Dennis Tuuri

# Acts 19:21-41

Acts of the Lord Jesus Christ through his church. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. I’m going to be reading Acts chapter 19 all of it. No, actually we’ll start at verse 21. Acts 19 beginning at verse 21.

“After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome.” So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timothy and Erastus, but he himself stayed in Asia for a season.

At the same time there arose no small stir about that way. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsman, whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, “Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. Moreover, ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that there be no gods which are made with hands.

So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought, but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship.” And when they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath and cried out, saying, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” And the whole city was filled with confusion. And having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the theater.

And when Paul would have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not. And certain of the chiefs of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him, desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theater. Some therefore cried one thing and some another, for the assembly was confused, and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward.

And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defense unto the people. But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours, cried out, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” And when the town clerk had appeased the people, he said, “Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?

Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly. For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess. Wherefore, if Demetrius and the craftsmen which are with him have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies. Let them implead one another. But if ye inquire anything concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly.

For we are in danger to be called in question for this day’s uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse.” And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly. And after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples, and embraced them, and departed for to go into Macedonia.

We thank God for his word. Let us pray that he might illuminate our understanding.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for bringing us together this day to praise and to worship you, to sing forth the praises of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and of the Father. We thank you, Lord God, for your word. And we pray now, Father, that this word would be understood by us, that we would apply it to our lives. We know that your book is unlike any other book, and we must be illumined by the Holy Spirit to understand it and to apply it.

We thank you, Lord God, for your scriptures. We take them from you gratefully and thankfully. We pray now you would be in our midst by the Holy Spirit that I might speak according to that word, that ears might be opened by your spirit, and that hearts might be opened also to walk in act in obedience this week in response to this your word. And may we through all of this, Lord God, come to praise and adore you more.

We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.

You may be seated. The younger children, if their parents desire it of them may be dismissed now to go to their Sabbath schools. They’ll receive instruction at the level of understanding they can understand.

Last night I thought it might have been better to say Demetrius is God, the dollar or Diana—which is it?

It’s important for us, particularly since we’ve been away from the book of Acts for a period of time, to remember where we’re at in the context of this set of events. What I want to do—I don’t have an outline, but what I want to do is first give a little context for this riot at Ephesus, this unusual event, and then go over the main two actors in it: Demetrius, and then the town’s clerk or the mayor.

Luther in his translation called him a chancellor—the man who speaks last and quiets the assembly. And then make some application from this text to our lives. I want to explain it first, though, of course, so we understand what’s going on, and then we’ll make application in the context of our lives and our culture today.

But first of all, a little bit of background.

Now you remember the book of Acts is the acts of the Lord Jesus Christ. They ask when the kingdom be restored to Israel before he ascends and he says that you’ll receive power from on high. And so we see then the beginning of the visible manifestation of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. He reigns now. We sang that earlier. I get that reign is made more manifest through the preaching of the gospel and then the result of that preaching.

The first half of the book of Acts is Peter is the main character. The second half, Paul. The gospel goes to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth. And we’re now in that section dealing with the uttermost parts of the earth. We are specifically in the third missionary journey of the Apostle Paul. And we’re basically at the conclusion of that third missionary journey.

After this, in chapter 20, we have a recording of a worship service, a preaching service, at one of the towns on his way back to Jerusalem. And then after that, we have Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders later on in chapter 20. And after that, we see Paul go to Jerusalem. And of course, everything changes. Then Paul gets arrested. He spends time at Jerusalem. He spends time at Caesarea, then goes on to Rome, and the book ends with him in Rome.

So we’re really at kind of the end here at the city of Ephesus of the accounts of the third missionary journey, although he was at Ephesus for two years.

As I said, the next two things that happen before he goes to Jerusalem really are almost footnotes you could say that give us a picture of the workings of the church—not missionary work now, but the church established—a preaching service and then the address to the Ephesian elders and the charge to them which gives us a lot of information about office. We’ll probably spend at least two or three weeks on that text, but in any event, this is kind of the last city in terms of evangelistic ministries that are recorded for us in the book of Acts, leaving apart for now Rome, of course.

And the important thing about this is, I think, that my understanding of the text is that this recorded event at Ephesus almost can be seen as a summation of all the missionary activities and certainly the first and second missionary journeys that the apostle Paul is engaged in.

At the beginning of the work in Ephesus, we have described the twelve converts—remember the men who had been received only the baptism of John, knew only the doctrine of John. They didn’t really know that fully. I don’t believe they were converted. And they come to the faith. And after that, we have Paul teaching in the synagogue of the Jews. Problems arise there as they always do. They then rent time and space during the middle of the day, in the heat of the day, by the way, at the school of Tyrannus.

