Extract:
Commentary Acts 16: 16-24 Page 122
Luke tells us that once again they are going down to the place of prayer along the banks of the Gangites River. Most likely this was a week after their first visit, a Sabbath. The missionaries are followed by a young slave girl who is possessed by a demon and who foretells the future for people. Her owners can make a good living from her pronouncements. The girl is shouting out to the people around her that these men are servants of the most high God and they have the message of salvation. These pronouncements are beginning to really annoy Paul and eventually he turns to her and casts out the demon. There is a parallel here to Luke 4:33-35 where Jesus commands the demon to be quiet and come out of the man.
Luke use the Greek word ‘Pythonees’ to describe the demon possessed girl. Her own personality is being constricted and shut out by this demon. From this word we get the word python, the god Apollo was often symbolised as a python.
Once the demon is exorcised, at that very same moment the slave girls owners realise their income and revenue stream has dried up, they are furious and grab Paul and Silas and drag them before the magistrates. The crowd turns hostile, the officials fearing a riot have the men stripped and beaten severely, then taken by the jailer to the cells. Take note that the men took Paul and Silas because they looked like Jews, they didn’t take Timothy or Luke because they more probably looked like Gentiles. Anti Jewish sentiment was always close to the surface. Also of interest is that the ‘we’ passage ends here, where did Luke go?
Why was Paul so upset and annoyed by the slave girl if what she was saying was true?
Luke uses the term ‘most high God’, this denotes an old testament title, El Elyon (Gen 14:18), however in a pagan context this would not be understood necessarily as the Jewish God but rather a supreme god to whichever pantheon of gods you subscribed too. The slave girl also said that the missionaries would show them the way of salvation, but again salvation in what and whom. Was it being saved from disease or sickness? From what were you being saved? Put into its cultural context, what the slave girl was saying and claiming these men offered was not what Paul or the others in his party advocated. The only way to solve the issue was to silence her.