Acts 19:8-20
Last week when we left Paul he had just arrived in Ephesus and had met up with the twelve men that knew nothing of the Holy Spirit, and he lead them to Christ. This week we see Paul back in a synagogue debating with the Jews again.
The events likely unfolded like this: Paul arrives in town, and finds the missionaries he left behind. He goes to the synagogue and begins debating with the Jews, and during the time he is not preaching he is working and probably doing at least some fellowship with the fledging Christian community there. It would be through that fellowship he would most likely meet the twelve men, and lead them to Christ. Now in Luke’s telling we are getting the rest of the details of what was going on around that event.
Paul was preaching in the synagogue as was his custom, and typical to his history he is very confrontational in his approach. He debated with them for three months before they were hostile enough to push him out. From there he heads to Tyrannus’s school to teach, and the text says he preached there daily. Paul knew he was teaching the future leaders of the church at Ephesus and was pouring as much training in to them as he could.
It is interesting that the Greek here uses the imperfect tense for the phase “were hardened” in Acts 19:9, which tells us this was a process that took time. In other words when Paul first arrived they were not hardened against the Gospel, but still refused his teaching. Over time, about three months worth of time, they became more and more hardened to the truth until the finally forced him out of the synagogue.
This is typical of how we see things happen today and it is a danger for all of us. The more you expose yourself to sin, the less like sin it becomes. That is to say that just like the more these Jews rejected the Gospel the less sensitive they became to it (through hardening), the more we expose ourselves to sin, the less sensitive we become (or more hardened) to the sin. In order to prevent this natural callusing of our hearts to sin, we must be careful not to slip up in the small things because they will lead to greater ones. These Jews started with just arguing with Paul and at the end of verse nine they are completely hardened to the Gospel and running Paul out of the synagogue.
From there Paul heads to a local school. Paul taught there daily for two years, and based on some of the ancient texts he taught from eleven A.M. to four P.M. Assuming that is correct that means he taught during the part of the day when most workers were on break to get out of the heat. This meant a larger number of people were free to come, but it also means they had to give up their rest time to come.
Paul was training up the future leaders of what would become a mega-church, and he is dumping all his time in to it. Later he will appoint Timothy to be the head pastor, and eventually John the beloved disciple of Jesus would replace Timothy. This is the same church that Jesus would speak directly to in the letter we call Revelation. (Rev 2:1-7) As a result of Paul’s work here Ephesus will be come the evangelism headquarters that will reach all of Asia. However when Paul arrives on the scene, the environment that he finds in is not a good one. Ephesus is a city full of superstition, witchcraft and sorcery.
Luke records for us that rags Paul used during his work were brought to the sick and those possessed by demons, and those rags cured them. The Scriptures here clearly tells us two things about this miracle that we should be careful to note. First the text never claims Paul did anything, instead it states “God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul.” (Acts 19:11) The second thing to note is the little word “unusual” or as the NIV puts it “extraordinary.” When we take these together it is apparent that God was working in a special way just for this event, and this it not something we should expect today. To put it another way, God was working in a way that the majority of the people that he wanted to reach would understand and accept.
While all this is happening some of Paul’s competition in town is trying to get in on the act. In Acts 19:13 we see some people whom God has not chosen to tools trying to invoke the name of Jesus to fight a very powerful and real demon. The demon blows off their attempt and they are forced to flee naked from the fight. (Acts 19:14) Their mistake was they saw what Paul was doing as if it was some ritual to replicate, just as many do today.
The result of these extraordinary miracles is that a large number join the church and there is a massive burning of their spell books, idols and other magical devices. The value of what was destroyed was in the ballpark of the combined yearly wages of one hundred and fifty men. This was a great victory for the cause of Christ.
It says of the people that joined the church that they “professing” and “telling” their deeds. The grammar here suggests that this was a continual event and not a one-time happening. In other words, they had a hard time giving up their past and had to work through it slowly. In our fast food culture here in America we to often expect instant results, but that is not how it works with anything important, and surely not anything as important as a person’s eternal life. A sinner does not wake up one morning, get saved and stop sinning. It is a process that we all have to work through over our entire lives. We will make mistakes, and we will backslide from time to time. Over time, if we are growing in Christ, we will fall in to sin less, and fall in less deeply.
In this section of scripture there were two lessons that we focused on this week. The first is that there is a process to falling away from God and hardening your heart. Later in this section of scripture we also see there is a slow process of growing in Christ. The caution here for us today is that things take time. We should not expect to become perfect instantly, and we must be careful not to harden ourselves through repeated exposure to small sins.
The second thing I highlighted was that God worked unusual miracles for a specific purpose and time. This is not to say that God does not work miracles today, just that here is always a specific reason for them. For example Moses was able to free the Jew’s because of the plagues that God clearly sent, Paul in our text this week did nothing like that at all. Miracles are always done for a specific reason, and are intended to glorify God, not man. If you see someone claiming to work miracles, the first and easiest test is to ask, “Who is getting the glory?” If the answer is anyone other then God, then you know it is not of God, and you should not be taking part in it.
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