Hello my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends on this Thursday,
Have you given much thought to the many ways Jesus makes Himself known to such a wide diversity of people all around our world? Join me again in the great city of Ephesus in about 55ad with the apostle Paul, on his third missionary journey. This is his second visit to Ephesus and Acts 19:10 tells us Paul spent more than 2 years in this great city this time! By my calculation that is the longest time we have any record of Paul spending, in any one place, since Barnabas drew Paul from Tarsus to join him in Syrian Antioch, several years before. (Acts 11:25,26)
I find it fascinating that the Holy Spirit led the apostle Paul to engage multiple strategies in bringing the truth and power of the Gospel of Jesus to the city of Ephesus, and it causes me to ask how effectively Christians in your city and mine are bringing Jesus to our towns? Let’s take a close look…
* Acts 19:1-7 shows us Paul engaging with some in Ephesus who thought they were Christians, but they did not know about the Holy Spirit and only had received the baptism of John the Baptist.
So, Paul used clear doctrinal teaching to help them come to an accurate and legitimate relationship with Jesus, which was validated by the Holy Spirit coming upon them in power.
* Acts 19:8 tells us Paul engaged in Synagogue debate, one of his favorite tactics since he was so incredibly intelligent and trained for Scripture debate, yet once again he faced strong resistance after a while, forcing him to leave that weekly engagement.
* Acts 19:9,10 shows us that Paul found the ‘hall of Tyrannus’ a suitable place for his discipleship classes to be held with those spiritually hungry people in whom the Holy Spirit was doing a work of deep learning and strong discipleship.
* Acts 19:11,12 gives us an interesting glimpse into something I can’t fully explain. “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched Paul were taken to the sick and their illnesses were cured and evil spirits left them.”
That seems unreasonable and almost mystical. Now let’s be careful we do not build either a theology of healing or attempt to duplicate this, because of one brief period of time in which God was doing unusual, amazing things. While I can’t explain it, I trust it to be true because it is in God’s Word. I find it interesting though, I see no evidence Paul attempted to integrate this as a regular evangelism strategy anywhere else. I believe we’ll see why in the following verses.
* Acts 19:13-16 reports a powerful example of when the attention is diverted away from Jesus and onto a person, even a famous person God is using greatly like the apostle Paul.
This demonic encounter taught many people an important lesson. Only Jesus is powerful enough to command, bind and defeat demonic forces. Don’t dabble with the kingdom of darkness without understanding the risk of serious and unexpected demonic confrontations.
* Finally, Acts 19:17-20 is a remarkable and dramatic experience.
Evidently the demonic showdown with the sons of Sceva in the previous few verses so frightened many people an unexpected repentant response took place when many who had been deeply involved in occult practices brought their occult materials and burned them as a demonstration of their abandonment of involvement with the kingdom of darkness. The value of what was willingly destroyed that day was placed at 50,000 drachmas, which in today’s money would be about $4 million. A ‘drachma’ was one days wage for a daily laborer in the first century!
Now when we consider all these different events which happened in Ephesus, can we appreciate that the Holy Spirit of God has no shortage of tactics to use for bringing the attention of any town to focus on the wonder, the majesty, the miraculous power, the sacredness of Almighty God and our Savior Jesus Christ?
Dr. Luke reports this was the result in Ephesus in 55ad: “In this way the word of the Lord Jesus spread widely and grew in power.” (Acts 19:20) Oh my! The Gospel message the apostle Paul, Aquila, Priscilla and even Apollos had brought to Ephesus, anointed by the power of the Holy Spirit, was changing not only a city, but an entire region!
We need to pause and consider the wonder and reality of what happens when the Holy Spirit moves powerfully among God’s people to accomplish God’s great purposes any place in the world! As you look at your town, your part of our world, do you see evidence the Spirit of God is working something special where you live and do you sense the Spirit is drawing you into His activity in some special way? Are you willing and ready or hesitant?
The ‘lessons learned’ study notes are ready for you at the link below and I’ll be here with Paul tomorrow, waiting for you.
Today’s Scripture: Acts 19:1-20.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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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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