The Hope of True Gain

When Paul cast a demonic spirit out of an annoying slave girl at Phillippi, the owners of the slave girl lost their hope for commercial gain (Acts 16:19). The ancient Greek word for hope in that verse means something very different from the modern English word for  hope. In ancient Greek, the word meant a confident expectation (Strong's G1680, ἐλπίς).  In modern English, the word means something more akin to a wish or a desire without any real certainty or expectation.  For instance, today we may say something like, “I sure hope it's sunny this afternoon.” In fact, we might make a statement like that without any real anticipation of a sunny afternoon. But in ancient Greek, it had a nuance that meant something more like, “I am excited because my hope [expectation] is that we’ll have a beautiful and sunny afternoon for our picnic. The weatherman told me so, and there’s evidence everywhere that this will happen!” 

When Paul cast out the evil spirit from that girl, those owners literally lost any expectation that their business model would succeed. Infuriated, the owners seized Paul and Silas and took them before the authorities where they were ultimately beaten and thrown into prison (Acts 16:19-24). Perhaps, in an example of painful poetic justice, the slave owners lost more than mere economic gain. Maybe, they lost eternal gain. The one thing that Paul and Silas were doing was giving everyone who would listen good reason for a confident expectation of gain that far exceeded any material profit they could imagine. Unfortunately, the slave owners themselves were too enslaved to a love of money and a solid expectation of its ill gotten gain to hear the truth being spoken right in the middle of their communities (1 Timothy 6:10).

Ironically, Paul would later write to the church at Philippi warning them of his own potentially impending death because of his service to the Gospel. In the letter, he told them that “to die is gain (Phillippians 1:19-26).”  By this, he meant that death was only the loss of a perishable body – which was no loss at all relative to unification with Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:8). In other words, real gain is something that outlives perishable Earthly wealth or fleeting states of being (Matthew 6:19-21).

When we are in Christ we should never worry about losing hope. Unlike those slave owners, no one can crush our expectation of gain because neither angels or demons or heights or depths or any other thing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39). We can have a confident expectation that no matter what happens, we will be with the Lord in a place where everything is made right.  So follow Paul’s advice in Romans and rejoice in your expectations, and use the confidence of those expectations to help you be patient during tribulation, and then thank God in constant prayer for his provision for you (Romans 12:12).