Acts: A 14-Day Devotional For Menنموونە

Confronting Injustice
Acts 16:16–24

In America, the sex industry enslaves thousands of women and children, bringing much gain to their owners. Three hundred years ago, the face of slavery was an African laborer on a Southern landowner’s cotton plantation. Today, slavery is a 16-year-old immigrant in front of a pornographer’s video camera, whose “services” are paid for by thousands of anonymous online viewers in the privacy of their dorm rooms and offices. Millions of men—including countless numbers who profess to follow Christ—are addicted to Internet pornography. Not only is this a serious personal sin (see 1 Cor. 6:18–20); it also perpetuates unjust exploitation of the disadvantaged, displaced, or desperate women and girls forced into sex slavery. This situation is demonic and offensive to God, but it persists because demand is so high and business is so good. 

Paul confronted a similar sort of economically motivated slavery when he came to Philippi. He and his coworkers “were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling” (Acts 16:16). After this girl followed Paul around for many days, he became greatly annoyed or disturbed and then commanded the demonic spirit to come out of her. Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil” (10:38), and Paul continued this work in the authority and power of Jesus. 

The slave girl’s deliverance from demonic oppression had economic and social implications. Paul’s good deed in Jesus’ name provoked a violent response from the girl’s owners because they “saw that their hope of gain was gone” (16:19). They didn’t care about the slave girl but simply about her economic value, and Paul’s way of salvation was not good for the bottom line. They didn’t hail Paul as a hero but unjustly beat and imprisoned him as a criminal for upsetting the status quo.

Later, when Paul and his companions arrived in Thessalonica, the locals accused them of turning the world upside down by proclaiming that there is another king, Jesus (17:6–7). Where Jesus is king, his followers love others and pursue truth and justice. Where money is king, its followers treat people as commodities and exploit them for financial gain. The gospel message is good news to the disadvantaged, the displaced, and the desperate, and it threatens to turn injustice and oppression upside down.—Brian J. Tabb