And so they move the ministry of Paul over to there from the synagogue. After that, we have the manifestation of power from Paul. Remember, people take his handkerchiefs and stuff to people to be healed. And then there’s the attempt to co-opt the name of Jesus Christ by the seven sons of Sceva who weren’t really believers and yet tried to use the name of Jesus Christ to bring miracles to pass, and they’re overcome by demons.

And after that, we have a picture of a great number of people converting to the faith who then burn all their occult books and things which were idolatrous to them to demonstrate a total conversion. And it’s in the context of that then that Paul then is recorded as in the text we just read of making known his desire to go to Jerusalem and then on to Rome. And then finally we have this final event at the city of Ephesus, the city in an uproar.

Now if you’ve been here for the last six months or a year—however long it’s taken—but the last six months particularly the missionary journeys, you remember that both at the beginning of the first and second one we have the stories of individual conversion. Sergius Paulus and then the Lydia in the second journey. And so we have a personal conversion at the front of this episode at Ephesus too, this long description of these events at the city of Ephesus with the twelve men.

And following that, in both the first and second missionary journey, the apostle Paul goes to the institutional church, the synagogue. And here as well we see that occurring. And then the progression of both the first and second journeys and the progression here in one city in Ephesus is that he goes from personal conversion, a picture of what will drive everything else, to the institutional church, problems there, breaking off from it, establishing a new church work, so to speak, in those cities.

And then Paul preaches to complete idolators. And here we have complete idolators being affected in the context of the culture at Ephesus—first the conversion of people that burn their occult books, etc., and now this great concourse of men who shout out for two hours, “Great is Diana, the Ephesians.” And so this whole progression of personal conversion, impact upon the institutional church, spiritual warfare in the institutional church (judgment begins with the house of God), that’s what drives everything else. And then the results of that—the downstream culture, so to speak, as Paul goes and applies these truths and applies evangelism in the context of the wider group at Ephesus, those who are completely outside of the faith and who are completely given over to idolatry.

And that’s the progression of the first and second missionary journey. That’s the progression of the work at Ephesus. So it sort of sums it all up for us. And this last event is quite important to see in the context of that—both to understand that this is not where you start, the things I’ll be talking about today. It’s the result of personal conversion working through the institutional church and then downstream effects upon the culture. And it’s also important to understand the implications of this for making sure we take those downstream effects of what we—the results of our conversion and are incorporating ourselves into the body of Christ in terms of the church—into the culture around us.

So that’s just kind of a brief background of how all this takes place in the context of where we’re at in the book of Acts. And now I want to very quickly go through Demetrius’s events, what he says and what he does, and then the ruler. And what happens here is that the text wants to make clear for several reasons that the story of this riot is preceded by Paul’s stated intention to leave.

So when Paul leaves at the end of this uproar, it’s not as if he’s been run out of town. He had intended to leave, and God providentially provides in the scriptures that knowledge for us that his leaving is not related really directly to the problem, the riot at Ephesus. There are other implications for that statement as well. Paul’s desiring to go to Rome, which I’ll talk about in the conclusion here.

But in any event, after we’re told in the text that Paul intends to go to Rome, then we see that no small stir happens. And this no small stir means it was a great stirring, uproar, confusion. And how did this come about? Well, it comes about at the instigation of a single man. You know, men are important. Men have tremendous power given to them by God. We forget that. We think of ourselves as just sort of weak, and we are weak. We’re sinful. But even in our sin or in our righteousness, single men can have tremendous effects in the world around them.

John Calvin was a single man, yet he had a tremendous effect. Not just him, of course, but God used him mightily. And here we have Demetrius having a tremendous effect at Ephesus. And as you listen to this, and you’re an individual, you should realize that your life has tremendous effect upon the people around you. And particularly if you’re engaged and you try to be active about your Christian faith, tremendous blessings can flow out of a very small group of people in terms of the Christian faith.

In this case, tremendous harm comes from a single person who then stirs up other craftsmen.

I said that I thought maybe a good title for the sermon would be “Demetrius is God: the Dollar or Diana—which is it?” He appeals to Diana worship, but the text seems to indicate that his primary motivation is money. What Demetrius says is, you know, we make our living. He calls together the guilds of a couple of different groups of artisans and craftsmen who really make a lot of their money from the production of these silver shrines of the goddess Diana or Artemis.

And he says, “We’re our welfare, our ability to earn a living is being impacted by this Paul guy and by these Christians. No small stir occurs about the way, the Christian way. And the implication here is that the way has affected negatively their earning potential. In crash terms, dollars is what drives this controversy. The scriptures say that money is the root of all sorts of evils, all sorts of problems in the cultural realm.

Well, here we see it play out. Dollars become important. They are important in people’s lives. Demetrius makes a big deal out of this.

