Don't take it!

As Peter talked with Simon the sorcerer, he perceived what was hiding in his heart.  He said:

Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.  For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniqutiy.  (Acts 8:22,23 KJV)  

To fully understand these verses, let’s look at four key words in the original Greek.

Gall 5521: bile, poison, wormwood, poppy…

Bitterness 4088: acridity, poison, bitterness… from 4089: piercing, sharp, acrid, bitter.

Bond 4886:  a joint tie, ligament, uniting principle, control, band, bond.

Iniquity 93:  injustice, wrongfulness, iniquity  (Strong 1983)

It seems that Simon had taken bitter poison, and Peter told him to repent of this.

Not only had he drank the poison of bitterness, he was in bonds, chains, of injustice (iniquity).

Could this mean that Simon had been the victim of some sort of injustice, and that he held bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, toward his abuser?

And then, because he drank the poison, he was put into chains of some kind?

If this is so, no wonder Jesus stressed the importance of forgiveness.

The devil doesn’t play fair. 

First, we are abused, or attacked with some kind of injustice.  That’s bad enough. But then, as we’re licking our wounds, trying to process what happened, the devil offers us a cup of poison.  “Here,” he says as he holds out the cup, “you deserve this.”

And it does look tempting for sure.  Revenge, resentment, bitterness, anger…

Whatever you want to call it, don’t be fooled.  You may think it’s justified, but it’s poison.  Once it takes root, it wraps you in chains and you become its slave.

The good news is, there is a remedy, as Simon learned: repent.

I’ll be honest, when I read these verses, my mind went back to classmates who offended me – some over 50 years ago!!  I still get mad when I think about them, half a century later.  That’s crazy isn’t it???

But not anymore – I’m taking Peter’s advice and repenting.  Then doing what I should have done when the incidents happened: forgiving the bullies, releasing the resentment, and trusting God to deal with them as He sees fit.

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled (Hebrews 12:15 KJV)

 

 If you'd like a guide to forgiveness, you might like "How do I forgive, and do I have to reconcile?"

References:

Strong, James. Strongs Exhaustive Concordance: Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order, Together with Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, with References to the English Words. Baker Book House, 1983.

 

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com.  The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.