Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days. 13 And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. 14 Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. 15 And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So, she persuaded us.16 Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” 18 And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour. Acts 16:11-18
Robert Griffin III, ex Heisman winner and football analyst with 2 million Twitter followers tweeted this before the BYU Notre Dame football game. ..."Battle of the Christians for the #1 spot." This is great PR for Christ, right? Christians excelling in more than just moral behavior yet being boring and wimpy and irrelevant. Suddenly "we're" on the mainstage although don't hold up a John 3:16 sign at College Game Day because they will take it down because of "pit rules." Pat McAfee, defying the rules read from the book of Mormon something about God creating the Earth to be inhabited and hath created his children to possess it, all of it sounds true and good yet ... unhelpful or irrelevant in this context. So with Christ being lifted up, what's the problem - shouldn't we be all for this?
Paul was faced with the same situation in Phillipi. There was an unsaved, demon possessed girl known for sorcery and divination and telling the future successfully following Paul around saying, "Here's a guy that is telling you how to be saved - listen to him!" Good PR, right? She had a lot of followers. She was locally famous and made a lot of money fortune telling and she was pointing people to Jesus. What's the problem? Take the win, right? Paul faces her and rebukes her and casts out the demon. Why?
You have to start by asking, why would Satan want to validate Paul? My guess is that it was an attempt to marry darkness and light - a type of ecumenicalism that embraces truth and lie. Paul was in effect saying, "I can't be associated with you because the Devil is a liar so be gone." Likewise true Christianity can't embrace Mormonism which says that we are all created to be gods and combines faith with temple works for salvation along with many more heresies. And we can't embrace Catholicism even though they are pro-life warriors and believe in the Bible (all 66 books and then some) because they make works necessary to salvation and treat their traditions like purgatory, papal infallibility, counsels, praying to Mary on equal footing with the Bible. To marry true Christianity to these is a win for the devil.
I know there are some Catholics who are saved and some Mormons trusting Christ alone for their salvation. That's great. But to equate true Christianity with Mormonism and Catholicism on a tweet is wrong and dangerous to the church and Paul wouldn't have put up with it and we shouldn't either. This would better be labeled "The Marriot Inn's Apostate Bowl", and HOLY UNDERWEAR! BYU upsets Notre Dame!
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