Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
How close have you ever been to a RIOT? I mean an out of control, angry, shouting, perhaps rock throwing, public property damaging, riot? While riots happen all around our world almost every day, they are not a new phenomenon. Did you know the apostle Paul, on several occasions, was caught up in riots? Sometimes he was even the cause of the riot and today let’s watch one of those moments in history. It’s recorded for us in Acts 19:23-41.
As we’ve seen lately, Paul had quite an unusual relationship with the Christians in Corinth and actually wrote more letters to them than any other church. Yesterday we watched as Paul concluded the letter we know as 1 Corinthians while Paul was in the great city of Ephesus, where he had spent more than two years doing what he loved most to do… talking with people about the story and message of Jesus Christ. (Acts 19:8-10)
Many people in Ephesus had trusted Jesus to be their Savior and their lives were changing as a result. One major change negatively affected the local Ephesus economy and was the root cause of the riot! Can you imagine what that dramatic, economy impacting, change in lifestyle was?
Ephesus had a significant silversmith industry and the most lucrative products, carefully crafted by Ephesian silversmiths, were silver idols of the goddess Artemis. In the mid first century this was big business my friends, I mean BIG business! The Ephesian designed and crafted idols were made in Ephesus but shipped for distribution all over the known world. Pause.
Do you have any idea how big the ‘idol’ business is in 2026? Oh yes, it still includes handmade images of all types and designs, especially for the nearly 1 billion Hindus in the world and their thousands of gods. But idol worship now includes images and memorabilia of living people… athletes, entertainers, politicians and almost anyone famous. And when something new goes viral around the world through social media, celebrating a famous person or event, no manufacturing systems can respond fast enough. Our world, every part of our world, is caught up in idolatry of all types!
As people, in all the places Paul had been, were turning to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they stopped collecting idols and other such things, as they kept their hearts focused on Jesus their Savior and Lord! Evidently, it was so many Christians in so many places that their purchasing pattern changes were actually affecting the entire silversmith, idol manufacturing business in Ephesus! Pause. Think about that!
Acts 19:23 tells us “About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. A silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business…and he called together the silversmiths and related trades…”
Do you remember years before, when Paul was Saul the angry Pharisee, Acts 9 tells us Saul was on his way to Damascus, Syria for the purpose of hunting down anyone who belonged to ‘the Way’. (Acts 9:1,2) Saul was going to arrest these people and bring them before Jewish courts and have them punished. What was “the Way”?
Evidently that was the name given, in many places, to those who became followers of Jesus in the mid first century. (Acts 19:9) What did it mean? Perhaps it was built on Jesus’ own words to His disciples when He said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6) As we turn to Jesus, we follow Him, the only and living WAY to God, right?
In Ephesus, as this silversmith named Demetrius rallied lots of people together, he made a profound claim which stirred up a riot. Acts 19 tells us he said: You know my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says gods made by human hands are no gods at all…” (Acts 19:25,26)
Does that bring a smile to your face and raise a shout of praise to God in your heart? Demetrius was right, except for one small error! Yes, it was large numbers of people, and yes Paul had convinced them of the logical, God given truth, that nothing man made should be worshiped as God. (Ex. 20:3,4)
But Demetrius was mistaken about one significant thing. His error was his claim that Paul had led these people ASTRAY. In truth, Paul had led them to experience Jesus and Jesus was delivering them from their idolatry bondage! These people were now living in a sin-forgiven relationship with crucified, resurrected, ascended, living Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit of God was alive in them! They had NO need for idols or anything which reminded them of the false gods they had previously worshipped. In fact, those things were distractions and so these Christians not only stopped buying them, they destroyed them! Pause. Is there anything you collect, anything in your house which distracts you from Jesus?
As you read through the remainder of Acts 19, you’ll see this riot lasted several hours and was on the verge of getting out of control when finally wiser heads prevailed and calmed things down. The result of this riot, however, was the obvious conclusion that it was no longer safe for Paul and his Gospel teaching companions to remain in Ephesus.
With Paul’s first major letter to the Corinthian Christians now completed, it appears Paul sent Timothy and Erastus to Macedonia (Acts 19:22) Paul then gathered the Christians in Ephesus together.
“…after encouraging them, Paul said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. He traveled throughout the area of Macedonia, speaking many words of encouragement to the people…” (Acts 20:1,2) While Dr. Luke, the author of Acts, does not tell us exactly which route Paul took, most scholars believe Paul headed north from Ephesus along the coastal roads to Troas.
Eventually, Paul arrived again in the Macedonian towns where he had planted churches on his second missionary journey (Acts 16:11-17:14) Neapolis, Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea. Can we imagine the great joy Paul had in revisiting the Christians in these places? As Paul lingered in each town, encouraging the people he loved and preaching the Gospel to those seeking to know Jesus, Paul was everyday watching and waiting for some news from Corinth. Why?
Paul’s first major letter, which we’ve just studied in detail, was strong and dealt with some very contentious situations among the disgruntled Christians in Corinth. How would they receive Paul’s letter? How would that compare to how they had received Paul’s previous letters? What would the Holy Spirit do among them as Paul’s words would confront their errors and blatant sin?
Tomorrow, we’ll watch as Paul receives word of their response and what the Spirit of God moved Paul to do about that. For today, the ‘lessons learned’ study notes will help us consider some important questions and the worship song I found will bless your soul with a wonderful, southern Gospel rendition of “This is My Story”. I’ll be here waiting for you tomorrow.
Today’s Scripture: Acts 19:23-20:2.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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