HOW NOT TO CHASE A TURKEY 31 granddaughter withers, “General” Sash continues to crave applause and the spotlight, oblivious to his life’s moral and physical wreckage. Enoch and George’s ambitions for attention, like those of Ruller, Joy, and Old Dudley, cut them off from other people, yielding disappointment and danger rather than delight. Self-Centered Ambition in Scripture: Simon the Sorcerer O’Connor’s stories may cause readers to laugh at her characters’ inflated egos and poor choices, but the vivid Biblical treatment of self-centered ambition in Acts 8 requires that we pause and search our own hearts. When Philip, one of the Apostles spreading the good news of Jesus Christ’s ministry and resurrection, reached Samaria, a major city north of Jerusalem, he encountered a man named Simon. This man’s practice of sorcery “amazed” audiences and enabled him to boast “that he was someone great.” Despite Simon’s pride, Luke recounts that the sorcerer believed and was baptized when Philip preached the Gospel. Nevertheless, after the apostles Peter and John arrived to pray for the believers in Samaria, Simon revealed the weakness of his faith. Like O’Connor’s characters, the Samaritan’s self-centered ambition surged, leading him to picture himself back in the center of a crowd. In Acts 8:19, Simon offered the Apostles money to give him the ability to send the Holy Spirit into people by touching them, a public ministry that, if brought from imagination into reality, would restore his fame and public power. Simon sought to make God’s gift an instrument for his own glorification, leading Peter to rebuke him severely and demand that the sorcerer “repent of this wickedness.” Simon’s disastrous attempt to restore his celebrity is not the only Biblical reminder that believers should be wary of the self-centered ambition that threatens to sweep us away with fantasies of our own importance and opportunities. When Eve ate the forbidden fruit in Eden, she believed that it was “desirable for gaining wisdom,” indicating that she took the fruit after imagining what it could do for her. She disobeyed the Lord as part of a self-centered pursuit of her own ambitions. Paul addressed the temptation toward self-centered ambition in Romans 12:3 when he instructed believers “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought,
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