Acts 16:16-18
As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.
Tag: Annoyance Equals Ministry
In the above story we have have the encounter of Paul with a slave girl who had, apparently, mystic powers. As it shows later, her “mystic” powers came to her because she was possessed by a demon or demons. Her “handlers” figured a way to make money from this possession. We can only imagine what that looked like. However, like all demons, they recognized Paul’s power being that of Christ via the Holy Spirit. She begins to follow him and the others around shouting and pointing out that Paul and his ministry team were empowered by God and had a ministry of the Gospel. For some reason this truth annoyed Paul. Paul’s exact annoyance is not identified. But, the assumption would be that her presentation of the truth was not pleasing, not the truth. She was correct in her assessment of Paul’s work, but, perhaps, sarcastic in her tone. In any case, this annoyance turns into another opportunity to proclaim the Gospel. Paul might have been annoyed, but He saw the solution to the annoyance as a chance for ministry and a way to proclaim the Gospel and the power of God. How many times do we see annoyance as an opportunity to speak the Gospel? We can allow “annoyances” to “bother” us and try to ignore them, or try to correct them, or try to destroy them. But, the truth is we should allow the annoyance to push us to minister to the annoyance. Paul used this annoyance to demonstrate the power of God in his life. We can allow an annoyance to bother us or to allow us to open up the door to ministry. Paul chose to use the power of God to lead her to Christ.
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