POSTED 01 SEPTEMBER, 2004

The Quest for Credibility

by J.K. McKee
editor@tnnonline.net

In the history of our faith, whenever the Lord has revealed something new to His people, or a forgotten truth has been restored, the enemy has always been present to derail or deter it. This is true from the early movement of Believers in Yeshua the Messiah all the way to the present time. When the Apostle Peter proclaimed at Shavuot/Pentecost, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Messiah—this Yeshua whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36), you can be rest assured that the forces of darkness were there watching and waiting to take action. Satan had tried to kill the Son of God, but in trying to destroy Him he actually ended up creating even more of a problem for himself, as Yeshua was resurrected from the dead and His followers multiplied. But instead of giving up, the enemy only altered his tactics. The enemy was likely thinking: “Well, if people are now going to receive Him in massive numbers, the least I can do is get this new movement off course.”

How many of us consciously realize that if we are in the process of returning to the faith practices of the First Century Disciples and Apostles, that we will be returning to some of the exact same problems that they faced? If you want an idea about the kinds of problems we will be facing as the emerging Messianic movement, just read through the Book of Acts and the Pauline Epistles. They are rife with the sorts of situations and controversies, which are going to become all too commonplace in the future for us—especially as we get closer and closer to the return of the Messiah.

Many Messianics today are greatly disturbed, and rightfully so, that many in our faith community are getting themselves involved with examining things from Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah. While this is something that needs to be spoken against, it is not something new in the least. Mystical nonsense was going on in the First Century. Consider the example of Simon the magician, also called Simon Magus, in Acts 8:9-11:

“Now there was a man named Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great; and they all, from smallest to greatest, were giving attention to him, saying, ‘This man is what is called the Great Power of God.’ And they were giving him attention because he had for a long time astonished them with his magic arts.”

Simon Magus apparently welcomed the good news of Yeshua the Messiah and accepted Him (Acts 8:12-14). But, when Peter and John entered into Samaria and encountered him, Simon offered them money to purchase the Holy Spirit. Simon told them, “Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:19). He wanted to purchase the Holy Spirit so that he could use the Spirit to promote his own self-serving ends. The Apostle Peter rebuked him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God” (Acts 8:20-21). The Holy Spirit was freely available to all who would acknowledge Yeshua as the Redeemer.

The Biblical account does not say that much more about Simon Magus. But the Christian writers of the Second and Third Centuries write extensively about him,[1] as he gained a substantial following and the ekklēsia had to deal with many of his heresies. ISBE offers the following summary of his ancient followers, the Simoinai or the Simonians:

“It is a matter of scholarly debate…whether the historical Simon was actually a Gnostic. His followers and adherents, called Simonians, were both active and influential for several centuries after the death of their founder. The later Simonians were an eclectic sect of Christian Gnostics who were frequently attacked by Christian apologists and heresiologists….In fact, some Christian apologists stated that Simon claimed to be the son of God…plausibly suggested that ‘the Great Power’ was the high God invoked by Simon in his magical spells, and that in the style of many incantations found in Greco-Egyptian magical papyri, Simon identified himself with this deity using the ‘I am’ formula.”[2]

The Fourth Century Christian historian Eusebius describes Simon Magus in his Ecclesiastical History, stating, “Coming to the aid of his insidious artifices, he attached many of the inhabitants of Rome to himself in order to deceive them. This is attested by Justin...where he wrote thus: ‘And after the ascension of our Lord into heaven, certain men were suborned by demons as their agents, who said they were gods...Simon, a certain Samaritan of the village called Githon, was one of the number, who, in the reign of Claudius Caesar, performed many magic rites by the operation of demons, was considered a god in your imperial city of Rome, and was honored by you with a statue as a god, in the river Tiber, (on an island) between the two brides, having the superscription in Latin, Simoni Deo Sancto, which is, To Simon the Holy God” (2.13.2-3).[3]

Practice or study of anything mystical or quasi-Gnostic is not new.

There are other problems that were going on in the First Century as well. Consider all of the frustration that Paul demonstrated in his two epistles to the Corinthians. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:1, “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father's wife” (RSV). There was incest going on in Corinth! Later on he warns the men in Corinth, “Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, ‘THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’ [Genesis 2:24]” (1 Corinthians 6:16), implying that some men who were purportedly Believers in the Corinthian assembly still frequented the many bordellos in town. And this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the many problems we see in the Pauline Epistles, which the good rabbi from Tarsus had to address.

J.K. McKee (B.A., University of Oklahoma; M.A., Asbury Theological Seminary) is the editor of TNN Online (www.tnnonline.net) and is a Messianic apologist. He is a 2009 recipient of the Zondervan Biblical Languages Award for Greek. He is author of numerous books, dealing with a wide range of topics that are important for today’s Messianic Believers. He has also written many articles on theological issues, and is presently focusing his attention on Messianic commentaries of various books of the Bible.

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