When Opposition Reveals the True Enemy of the Gospel

At Philippi, Paul encountered a fundamentally different antagonism than in Jewish cities. The pythoness's masters cared nothing for Apollo or religious doctrine—they opposed the Gospel purely for mercenary reasons. Their temple slave generated profit through divination; Paul's exorcism dried up their income. Maclaren observes with cutting clarity: "Infinitely more respectable was Jewish opposition, which was, at all events, the perverted working of noble sentiments.…