They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos.
There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus,
who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The
proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to
hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for that
is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the
faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with
the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You
are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full
of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right
ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against
you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of
the sun.” Acts 13:6-11
The word for sorcerer
in the Greek is magus, the singular for magi. The same word used for sorcerer in the
Bible was used for the wise men who showed up to see Jesus. Those wise men wanted to meet Jesus. This sorcerer in Acts 13 was the opposite.
His name was Elymas
which was the Arabic equivalent of the word magus. His other name was
Bar-Jesus, which means son of Jesus.
Jesus was a common name so he could have been the son of a guy named
Jesus or he was trying to elevate himself to the son of the Son of God.
The word magus has a lot of meanings.
It’s a name given by Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, Persians, and others, to
the wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters
of dreams, soothsayers, sorcerers etc. A
sorcerer was well-read, educated and easily swayed away from God by his
intelligence. He could have some
experience in the dark arts, but it’s unlikely he was like Harry Potter.
In Acts, some sorcerers gave their lives to
Christ.
A number who had practiced
sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they
calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.
In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. Acts 19:19-20
Clearly
what they believed ran counter to the Gospel, so they needed to repent and walk
away from their business.