Acts 18:18-19:41
The Gospel Goes to Ephesus
What is the result of the gospel encountering a life; a human heart; a culture?
Well, when the gospel encounters Ephesus, rioting is the result.
Unfortunately, many people’s expectations are different – many Christians want the gospel to blend in to the culture; or they want to replace the gospel with their culturally-driven version of it and identify the gospel with “American Values”. And many non-Christians want the gospel to stay in it’s place, and not say much, and only remain relevant to narrowly religious private lives of its adherents.
But we see all over the book of Acts, that that simply is not the case.
Gospel is relevant to every culture – it speaks to every culture because the gospel is universal;
the Gospel has some common ground or connecting point with every culture – because every culture is the product of humans made in the image of God;
but the gospel challenges every culture because every culture is the produce of fallen and sinful humanity – and so every culture is fallen and sinful. Every culture – and every person in it – will be confronted and challenged by the truth.
And when that happens, the world reacts. At Ephesus, their cherished values were under attack and they rioted.
And so we should not expect that the world will roll out the red carpet of embrace and adulation when the gospel enters into it – if that happens, then we might suspect that we aren’t preaching the true pure unadulterated gospel.
and we can never modify, change, add/subtract from the Christian message in order to accommodate it to the culture because then we take away it’s power to redeem and transform the fallen world that it enters into.
Lisa the Iconoclast (someone who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions of a culture):
Lisa and her class are assigned to do a report on Jebediah Springfield – the founder of the town and revered & esteemed town-hero – and in the course of her research discovers Jebediah Springfield, rather than being the noble heroic man of inspiration, was a fraud – a bloodthirsty murderous pirate.
And her expectation is that people will want to know the truth about Jebediah Springfield.
And so Lisa hands in her school report entitled “Jebediah Springfied, SuperFraud”; and she gets and F. And as she makes it her personal mission to get the truth out, she is hated for it; she is persecuted for it; even her family is outcasted for it.
Because people don’t love it when he truth confronts their cherished beliefs.
And the gospel is similar, because Jesus is the ultimate Iconoclast; the Gospel is the ultimate iconoclastic movement because when it encounters a culture, it so clashes with the cherished beliefs and practices and values that the culture reacts against it.
And when the gospel comes into my life; when the gospel comes into your life; when the gospel comes into our world & our culture; it begins it’s work of idol-smashing.
And in fact, we see three things that the gospel does when it goes to Ephesus:
corrects, costs, clashes
The gospel brings correction to people’s understanding of it; it brings with it the cost of discipleship; and it clashes with the world.
correction:
Corrects Christians who need to come to a deeper understanding;
Corrects people who think they’re disciples, but don’t actually know Jesus.
What we see happening here is that Paul’s influence is extended, as Priscilla & Aquila teach Apollos, and then as Apollos teaches the Corinthian church.
Paul travels with Priscilla & Aquila to Ephesus, and he leaves them there, keeps going and finishing up his second missionary journey he returns back to his home base church in Antioch; and then returns to Ephesus;
But before he gets to Ephesus, Priscilla & Aquila encounter Apollos there;
and it’s clear that he is a believer – v24 – “He had a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures (OT).” v25 “He had been instructed in the way of the Lord (Jesus), and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately.”
He is a believer in Jesus, and he taught about Jesus accurately – in terms of his main points of doctrine, he had things basically right.
But, v25 – he taught about Jesus accurately, though he only knew only the baptism of John; so, v26 “Priscilla and Aquila invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”
In terms of the core essentials of the faith, he was clear on those things; and so the problem wasn’t that he was a heretic that they needed to rebuke publicly and couldn’t share in Christian fellowship with him;
but, he still needed to come to a deeper understanding; he was lacking in something; and so they take him aside and come alongside him to give him that deeper, fuller, more adequate understanding.
Probably he understood the basics of Christ and the gospel; but he needed to learn more of Christ’s teaching; he needed to learn about Christian baptism; he needed to learn the deeper implications of the gospel.
He preaches with fervor (v24) and enthusiasm, but he doesn’t have a lot of substance – content – depth – underneath that fervor and enthusiasm – and Priscilla and Aquila are very wise because they know that the worst thing they could do is squash the enthusiasm and dampen the fervor; and so they correct him in a way that supplies the substance that he lacks without dousing out the fire.
He needed some correction and instruction in order to come to a deeper understanding of the faith.
Now, of course, no one – no Christian, no Christian teacher or preacher – no one has a perfect understanding when it comes to knowing or teaching the truth of God.
But, there is such a thing as a more accurate, and a less accurate understanding.
And it’s good, for Christians and Christian teachers alike to seek to have a more accurate understanding of the truth of God;
Because, you can’t know what you don’t love (Attributes).
