We continue this week to follow the early missionizing journeys of Paul and his companions as recorded in Acts 16. Still in Philippi, a Roman colony within Macedonia; apparently still enjoying the hospitality of their first convert there, Lydia; Paul and some pilgrims become embroiled in a conflict that pits religious, economic and class forces against them.

The dramatic series of events in today's text begins with an exorcism. A slave girl possessed by a spirit of "divination" begins to pursue Paul and company, crying out "These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation" (v.17). Literally this young girl is described as having a "spirit of pythoness" that is, the same spirit that spoke through the Delphic oracle. (Apollo, the great python-slayer, was serv…