Demetrius says, “Hey, you know what these guys are doing? They’re hurting our livelihood.” And then of course he puts a more noble spin to it, as men are wont to do. They’re—you know, we talked before about how usually it’s bad, evil practice that produces evil doctrine. And this man is an idolator right now in the context of his life primarily because that’s the way he makes his living. His idolatry really is more linked to an idolatry of gold, gold and money, I think, than it is to Diana or Artemis here at this temple.

Now he appeals to that and he talks to these craftsmen. He says, you know, these guys—not only are they going to hurt our living, but look at this. They’re going to make fun of our religion. They’re going to set it to naught. He uses some very strong terms here. He says, “Our craft is going to be put at naught, and Diana will be despised. Her magnificence will be destroyed.” These are really strong terms being used here in the context of this talk by Demetrius.

So he appeals both to self-interest and monetary interest, but then he also puts that in the context of a more noble interest in terms of the religion of the population. They’re united in their at least external obedience to the temple cult of Diana or Artemis.

Now, just so you’ll know, it’s interesting to me that you know, all remember when Chris W. talk to us about the idols in Kolkata in India and with that particular religion. It’s interesting how their three main gods are the gods of creation, a god of providing for things, and the god of destruction. And you notice when Paul preached in the past both at Athens and also to those who called Paul a god himself because he could—because God healed through him—that he talked to them about God’s creation, God’s providence, and then the coming of God’s judgment upon men who don’t turn from their sins and bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, here as well, just for your information, this goddess Artemis, Diana—isn’t really the same goddess here. It’s a translation in the two terms Diana and Artemis were used somewhat interchangeably with the Greeks and the Romans. But Diana’s image is that of a hunter providing for things. But Artemis itself, the temple that was at Ephesus here, which by the way was one of the seven wonders of the world—you’ve heard of the seven wonders of the world. This is one of them, this great temple of Diana or Artemis. Artemis’s image was a woman with multiple number of breasts. And the idea was both to emphasize generative powers, creation, and also sustenative powers, providence.

So again, it’s a twisting and a perversion of who the real God in heaven is. A pagan man only has God’s color, so to speak, to paint the landscape with. And God is the God of creation, and God is the God of providence. And so they had instead turned to their own things they made with their own hands in terms of both creation and providence.

So Demetrius here causes a big uproar about this, and he says these guys not only hurt our pocketbooks, they’re going to hurt our religion. And as a result, people get all worked up and before you know it, they’ve grabbed a couple of Paul’s compadres. They can’t find Paul. That’s obvious. They always want to go to the head. The enemy understands warfare. Even if the Christian church doesn’t, you start with the head of the other person’s army. They try to cut off his head. And here they would go after Paul. They can’t get him. They can’t find him. So they take two of his traveling companions and they bring them to the amphitheater.

Now I saw a special—not a special, just a normal sort of series—I believe it was the Learning Channel about a month ago, and it was on the seven wonders of the world. It talked about the uncovering of this temple of Diana and finding it, I don’t know, in this early part of the 1900s, I believe. And they actually did all this on site, and they actually still have there the amphitheater, the arena where these people rushed into and had this big problem going on. And it is huge—holds a lot of people. And it’s on the side of a hill, and it is positioned such that it’s got real high walls. The seats go up very steeply. So it’s like a big cylindrical object almost, kind of open air at the top.

And if you can imagine these people shouting for two hours, “Great is Diana, the Ephesians,” in the context of that particular amphitheater which you can go to and visit today—it would be a frightening event if you were in the context of that, and these people would kill if they got up against you. That’s what goes on.

Demetrius establishes a riot at Ephesus, and people rush into this amphitheater. They grab these two guys with them, and then the Jews—we don’t know if they were proselyte Jews or not—put forward a fellow to try to talk to the crowd and make his defense. And as soon as they perceive that he’s Jewish, they now equate Jewish and Christianity with Paul. As soon as they see that, they shout out for two hours, “Great is Diana, the Ephesians.”

So it’s a very frightening scene. The second man who comes on the scene at that point in time, however, is the town clerk. In the King James version, as I said, Luther calls him the chancellor. Town clerk isn’t really a very good rendering. This was a very important man. And if you want to know how to control crowds, this is a good portion of the scripture.

This man is pagan. He’s as pagan as Demetrius is. But his attempt, the way he manifests his rebellion to God is different from Demetrius’s manifestation of his rebellion. He is smooth. He is good at what he does. And you can study this speech here that he gives and see that he knew how to control a crowd.

First of all, it says that he came in and he immediately calmed the crowd. His very presence is enough to calm a crowd of rioters in a huge concourse. This is an important man in the city of Ephesus. You can think of him sort of like the mayor, and not a symbolic mayor. This man had authority and power. By that authority and power, and also by the way he had of conducting himself, he gathers to himself respect from the company that is there put together.

