Paul, Bar-Jesus, and the Blind

There’s an interesting little story in Acts 13 that took place while Paul and Barnabas were serving a mission in Cyprus.  They “found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus.” He was with Sergius Paulus who was “a prudent man” and who wanted to see Paul and Barnabas to hear the word of God.  But this sorcerer “withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.”  Paul was not going to have this sorcerer interfere with the teaching of Sergius, and so he said to Bar-jesus: “O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?”  He then called down a curse of blindness on the man, “and immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand” (Acts 13:6-11). 

                What’s especially intriguing about this story is how much the former Saul was like this sorcerer.  Saul had also been a persecutor of the believers, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1).  Paul’s words to the man could have easily been spoken to him in the days before his own conversion: “Full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?”  The Lord had indeed said something similar to him: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?...  I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9:4-5).  And then like Bar-jesus, Paul was made blind: “When his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus” (Acts 9:8).  It’s interesting that we have this same phrase of needing to be led by the hand in both stories.  More than just physically needing help, both needed to be led by someone else to understand truth and stop their wicked ways. 

                I wish we had more to the story of Bar-jesus, for we don’t know what happened to him.  Did he repent and change his ways?  We know that he was blinded only “for a season” just like Paul was blind only for three days.  Paul had needed a full reorientation in his life; he needed to see everything from a completely new set of eyes.  Perhaps Bar-jesus likewise took advantage of the lesson that the Lord gave him to see the world from the eyes of a follower of Christ and no longer as a deceiver of men.  Of course we don’t know whether he made this change, but maybe the lesson for us is that we must learn to see the way the Lord wants us to see.  As Christ said, He came into the world “that they which see might be made blind” and that “they which see not might see” (John 9:39).  Like what happened with Paul and Bar-Jesus, perhaps we sometimes also need to be made blind so that Christ can teach us how to see things as they really are.