Acts 8:25

And they, when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.

And they (Peter and John), when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord - that is, both in the city where Philip's labours had been so richly blesses and in the surrounding parts, as the word implies [ diamarturamenoi (G1263)].

Returned to Jerusalem, and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans - embracing the opportunity of their journey back to Jerusalem to fulfill their Lord's commission (Acts 1:8) to the whole region of Samaria. [Agreeably to this, the imperfects - hupestrefon (G5290) and euangelizonto (G2097) - are better supported than the aorists, hupestrepsan (G5290) and euangelisanto (G2097), of the Received Text.]

Remarks:

(1) The infant Church having no visible existence up to this time, except at Jerusalem, was at its lowest point of depression when, after the slaughter of so eminent a witness for Christ as Stephen, the public meetings of the Christians appear to have ceased, and that bloody persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, went from street to street, and house to house, searching for disciples, sparing neither age nor sex-intent upon stamping out the last embers of that fire from heaven which had been kindled on the day of Pentecost. But just then it was that the Gospel took a first start; not only breaking loose from its dependence on the capital, to which the ancient economy was entirely linked, but trying for the first time those wings on which it was to fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. It was just that attempt to crush the Gospel which was the immediate occasion of this signal dispersion of it. As the disciples fled from Jerusalem, and were scattered abroad without the apostles, like shepherdless sheep, we might fancy them trembling for the ark of God, and anticipating the worst. But

`Know, the darkest part of night Is before the dawn of light.'

New circumstances presented all things to them in a new light. Instead of having their hopes dashed and their energies crushed, they found their field of vision and of action only enlarged and brightened. As their hold on Jerusalem, with all its ancient association and endearments, got loosened, it was only to disclose to them something of the more extended career on which the Church was about to enter. And so it has ever been, that just at evening time it has been light.

(2) Were these dispersed preachers, then, ordained and official ministers of Christ? Certainly not; and all the best and most recent critics not only recognize, but call special attrition to the fact. 'The dispersal (says Lechler excellently) were not apostles, because the apostles remained behind in Jerusalem. At the most, a few of them belonged to the elected Seven (Acts 6:1), and even thee were not directly called as authorized ministers of the Word. But the great majority of the dispersed Christians held no ecclesiastical office whatever. Yet they preached wherever they came, without being called to do so by official duty and express commission. but entirely from the internal pressure of faith, which cannot but speak that which affects the heart, from the impulse of the Spirit by which they were anointed, and from love to the Saviour, to whom they were indebted for the forgiveness of their sins and for their blessed hopes. Thus this spread of the Gospel without the holy city, this planting of the Church of Christ in the regions of Palestine-indeed, even beyond those regions-was effected not by the apostles, but chiefly by other Christians who held no office, in virtue of the universal priesthood of believers. According to human ideas of Church government and office, it ought not to have taken place. But the Lord of the Church does not so confine Himself even to the apostolate established by Himself, as that everything must take place entirely through it in order to be lawful, pleasing to God, blessed, and full of promise. Christ thus shows that no man, and no finite office is indispensable,' (Similar sentiments are expressed, by Baumgarten.) Official functionaries of the Church are often slow to recognize such truths, and so are found not seldom resisting movements and calling in question results, as irregular and disorderly, which are manifestly of God. But,

(3) Though private Christians are at full liberty to work for Christ, according to their opportunities and gifts, and their evangelistic labours should be owned and encouraged, they are not to regard themselves as an independent agency, and much less to ignore or attempt to supersede the regular channel of the Christian ministry. In the visit of the apostolic deputation to the Samaritan converts, the welcome given to it, and the divine seal set upon its authority, we have a beautiful illustration of the harmony that should reign among all the diversified agencies of the Church for the promotion of the common cause.

