Biblion Bible Commentary
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Simon, who also believed
Acts 8:9-13
9 But there was a certain man, Simon by name, who used to practice sorcery in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, making himself out to be some great one, · WEB
A famous magician is told he is not the great power of God, and the text says he believed and was baptized — and then declines to reassure us about him.
The city Philip enters already has a religious celebrity. Simon practiced sorcery there, amazed the people, and made himself out to be some great one. The self-promotion is stated as fact, in his own case, before anything else about him.
What the Samaritans called him is the striking part: This man is that great power of God. Not a man with power, but the power itself. They listened to him from the least to the greatest — a phrase for an entire population without exception — and they had done so for a long time. Simon was not a fringe figure. He held the whole city's religious attention, and the reason given is his ability to amaze.
That is a considerable obstacle for a newcomer, and the text records how it fell without any confrontation. Philip preached good news concerning God's Kingdom and the name of Jesus Christ, and they believed and were baptized, men and women. What replaced Simon was not a better wonder-worker but a subject — a kingdom and a name, neither of which is Philip's. Whatever amazement Simon traded in, it had never been about anyone except himself, and it could not survive a message about someone else.
Then the verse that has troubled readers ever since. Simon himself also believed. Being baptized, he continued with Philip. The words are the same ones used of everyone else in the paragraph. He believed as they believed; he was baptized as they were baptized; and he attached himself to Philip.
And yet the next scene has Peter telling him his heart is not right before God and that he is in the poison of bitterness. The two statements sit in the same passage and neither is withdrawn. It is possible to read the belief as real and the fall as later; it is possible to read the belief as assent without surrender, as elsewhere even demons are said to believe and shudder James 2:19. The text does not adjudicate, and forcing it to is a way of avoiding what it plainly does say — that a man may be genuinely baptized into the church and be genuinely wrong in the heart at the same time.
What is reported about his experience is exact and is a warning in itself: Seeing signs and great miracles occurring, he was amazed. The word is the one used three times of what he did to other people. The professional amazer has finally met something that amazes him, and that — rather than the kingdom, or the name, or repentance — is what is recorded as holding his attention.
So the paragraph leaves him standing in the church, baptized, following the preacher, and watching the wrong thing. Nothing has gone wrong that anyone could point to. The next thing he sees will make him reach for his purse.
held with reason What this mark means