect me. I don't want to be someone who thinks God is not being straightforward. Paul perhaps understood this best, having been raised a strict Pharisee that denied the evidence in front of him because higher ups had decided Jesus couldn't be the Christ. Now he understood that Scripture was right and "experts" in the Law were entirely wrong.