(4) The religious history of Samaria (as we find it in the Fourth Gospel and in the Acts) holds forth encouragement regarding places in which the truth, richly sown, has borne little fruit. For the labour bestowed on them may prove to have been but the preparation of the ground for other labourers and other appliances, that were to perfect what was lacking at the first. Thus was it with Samaria, sown first by the great Sewer Himself, and only afterward reaped by Philip and others. (See the notes at John 4:1, Remark 7 at the close of that section.) (5) Religious imposture-as probably in Simon Magus-usually begins in an honest but unenlightened enthusiasm for some religious views, guided by vanity and the lust of power. When this is successful in creating a party, and bringing considerable numbers under its influence-kept together with difficulty where solid truth and exalted motives of action are wanting-unscrupulous measures are almost invariably resorted to, to preserve what has been acquired; and honest enthusiasm, then giving place to secretiveness and cunning, gradually ripens into willful imposture. Thus is realized what might seem impossible, a combination of religions feeling and of conscious fraud-the latter by degrees absorbing the former. Mere sincerity, then, in the maintenance of religious opinions, and self-sacrificing absorption in the propagation of them, as they are no evidence of the truth of them, so they are not to be relied on even for its own continuance, and in the case of errorists often degenerate rate what was never dreamed of at the first, and discover a strange mixture of the deceived and the deceiver in one and the same person, according to the apostle's striking saying, "Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13). Illustrations of this in our own time may be seen in Mormonism and Agapemonism.

(6) Contrast Simon's request, "Give me this power" with our Lord's words to the Twelve, when they reported to Him how "even the spirits had been subject to them through His name" - "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:17; Luke 10:20). These two opposite feelings-that of Simon, on the one hand, and that here expressed by our Lord-are the characteristics of two opposite sorts of ecclesiastics.

(7) Though fickleness in religion, as in everything else, is fatal to solid progress, we are not to confound with this that unsteadiness which is almost characteristic of children in the Christian as well as in the natural life, and which with time and training disappear. The readiness of the Samaritans to fall in with Simon's impostures, though the result of their defective training, showed the spiritual thirst which had been awakened in them; and the joy with which they forsook him, on Philip's bringing the Gospel to their hearts, and health to their homes, with the subsequent establishment of a Christian community among them-sealed by apostolic hands with the gift of the Holy Spirit-is an evidence that they had passed out of religious instability-all the more solid in the faith, probably, from their previous experience of "the depths of Satan." And so should we judge of similar cases, as they still arise.

Unawakened, stupid souls, immersed in the world, or steeped in literary and scientific pursuits-who fall in with the current religious systems, or are indifferent to all religion-such are never imposed upon by plausible religionists, nor run any risk of being sucked into a current of religious fanaticism. But then they are equally inaccessible to the truth itself, and right and wrong feelings on religion are alike strangers to their breasts. Whereas these whose souls have been touched with a sense of their wretchedness without God, though, in their thirst for satisfaction, they may be imposed upon by religious plausibilities, and carried away from the true resting-place of the heart, will, on discovering their mistake and finding the truth, lay faster hold of it, and become all the more enlightened and stable Christians for the humbling experience they have come through. At the same time it is not to be doubted that 'growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,' is the only sure preservative against 'falling from our own stedfastness' (2 Peter 3:17). Accordingly, in a very striking passage on the subject of religious delusions, not unlike this of Simon Magus, the apostle intimates that the Christian ministry was the gift of the Church's glorified Head, on the one hand for maturing and bringing it to eventual perfection, and on the other for curing childish instability - "That ye be no longer children, tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive," etc. (Ephesians 4:14.)

(8) Indignant feeling and sharp rebuke are not inconsistent with tenderness and pity in the treatment of those who make a gain of godliness, even though to some extent self-deceived. Nor can we expect to do them any good until their self-complacency has been thus dashed to the ground. Compare what is said of Christ Himself, "When he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their heart" Himself, "When he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their heart" etc. (Mark 3:5.)

'With the foregoing narrative (says Olshausen) of the progress of the Gospel among the Samaritans is connected another, which points to the diffusion of the doctrine of the Cross among the remotest nations. The simplicity of the chamberlain of Meroe forms a remarkable contrast with the craft of the magician just described.'