Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Acts · About this commentary
The gift of God is not bought
Acts 8:14-25
14 Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, · WEB
The Spirit is withheld until apostles arrive from Jerusalem, which prevents a second church — and a man who offers money for it is told the offer condemns him.
Jerusalem hears that Samaria has received the word of God and sends Peter and John. The delegation is significant before it does anything: one of the two had once wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village Luke 9:54, and he is now sent to pray for Samaritans to receive the Holy Spirit.
What they find is an anomaly the text states twice for emphasis. The Spirit had fallen on none of them; they had only been baptized in the name of Christ Jesus. This is not the pattern at Pentecost, where the gift followed baptism directly, nor at Caesarea, where it will precede baptism entirely. Something is being handled differently here, and the passage does not say why.
The likeliest reason is written into the situation rather than into the sentence. Jews and Samaritans had been separated for centuries by a schism with its own temple and its own priesthood. Had a Samaritan church been founded, filled and functioning before the Jerusalem apostles ever set foot in it, there would have been two churches within a year, with the old division intact and a new label on it. Instead the apostles have to come, and pray, and lay hands, and see with their own eyes that God gives Samaritans exactly what he gave them — the same lesson Peter will need again in a Roman house, and will there have to defend in Jerusalem.
What this passage does not establish is a rule. Nothing in the book makes apostolic hands the ordinary channel of the Spirit; the sequence varies from case to case, and the one constant is that God gives him.
Simon sees it and makes an offer. He saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands — he is watching the mechanism, as he has watched everything else — and he offers money for it. His request is precise about what he wants: not the Spirit, but the ability to confer him. Give me also this power, that whomever I lay my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit. He is asking to be the middle of a transaction, which is what he had been before Philip arrived.
Peter's reply is the harshest speech in the book so far. May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. The reason is stated as a category error: it is a gift, and the defining property of a gift is that it is not for sale. A man who tries to buy one has not understood the giver.
The diagnosis that follows is about the heart rather than the offer. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart isn't right before God. And then, remarkably, a command to repent — ask God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. The perhaps is not despair; it is the refusal to guarantee an outcome Peter has no authority to guarantee. The door is open and no one is promising him it will be easy to walk through.
Simon's answer is the last we hear of him: Pray for me to the Lord, that none of the things which you have spoken happen to me. He asks for the consequences to be averted and does not say he will repent. The text leaves him there, and the two apostles go back to Jerusalem preaching in Samaritan villages on the way.
held with reason What this mark means