Paul would’ve been no stranger to false prophets. They dotted Israel’s history. They served as one of the main reasons the southern and northern kingdoms were taken into captivity. False prophets often told people what they wanted to hear in exchange for money. Paul also would’ve been no stranger to sorcerers. We see a number of them in the New Testament. They also would’ve been prevalent enough in Jesus’ day for people to have accused Jesus of sorcery. So when a man named Bar-Jesus steps onto the scene in Acts 13, Paul knows the type.
Bar-Jesus reminds me of Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings—a corrupt advisor with a powerful influence over a ruler. In this case, the ruler was a man named Sergius Paulus.
Thankfully, Paul manages to call out Bar-Jesus, and Sergius Paulus sees the light . . . through Bar-Jesus’ blindness. We’ll uncover all this and more in today’s article.
We do need to establish some background details about Bar-Jesus.
What Do We Know about Bar-Jesus?
First, he goes by two names, depending on which Bible translation you read. He goes by the name Elymas, or Bar-Jesus. Bar-Jesus means “son of Joshua” or “son of the Savior.” Joshua and Jesus have similar name roots.
This story occurs during Paul’s first missionary journey—when he reaches Antioch. They head to Cyprus, where Barnabas, Paul’s mentor and friend, comes from.
Paul and Barnabas happen to be traveling together for this particular mission.
They head to a place called Paphos, the capital city. A Roman governor would’ve lived there.
There, they meet Bar-Jesus. Right off the bat, the passage tells us a few things about him. First, he’s Jewish. Secondly, he’s a sorcerer. And finally, he’s a false prophet.
We would’ve imagined that those first two things don’t go together. After all, the Torah forbade sorcery. But perhaps in Cyprus, they let this slide a little.
Oh, and the passage tells us one more thing: he’s an attendant of Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus. We’ll get to who that is in a moment.
Bar-Jesus immediately dislikes Paul and Barnabbas’s Gospel presentation and tries to steer Sergius Paulus away from their message.
Paul calls him “a child of the devil,” which would’ve been a pun (given his name literally means “child of the Savior”). He also strikes Bar-Jesus blind. Bar-Jesus needs assistance to be led out of the room because he can’t even see the sun’s light. We often think of blindness as total blindness. Physicians will tell us that there’s a spectrum of visual impairment. Some visually impaired people can see shapes or shadows. But in the case of Bar-Jesus, he can literally see nothing for the rest of his life.
Sergius Paulus sees the power and authority of the Holy Spirit and believes the Gospel’s message.
We don’t hear about Bar-Jesus again. We can imagine he never converted to Christianity. But to better understand him, we must understand the man he worked for. After all, perhaps Bar-Jesus had feared that his job was in jeopardy.
If his boss converted, perhaps Sergius Paulus would see that Bar-Jesus’ prophecies were false. The power in which he operated his magic did not come from Jesus and, therefore, shouldn’t be allowed to continue. So, Bar-Jesus decided to act fast and try to get rid of Paul and Barnabas.
Who Was Sergius Paulus in the Bible?
We already know that Sergius Paulus was a proconsul, a governor over a certain region in Rome. And from what the passage indicates, he relied on the counsel of Bar-Jesus.
Acts 13 tells us that he’s an intelligent man who had a piqued interest in the Gospel. So he sends for Paul and Barnabas to preach the good news to him.
We can imagine the frustration of Bar-Jesus at this. No doubt, Bar-Jesus wielded a certain amount of influence over him. A message that grafted in the Gentiles would’ve offended Bar-Jesus’ Jewish roots. A message against sorcery would mean big problems for Bar-Jesus’ magical practices and false prophecies.
We don’t know how much Sergius Paulus gave into Bar-Jesus when Bar-Jesus told him not to listen to the Apostle Paul. But when Bar-Jesus gets struck blind—Sergius Paulus converts to Christianity.
Sergius Paulus sometimes goes by the name of Paullus in church history.
Some archeological discoveries have pointed to the personhood of this man, including an inscription found in what would be ancient Cyprus.
Church history has little to say about what Sergius Paulus did after this encounter and his conversion. But we can’t diminish the importance that Roman officials had started to convert early into Paul’s missionary journeys.
The Gospel had started to reach the hearts of powerful men. Eventually, centuries after this, a Roman Emperor named Constantine would’ve made Christianity the religion of Rome. All because of the grassroots movements of missionaries in the first century.
When analyzing Bar-Jesus, we must consider the broader scope of everything he stood against.
Multiple people groups had objections to the early church. In Acts, we most often see the Jewish people and people who practiced pagan religions push back the most. So it makes sense why Bar-Jesus wouldn’t go down without a fight.
What Can We Learn from Bar-Jesus?
Bar-Jesus was not a good man. We obviously don’t want to follow his example. But he does show us several things about sharing the Gospel. The type of opposition he shows is a tale as old as time in the church’s history.
First, there will always be pushback when the Gospel reaches powerful circles
Anyone can make an impact for God’s kingdom. Look at the Samaritan woman, for instance. A woman of low standing and class told her whole town about what Jesus had done. We don’t often see much pushback when we preach the Gospel to the lowly. From our limited human perspective, people of humble backgrounds cannot have much influence (we’d be wrong, of course).
But when it comes to sharing the Gospel with people in positions of power, we will always receive resistance.
Hence, in this passage, we see a strong reaction from Bar-Jesus. With his job on the line, he won’t give up without removing the missionaries from the governor’s presence.
Second, we need an awareness of whom we seek counsel
Although Sergius Paulus was intelligent, he may not have been the best judge of character. After all, he appointed Bar-Jesus as an attendant. It takes a literal miracle from him to see the light when Bar-Jesus gets struck blind.
So many people we know may not have an encounter with the Gospel, simply from the people they choose to surround themselves with. Perhaps they have a heart yearning to hear the Good News but have friends who actively hate the message and don’t want them to receive it.
Finally, we never know the impact of sharing the Gospel
We can imagine Paul and Barnabbas considered it quite the win to see a Roman governor convert to Christianity. To think that that conversion would help create a chain reaction—part of the centuries-long chain reaction in which Christianity eventually became the state religion of Rome.
Bar-Jesus, unfortunately, only had the present in mind when it came to opposing them—after all, he wanted to keep his job. But in that dramatic moment when he was blinded, he got a glimpse of the future. The Gospel had come and was more powerful than his own power.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/innovatedcaptures
Hope Bolinger is an acquisitions editor at End Game Press, book editor for hire, and the author of almost 30 books. More than 1500 of her works have been featured in various publications. Check out her books at hopebolinger.com for clean books in most genres, great for adults and kids. Check out her editing profile at Reedsy.com to find out about hiring her for your next book project.
This article is part of our People of Christianity catalog that features the stories, meaning, and significance of well-known people from the Bible and history. Here are some of the most popular articles for knowing important figures in Christianity:
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