Controlling religiosity

 This week's verses are Acts 16:16-18:

Now as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl met us who had a spirit that enabled her to foretell the future by supernatural means. She brought her owners a great profit by fortune-telling. She followed behind Paul and us and kept crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” She continued to do this for many days. But Paul became greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out of her at once.

 These verses describe a strange event. A woman is possessed by a demon and the demon compels her to point everyone towards the gospel. But why would the devil be advertising his enemies' message? And why would God's power finally her from doing it? Isn't that whole thing backwards? Why wouldn't the devil proclaim lies instead? And why wouldn't God support someone who is endorsing the truth behind the Christian message?

It boils down to a question of control and context. The woman's outbursts were truthful, but were they helpful? And was she a willing participant? In fact, her proclamations were likely disruptive, if Paul was greatly annoyed by them after many days. And most likely, as someone possessed by a demon, the woman was probably not a consenting party to how her body was being used. So it is possible that Paul was also annoyed at seeing how she was being defiled by this seemingly good behavior.

Paul talks a bit about this elsewhere when he says that church services should be orderly and harmonious. A disruptive fleshy outburst may be true, and may even have divine inspiration at its root, but if it clashes with what God is doing with everyone else, it's not helpful. 

Imagine trying to have a private conversation with someone who is hurting, or trying to teach a Bible study to a small group of people, and next to you is some narcissistic clown with a megaphone screaming "SINNERS ARE GOING TO BURN IN HELL, FORNICATORS, IDOLATERS, AND LIARS HAVE NO PLACE IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD, BUT GOD WILL MAKE US CLEAN AND WIPE AWAY OUR TEARS IN THE NEXT LIFE." Nothing he is saying is false, but at the same time, it's ruining everything.

Or what about the poor woman who had been possessed by the demonic spirit. It was probably hard enough for her that she was a slave, without also being possessed by a spirit that removed her ability to even consent to how she was being used. While the things she was saying were true, she was probably really uncomfortable, trapped inside of herself, watching herself make such a spectacle.

The enemy loves to disrupt what God is doing, and he loves to defile us and take our freedom to consent. In this case, it was an overt demonic presence that caused this behavior, but sometimes our own religiosity will do the same to us. 

It's the "turn to your neighbor and say..." or the "everyone clap if you love Jesus" manipulation, or the facade we put up to look "Christian" to others, or the decision to go out to do street evangelism, not because you want to reach the lost, but because you'll be judged and condemned by your fellow Christians if you don't. It's the unbelieving kids who are forced to pretend to be Christians because their family does not want to be embarrassed by them. It's the church committee that makes tithing obligatory for church membership and hounds people who don't pay up, no matter how badly they're suffering financially.

The church can be defiled by disruption, and we can be defiled by religious behavior that doesn't come from a heartfelt love or free expression, but out of a spirit of control that compels us to act against our will for another's ungodly pleasure. The masters of the poor slave girl in these verses made a lot of money from her pain. The devil is not the only one who tries to possess us.

But through Paul, God saw the suffering of the poor slave girl who had the demon. Even though the advertising may have drawn attention to his message, God honored Paul's heartfelt request that the woman be set free. From that point on, if she proclaimed God's message, it would be coming from her as an individual, not out of bondage to another.

We hear a lot of stories from people who join oppressive churches, or who grow up Christian, and who have never really made their faith their own until God sets them free from their religiosity. It is a beautiful experience to become genuinely Christian, to see God not just as a distant idea to which we must give assent, but as a partner in our journey and maybe even as a friend. But much like the masters of the slave girl, those forces that benefit from our religiosity very much do not want us to be free.

Our God is so great that even though he could compel us like the demons to worship him, he would rather that we freely choose him. We are not just property to him, but individuals who have and deserve agency. And those of us who serve him, like the apostle Paul, should develop his godly character that is greatly bothered when it sees someone in bondage, even if that bondage has a veneer of goodness.

In the early years of my Christianity, there were some aspects of my religious life that were control-oriented and not genuine, but as I have sought after God over the years, that false structure has melted away. In recent years, I have been more and more delighted at the loving and patient character of God, and hope you all can experience it too. 

In God's service, Paul spoke words with authority to command the defiling spirit to come out of the woman, and it did. We should be ready to do the same if we see people who are possessed and controlled by forces that benefit from their enslavement. We should allow God to so touch our hearts that we feel his compassion for those people still in bondage.

If you read further in the chapter these verses are taken from, you'll see that the owners of this woman who had been set free went on to cause a lot of problems for the people in the church. But imagine how transformed that slave girl's life was after the controlling spirit was cast out and it all becomes worth the trouble. Her emancipation was a truer expression of the gospel than any of the words she was compelled to speak.