Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast. And last time around, I was asking you to picture. I was asking you to tell me where your head goes when I say the words idolatry and witchcraft. And we only really got to idolatry because of how this podcast always goes. So today we're talking about witchcraft. And I ask you the same question. Where does your head go? What do you picture when I say witchcraft? For me, it's the same thing as idolatry. I think of things from very long ago performed by people very different from me, that I guess I just assume because of my naturalistic modern age technology-informed worldview, I guess I just assume that they were all fake and didn't do anything. But I don't know, people back then, in ancient times and medieval times, they sure thought witchcraft did something. A lot of times when I look back at history and think I know how the things are, and that all the people back then were seeing it all wrong, well, the more I get to know how people back then saw it, the more I realize maybe they saw something I didn't. Maybe they had a point. So is witchcraft from the ancient world real or not? Did it tap into some sort of dark power or spiritual forces or not? Oh, let's let that question linger a little bit. But this is something I've looked into quite a bit. I find it to be fascinating because witchcraft in the New Testament is often held out as being almost a rival faith or practice to the gospel. It's held out as being antithetical with life by the Spirit. And indeed, that's what we're getting in Galatians 5, where the Apostle Paul includes witchcraft on his pink slip ticket that has every bad box ticked of all the bad things that are the product, that are evidences that are the outgrowth of the sinful nature or the flesh. Witchcraft, once again, is on that list. What a sentence that was that I just said. Diagramming whatever it is that I just did for the last 25 seconds of run-on disaster would be like, do you remember when Sarah Palin ran for vice president of the United States and one of the jokes was that they would try to diagram her sentence structure? I think I just put her to shame or made her feel better, depending on how you think of it. That was ugly, but you get the point, right? Witchcraft in the ancient world is the opposite of belief in Jesus. It's a rival belief system, but boy, oh boy, did people believe it. And we don't have to guess about this or triangulate about witchcraft and its role in the ancient world from little hints we get here and there in the Bible. We got archaeology for this stuff, sister. It's all over the place. Apparently, in a whole bunch of cultures around the Roman world, people would wear these amulets, and they were like tiny little foil amulets where you would have a super smooshed out piece of gold or silver or some other mineral tin at times. And etched in that, in Greek or Aramaic, a lot of these are in Aramaic, you would have what's called a binding spell. And these binding spells were meant to bind outcomes for themselves or for somebody else. I guess if it's a binding spell for someone else and it's negative, you would call that a curse spell. But generally speaking, if somebody was wearing an amulet, that binding spell would be a binding spell to the benefit of the wearer for health, for good outcomes in wagers, for good outcomes in sporting competitions. Remember, the ancient world was really into sports, kind of like us in that regard. And if you have ever caught yourself uttering a prayer for the home team, then I guess I guess maybe you have a little bit in common with one of these uh binding spell wearers who would wear it to the horse track. And so do I. I've prayed for the home team before. Don't judge me. It's a moment of weakness. I really wanted my guys to win. If it makes you feel any better, it didn't work. Joe Flacco threw a ball right over Raheem Moore's outstretched hands and it went for a touchdown in the closing seconds, and the Broncos got eliminated. So, you know, lesson learned. So we've got a whole bunch of these amulets that have been found, troves of them even in burial sites. People were buried with these amulets. So they viewed them as something very precious. They were fashionable too. It wasn't just like a little rolled up clump. It was something that you wore as a fashion statement. Maybe it was kind of a coy little debonair mystery kind of thing. Like, hey, you come to parties like this often? Yeah. Sometimes. You mind my asking what kind of binding spell you have in your amulet? Well, you'd probably have to buy me a couple of drinks first. That was so gross, but it just happened. There was something to these things that went into, you know, the social structure of it. It was performative to some degree as well. Well, eventually, smart people who dig up things like this for a living dug up receipts. And so we even know what kind of crazy money people were paying for these things. And we get a little hint at that in the book of Acts when a bunch of people become Christians in one of the places that Paul visits, and then they all decide to burn their magical scrolls. And it says the value of those scrolls was a lot of money. Why? Well, because there was a belief back then, and maybe you could argue there's a belief now, in what do you call it, the transitive property, the commutative property? The property of magic to be handed off from a power source where it originates, but then wielded by a person who bought it. Remember, what is that, Acts 8, I think, where Simon the Sorcerer, who is clearly somebody who trades in these kinds of magic incantations, binding spells, and curses and things like that, Simon the Sorcerer sees what the apostles can do, the disciples, and he's like, dang, sell that to me. I want it. And Peter totally rebukes him, and the guy ends up looking like an idiot and fumbling around in the dark. But even to this day, the idea of trying to purchase spiritual office is called Simone or Simone, named for Simon the Sorcerer, who clearly thought it was completely normative to just buy power from a wielder of power. Well, if Simon the Sorcerer thought that was normal enough to ask in the court of a prominent politician where he wouldn't want to embarrass himself, then apparently it was a very common practice or a commonly held assumption in the Roman world that you just buy these things and this power can be transferred. Surely this was going on in Galatia as well. I mean, we've we're finding this in Cush and Ethiopia and Egypt and the Levant. We find this in Asia Minor, we find this in what is now called modern day Ukraine, Scythia, we find this all around Central and Western Europe. We find these kind of spells among the Celts on the British Isles, we find it in Italy. Everybody did this, everybody thought this was how spiritual supernatural power could be wielded. It was an accepted part of society, and it was worth a ton of money. But Paul is saying also it is transparently, obviously, evidently to anyone who's looking, a fruit of the flesh, a fruit of the sinful nature, an outgrowth produced by something that is wrong and contrary to God. And if, Paul seems to be saying here in Galatians chapter 5, witchcraft, or any of the other things on this list are manifesting in your life, that is a fruit of the flesh, that is a fruit of the sinful nature that wouldn't be good. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, and witchcraft. Those two, I mean, man, the five things we've looked at so far on this list are all things that would just cut to the heart of most of pagan Roman society. This is the stuff that made culture go, and Paul is saying it is self-evidently contrary to the spirit. Well, what else is hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy. I mean, all of that stuff feels like it flows out of what Paul was saying a little bit earlier on about division in the church. Remember in Galatians 5, 13, you, my brothers, were called to be free, but don't use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature of the flesh. Rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you'll be destroyed by each other. It seems like this next block, block one is sex stuff, block two is pagan practices, idolatry and witchcraft. Seems like this next block of obvious flesh stuff is stuff the Galatians were really guilty of, even in their own church, tearing each other up. And because we've already spoken to a bunch of that when we were covering Galatians 5, 13 through 15, I don't think we need to get into too much of it. Maybe I'll touch on it a little bit tomorrow as we get down toward the end of this list and on to the converse of this list, which is the good stuff, the fruit of the spirit. Walking by the spirit can't help but produce the good stuff. Walking by the flesh can't help but produce this ick stuff that's all on this list. Okay, that was fun. I've been looking forward to doing a little ancient witchcraft conversation, sharing a few of those details. So thanks for indulging me on that. And breathe easy, because tomorrow is our last day on the pink ticket with every bad thing you can do box ticked. All right, that's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.