In the Bible, Simony is the attempt to buy or sell spiritual power and sacred things with money. It happened in Acts 8 when Simon tried to offer money in exchange for the Holy Spirit's power.
During our father and son's Halloween outreach, there were many who came forward for spiritual reading and power healing.
There was a Caucasian lady who sat down. I saw some words floating at the back of my mind. "First husband. Abused and hurt her. The husband now is not her first one."
Now this is really personal. At the same time, if I heard wrongly, it might offend her. I was a tad hesitant, vacillating between releasing the words or keeping it in. But I chose to step out and take risk, and I used questions.
"Are you married?" She nodded.
"What I am going to say next might be pretty personal and sensitive. And I don't want to be presumptuous."
She replied, "Yeah. No worries. You can share."
"Is your current husband is not your first husband?"
She paused as she was taken aback. And responded, "Yeah. I was divorced and re-married. My current husband is much older than me."
"Your first husband has hurt you deeply. You are still carrying that hurt into this marriage."
Her eyes welled up. And she began to share. We ministered to her.
Her friend came. An elderly. She wanted reading. We said, "Don't let your age be the limitation. There is a small business that you have been wanting to do. It's time to be bold, have courage and step out to do it."
Tears came down from her eyes.
Both of them kept wanting to give us money. They said, "We want to exchange love. You have blessed us. We must give you some money."
We declined. This went on for a few rounds.
Finally, I said, "How about you just buy us a bottle of mineral water?" They nodded, left and came back with a big bottle of Evian.
There were other powerful testimonies, but it is not the point of this FB post.
When we returned home, I joked with my wife. "We are going to be rich if we were in Australia. Psychic reading is a big thing there and they charge 120-150 AUD per session."
She replied, "Ya... ya... ya... you gonna answer to God for that."
I continued, "In Singapore, the New Age people charge around $100 per reading. How about I start charging $50 per reading?"
She said, "You are going to account to God if you do that."
I persisted (trying to be funny), "$50 per reading. I just need to read 20 people per weekend (Sat & Sun) and it will be around $4000 per month, on top of my work. We are going to be rich!"
She responded, "Father, forgive him, for he doesn't know what he is saying."
Here's the thing... what is the line between simony and ministry? So many so-called Christians and ministers are crossing this line. It is actually NOT that grey. It is NOT a thin line. It is very simple.
If you receive money by ministering anything spiritual (manifestations of the Holy Spirit) in the Kingdom, you are committing Simony, which is a sin in the Bible.
I don't care if that is your full-time ministry work. Because God has given you the ability to work and earn through other ways.
A certain Sozo ministry requires money. That is not biblical. Period. You might ask, "Then how are they going to eat?" Simple ----- work!
"But they are full-time doing this." Then.... work part-time! When there is a will, there is always a way.
It is with Simony that the name of Jesus has become a merchandised Gospel. When we start charging people money for the spiritual, we dilute the Gospel of the Kingdom and are no different from pagans.