And unfortunately, many Christians are content with their current understanding, and never desire or attempt to gain a deeper understanding of Jesus and his truth.
Because sometimes that requires a little bit of correction, and a little bit of humility; and Apollos went on to use his gift of teaching and deeper understanding of the faith to have a godly influence on the Corinthian church – v27-28.
and isn’t it a good thing that he was willing to be corrected? isn’t a good thing that he was able to be humble and stop teaching to learn so that he could be a more effective teacher?
Don’t be content with your current understanding of the truth – because you might think that you have a whole lot of the truth when you only have a little bit of it – and there are deeper depths to be discovered in our knowledge of our savior Jesus – and you can’t love what you don’t know.
Corrects Christians who need to come to a deeper understanding;
Corrects people who think they’re disciples, but don’t actually know Jesus.
Because when Paul finally gets to Ephesus, after Apollos has moved on to Corinth, he encounters some apparent disciples who seem to have some similarities to Apollos – v3 – they were some sort of disciples of John the Baptist as it seems Apollos was – but Apollos realized the purpose of John’s ministry by finding the one John prepared for and pointed to – Jesus the Messiah who had come; but they apparently hadn’t.
Apollos was a disciple of John who became a disciple of Jesus; they were only disciples of John – not knowing about Jesus or the HS.
And so they were delinquent, second-hand disciples of John because when these disciples are asked about baptism and the Holy Spirit – they say they’ve never even heard of the Holy Spirit (v2) – even though John was preparing people for the one who would come baptizing with the Spirit;
And so Paul has to fill them in on the most important part of John’s message: v4 – John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. he told people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.
So they were disciples of John – but they were still waiting for the one John promised to come; they were living like the Messiah hadn’t come yet, like the Spirit hadn’t been poured out yet –
Paul encounters believers who are in a “time-warp”; living in a past age when John the Baptist had begun his ministry but hadn’t yet met or baptized Jesus;
And, you know some professing Christians live like Jesus hasn’t come yet; like they haven’t been forgiven of their sins yet; like they haven’t been adopted into the family of God yet; like the Spirit of holiness and power hasn’t been poured out into their hearts to bring newness of life;
some Christians still live like they’re in a time-warp – waiting for a gift that’s already been given
And these disciples finally they learn about Jesus and come out of their time-warp:
They are baptized into Jesus name and receive the Spirit.
“When the Spirit came upon them, they had a mini-pentecost. Better, Pentecost caught up to them. Better still, they caught up to Pentecost.”
See, this isn’t some kind of second-blessing of the holy spirit; this isn’t suggesting that there are some Christians who don’t have the Spirit and some who do, and those who don’t need to come to a deeper understanding or have some kind of special experience of receiving the Spirit; because the universal testimony of the NT is that the reception of the Spirit is a universal Christian experience – every Christian receives the Spirit, because the reception of the Spirit is an initial Christian experience – it makes the Christian – it marks the entry point into the Christian faith and the new birth.
And, so these so-called disciples, weren’t disciples at all; and Paul has to correct their false perception that they are.
Because some people think they’re disciples of Jesus but don’t know him.
They might know about him, but don’t know him personally;
or they might know the name of Jesus but know nothing fo what that name stands for or who the person is and what the person is like who bears that name.
And, someone in that situation might be offended, if someone came along and corrected that false perception; but if you were in that situation wouldn’t it be far better to be corrected of that false perception, even if it was uncomfortable and offensive, wouldn’t that be far better than to go on living in the false perception and thinking it was real/true/not knowing the falseness of it!
It is possible to think you are a disciple but to know nothing of Jesus. And for some people, before the gospel can convince someone to become a Christian, it needs to convince them that they’re not a Christian in the first place.
correction; cost.
As Paul ministers in Ephesus, God works powerfully through him. And v11 – God did extraordinary miracles – and the phrase extraordinary miracles seems redundant;
aren’t miracles, by definition, extraordinary? but the idea here is that even though all miracles are extraordinary, these miracles were not the normal kind of extraordinary miracles; these were unique; different;
v12 – (read)
And, remember these miracles were part of Paul’s apostolic credentials – to show he wasn’t a phony – and, remember, Paul wasn’t selling prayer clothes that would bring you a miracle if you sent the money;
these showed Paul wasn’t a phony because there are plenty of phonies and don’t send them your money and don’t believe their superstitions; because there was no power in them;
And we see phonies here – vv13-16 – who try to invoke the name of Jesus without knowing Jesus – without having experienced his saving power; and they are exposed as frauds – they try to invoke the name of Jesus without knowing Jesus – and the demons beat them up – v16;
but people are seeing this and coming to faith – and the result is that Jesus name is held in high honor among the people – v17.
