RandyHelzerman wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 2:47 pm
John2 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2024 2:36 pm
But Zedekiah asked Jeremiah to pray for him and he met a bad end.
So if anybody prayed for by anybody they meet a bad ending? Surely if Simon Magus met a bad end Acts would have told us.
Well, no, but I assume the author of Acts was aware of Jer. 37 and the stories seem very similar. A big shot (King Zediekiah/Simon Magus) gets chastised by a holy man (Jeremiah/Peter) and asks the holy man to pray for him. In one case the big shot meets a bad ending and in the other we are left hanging. Maybe the former was a model for the latter.
Remember all the stuff Peter did. He was possessed by the Devil after Jesus asked the disciples "who am I." He denied Jesus twice. And (according to John) he renounced fishing for men and went back to fishing. The NT is all about second chances.
But we know that Peter comes around because of what Jesus says in Mk. 14 ("You will all fall away ... But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee”) and what the young man says in Mk. 16 ("There you will see him, just as he told you”)
Jesus' family (who had thought he was crazy) also came around after Jesus died (Acts 1:14: "With one accord they all continued in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers").
But with Simon we are left hanging. Maybe everything was great for him after that. I don't know. But since it seems similar to Jer. 37, and since Peter's harsh rebuke is left hanging there ("you have no part or share in our ministry"), and since Simon was seen as a bad person by Peter (and Hegesippus and others), I'm thinking Simon had the ending that Peter wanted him to have ("may your silver perish with you"). Maybe not though, of course. It's just my guess.