Acts 16:31

 

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Acts 16:39 V-AIA-3P
GRK: καὶ ἐλθόντες παρεκάλεσαν αὐτούς καὶ
NAS: and they came and appealed to them, and when they had brought
KJV: And they came and besought them, and
INT: And having come they appealed to them and

Acts 16:40 V-AIA-3P
GRK: καὶ ἰδόντες παρεκάλεσαν τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς
NAS: the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.
KJV: the brethren, they comforted them,
INT: and having seen they exhorted the brothers

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2 Timothy 3

 Difficult Times Ahead

 

1But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. 2For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people!

6For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions, 

 

  7 always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.  

 

 

8Just as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men who are corrupt in mind, worthless in regard to the faith. 9But they will not make further progress, for their lack of understanding will be clear to all, as theirs was also.

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 The names “Jannes” and “Jambres” appear in the Talmud as well. According to one midrash, the two magicians left Egypt with the Israelites after the first Passover (see Exodus 12:38) and were later instrumental in promoting the worship of the golden calf that Aaron made (Exodus 32). Another midrash identifies the “two servants” of Balaam as Jannes and Jambres (Numbers 22:22). According to the midrashim and other sources, Jannes and Jambres continued to exert a wicked influence on Israel until the time of Phinehas (Numbers 25). These stories are interesting, but they should not be taken as equivalent to inspired Scripture.

 

https://www.gotquestions.org/Jannes-and-Jambres.html 

 

 

Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 19:1מדרש תנחומא, כי תשא י״ט:א    ׳

 

Forty thousand people had assembled to leave Egypt with the Israelites, and among them were two Egyptians named Jannes and Jambres, who had performed magical feats for Pharaoh, as it is written: And the

Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, trans. Samuel A. Berman

 

 

 

https://www.sefaria.org/search?q=%E2%80%9CJannes%E2%80%9D%20and%20%E2%80%9CJambres%E2%80%9D&tab=text&tvar=1&tsort=relevance&svar=1&ssort=relevance 

 

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Struggles in the Christian Life

10But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance, 11along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from them all. 12In fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, 15and you know that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

© 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, 

 

 

 

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Act 16:12

 

 

 

 

Philippi 

 

Philippi (/fɪˈlɪpaɪ, ˈfɪləˌpaɪ/; Greek: Φίλιπποι, Philippoi) was a major Greek city northwest of the nearby island, Thasos. Its original name was Crenides (Greek: Κρηνῖδες, Krenides "Fountains") after its establishment by Thasian colonists in 360/359 BC. The city was renamed by Philip II of Macedon in 356 BC and abandoned in the 14th century after the Ottoman conquest. The present municipality, Filippoi, is located near the ruins of the ancient city and is part of the region of East Macedonia and Thrace in Kavala, Greece. It was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016.^[1]

 

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Acts 16:16-18

The Passion Translation

The Python Spirit

¹⁶ One day, as we were going to the house of prayer, we encountered a young slave girl who had an evil spirit of divination, the spirit of Python.^[a] She had earned great profits for her owners by being a fortune-teller.

¹⁷ She kept following us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Great High God, and they’re telling us how to be saved!”

¹⁸ Day after day she continued to do this, until Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit indwelling her, “I command you in the name of Jesus, the Anointed One, to come out of her, now!” At that very moment, the spirit came out of her!

 

Footnote

In the religious context of Greek mythology, she was an “oracle,” a medium who had the spirit of the gods speaking through her to foretell the future. The Python spirit was the epithet of Apollo, known as the Greek god of prophecy. An individual (often a young virgin) who became the oracle of Apollo was known as the Python, or Pythia.

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https://www.gotquestions.org/python-spirit.html 

 
Question: "What is a python spirit?"

Answer: Python spirit or spirit of python is one of many terms associated with a particular set of views related to the demonic world. According to some Charismatics, demons are the cause of almost every problem we face—and these demons are categorized and named. Such an approach to the spiritual world forms the theory behind so-called deliverance ministries, which seek to identify and exorcise evil spirits. By taking vague references to certain scriptural words badly out of context, some have invented an entire mythology of spiritual warfare, complete with a menagerie of unique demonic entities that wreak havoc in the world.

Those who believe in a python spirit point to Acts 16:16, where Scripture refers to a slave girl who had “a spirit of divination.” The Greek term for “divination” in this verse is pythōna. The origin of the Greek word is rooted in Greek mythology, which includes the story of Apollo slaying a serpent or dragon that dwelt in the region of Pytho and was said to have guarded the oracle of Delphi. It seems the local residents of Philippi in Acts 16 said this slave girl gained her powers through “a spirit of Python,” associating the mythological serpent with oracles in general. Paul freed this girl of the demon (Acts 16:18), angering the men taking advantage of her and leading to a lawsuit (Acts 16:19–21).

 

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Matthew 16

Peter’s Confession of the Messiah

¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi,^[f] He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”^[g]

¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵ “But you,” He asked them, “who do you say that I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”

¹⁷ And Jesus responded, “Simon son of Jonah,^[h] you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I also say to you that you are Peter,^[i] and on this rock^[j] I will build My church, and the forces^[k] of Hades will not overpower it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth is already bound^[l] in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed^[m] in heaven.”

²⁰ And He gave the disciples orders to tell no one that He was^[n] the Messiah.

 

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Philip II of Macedon

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Macedon 

 

 

 

 

Philip II of Macedon^[2] (Greek: Φίλιππος Β΄ ὁ Μακεδών; 382–336 BC) was the king (basileus) of the kingdom of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336 BC.^[3] He was a member of the Argead dynasty of Macedonian kings, the third son of King Amyntas III of Macedon, and father of Alexander the Great and Philip III. The rise of Macedon, its conquest and political consolidation of most of Classical Greece during the reign of Philip II was achieved in part by his reformation of the Ancient Macedonian army, establishing the Macedonian phalanx that proved critical in securing victories on the battlefield. After defeating the Greek city-states of Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, Philip II led the effort to establish a federation of Greek states known as the League of Corinth, with him as the elected hegemon and commander-in-chief^[4] of Greece for a planned invasion of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. However, his assassination by a royal bodyguard, Pausanias of Orestis, led to the immediate succession of his son Alexander, who would go on to invade the Achaemenid Empire in his father's stead.

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1 Corinthians 3

3 Brothers, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ. ² I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, because you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, ³ because you are still fleshly. For since there is envy and strife^[a] among you, are you not fleshly and living like unbelievers?^{[b] 4} For whenever someone says, “I’m with Paul,” and another, “I’m with Apollos,” are you not unspiritual people?^[c][d]

The Role of God’s Servants

⁵ What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. ⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ⁸ Now the one planting and the one watering are one in purpose, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. ⁹ For we are God’s coworkers.^[e] You are God’s field, God’s building. ¹⁰ According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one must be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ For no one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on that foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, ¹³ each one’s work will become obvious, for the day^[f] will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. ¹⁴ If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If anyone’s work is burned up, it will be lost, but he will be saved; yet it will be like an escape through fire.^[g]

¹⁶ Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s sanctuary, God will destroy him; for God’s sanctuary is holy, and that is what you are.

The Folly of Human Wisdom

 

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