And people were delivered out of sorcery –
and we see the genuineness of their conversion, when they are prepared to pay the cost of discipleship;
because grace comes to us freely but costs us everything because by grace we follow the one who gave up everything for us; and so we lay down our lives for him.
cheap grace – grace that results in no transformation, no sacrifice, no discipleship – cheap grace is no grace at all; because Jesus doesn’t just forgive us our sin and leave us in it, but calls us out of it –
and disciples follow Jesus no matter the cost; they lay down their lives.
They turn away from sin; they say I was wrong; will you forgive me. They do the hard work of repentance; they believe in the deceitfulness of sin even when sin looks so promising; and they believe in the satisfaction of Christ even when the world looks like it has more to offer –
and they follow him; and cling to him and love him and walk with him; they follow Jesus no matter the cost and lay down their lives for him.
And that’s what we see here – this book-burning is so notable because of the cost of it – v19 – 50,000 drachmas would be equivalent to millions of dollars;
too bad they didn’t have e-bay! and not only were the books valuable but they would have been a means to income as they practiced the sorcery.
they could have sold these books; they could have kept them for the value; but they burn them.
And this isn’t just a book-burning for the sake of disagreement or censorship;
This isn’t a burning of secular records (or cd’s) because they were afraid that the ideas in them were not totally biblical;
And this isn’t a burning of other people’s religious texts, (burning of Koran as a spectacle – using this passage to justify, but not a parallel because that wasn’t his former religion)
but these were their own religious texts – v19 – a number who had practiced sorcery…
These were specifically religious texts – false, demonic religious texts – which they had practiced, and might be tempted to return to; which had kept them bound in spiritual darkness and under demonic influence;
and the burning of them was voluntary; and “it was evidence of the genuineness of their repentance, and the desire to turn away from a lifestyle that they now knew was evil; a realization that there were real demonic forces present in these beliefs; and a demonstration that they wanted nothing whatsoever to do with their sinful past”
“Repentance cost them a great deal – hey were prepared to give up valuable treasures for the sake of Jesus.”
Most of us aren’t faced with decisions that involve such an economic cost – but all of us will face difficult choices of discipleship – and the question for us is, what is the price-tag of our discipleship?
At what point does the cost of following christ become too high that it isn’t worth it?
But, if we see Jesus – as these people surely did – as the pearl of greatest price – the one of ultimate value – the only thing in this life that we need, and everything in this life that we want; then there is never a price-tag on our discipleship – the cost never becomes too high because all else pales in comparison to him.
correction; cost; clash
The gospel brings correction to people’s understanding of it; it brings with it the cost of discipleship; and it clashes with the world.
And we see this vv23-41, when the Ephesians riot against Paul, at the instigation of Demetrius, who – v24 was a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis and sold them.
And this would be a very lucrative business – he says as much in v25 – “we receive a good income from this business.”
He gathers together the other idol-makers and drums up some nationalistic religious concern – v27;
But we see that there were two layers to Demetrius’ idolatry: on the surface, Artemis was his god;
but under the surface, money was his god: because even though he feigns interest in the honor of Artemis and concern for the people – “they are being led astray” (v26) – if he was really concerned about truth, he would investigate the claims of Paul for himself;
but his real concern is that since Paul has showed up to town, less people are buying his idols! His affluent business, his success, his wealth, his cushy lifestyle;
And Paul has the audacity to teach people – in Demetrius’ own words: (v26) that “gods made by human hands are no gods at all”;
which – come on, that ought to be the most obvious, self-evident statement ever uttered in the history of statements being uttered;
gods made by human hands are no gods at all.
Any idol is a god manufactured in the human mind and the human heart;
Calvin: “The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols”
And Jesus smashes those idols because they are no gods at all; and he wants to liberate us from their misery and bring us into his glory.
End:
Church needs to be faithful, and willing to endure the scorn of the world – because the world and the truth are at odds – opposed – you can’t love & serve them both.
“Much of the church is clamoring to get on the worlds’ bandwagon”
But you cannot love the world and love God. You cannot serve 2 masters.
And when the gospel clashes with you,
how will you respond? Our hearts might want to riot;
But Jesus isn’t smashing your idols to destroy you, but to rebuild you after the image of God; to make you whole.
When the gospel comes to Ephesus, it clashes with the world – because the truth of the gospel and the values of the gospel and the message of the gospel challenges and confronts and contradicts that of the world;
and those who held those worldly values despised those who brought the truth into conflict with them;
they preferred to go on living in their deception;
But this all happened not just because Paul preached that gods made by human hands are no gods at all; but because people were persuaded by the truth of the gospel and put it into practice in their lives – they stopped worshiping idols; they stopped buying idols made by human hands; and started worshiping the true and living God who is not served by human hands; who is the creator of all and not created by anyone.
christians were living differently; and the idol-makers were noticing; Christians were truly repenting and experiencing transformation.
And, we ought to pray that that would happen in our day.