Let me read a summation of this man’s talk just a couple of sentences here from Lenski’s commentary on the book of Acts.

Let me mention too that you know, they chanted “Great is Diana” for two hours. No mayor, no chancellor. Why? Well, he’s probably biding his time. He’s probably doing some investigation. He’s not rushing into a matter. He’s going to be very calm about what he does. He’s a man in control. I don’t know if you watched Mr. Shapiro in the O.J. Simpson trial or the early portions of that trial when they before he was arrested, etc. Shapiro is another man who knows what to do to get the job done. These guys are professionals. And this man here is a professional. He takes his time. He knows his facts. Then he comes in and makes a speech, a speech that is extremely polished.

And what he says, here’s a brief review of what he says. We note that he first appeals to the benevolence of the people. He talks about Artemis and he gets him to tone down with a complimentary posture first. Next, the natural deduction as to the impropriety of the mob’s proceedings is given by him. Third, he points out rather the proper legal course for Demetrius and any others to pursue if they have any cause of other business. Finally, he implies a threat—he has an implied threat about himself and all the others present being called into account for the day’s unwarranted and indefensible actions.

Let’s go through those a little bit slower now, and looking at the text.

First thing he says when he comes on the scene here: he says, “Ye men of Ephesus.” So he approaches them politely to begin with. “What man is there that knoweth not how the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?” So he appeals to their religious, patriotic sense.

First of all, he doesn’t start by telling them, “You’re in an unlawful assembly. Get out of here.” He slows things down. He addresses them with respect. And then he appeals to them and he gets them on his side. He says he’s on their side. Of course, we all worship Diana here. We know this. We have no worry that these guys are somehow going to give our city a bad reputation. We’re a great city and we’re great adherents of Diana.

So he begins by playing up to them, so to speak. But then he makes somewhat of an accusation. Verse 36: “Seeing that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly.”

Now he doesn’t tell them that they’ve been rash. What he does is he says, “We are good Diana worshippers and we’re good Ephesians. We need to be self-controlled. We need to have some decorum about who we are because we’re better than everybody else. We’re better than these Christians. So let’s not act rationally.” See, so again, it’s an appeal to them to their sensibilities and their own self-interests.

Then he says, “Ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess.” He makes the intimation that what they’re doing is improper without directly challenging them in terms of what they’ve done.

You know, he is really good at kind of coming alongside of somebody and encouraging them in the right way. You know, there’s some things about this that we should probably apply as well. You know, we do want to know how to administer grace with our tongues. Well, this man is pagan. God is working through him to effect the deliverance of the Christians, and God has given him this ability to speak and this presence of office, though he doesn’t acknowledge it, and God uses it to calm the people and affect deliverance for his people the church.

But in any event, he tells them, well, now you know, we’re good Diana worshippers, we should be calm. You know, we shouldn’t have an uproar, and you’ve brought forward guys here who aren’t really anything wrong with them at all. When it says robbers of churches nor yet blasphemers of your goddess, he says these guys have not either been temple spoilers. They’ve not stolen things from the temple or defiled it. And they’re not blasphemers of Diana either. So they’re neither sacrilegious nor guilty of blasphemy.

“Wherefore, if Demetrius and the craftsmen which are with him have a matter against any man, the law is open. There are deputies. Let them implead one another.”

What he’s saying here is now he’s appealed to their sense of being good Ephesians, Diana worshippers. He sort of said, “You got to be careful what you’re doing here. We want to be self-controlled.” Then he says, “There’s really no charges against these guys that I can see.” And you know, if there are charges, let me point out to you the proper way to take care of this problem.

The proper way, Demetrius, is to go ahead and charge these guys officially by going to law and going to court. When he says the law is open, he means there are normal stated times at which the law courts can be appealed to if you think this guy’s done something illegal. So he gives them the right way to take care of the problem.

Then he says, “But if ye inquire anything concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly.” They had courts of law which could be called up at any time to make specific charges relative to public matters. So he says law is open. You want to plead your case, go about it properly through the correct channels. But if it’s a civil action and all you care about is your own interests, then we have regularly stated times. That’s what it means here when it says a lawful assembly. He wasn’t implying that this was unlawful. Lawful means ordered here in this sense. We have regularly timed sessions throughout the month to take care of problems of a personal nature to come before the assembly and resolve this stuff.

So he gives them a right way to take care of it. And then his final thing that he says, and here’s the real kicker. He’s been civil to them. He’s just implied they’ve done something wrong. He gives them another venue to take care of their problem. Then finally, he gives a threat at the end.

“We are in danger not just you, you and I, to be called into question for this day’s uproar. There being no cause whereby we can give an account of this concourse or riot.”

This is—you have to understand this—is a Greek city that’s operating under Roman authority. They’re a subject state to Rome at this point in time. And if Romans didn’t like anything, what they did not like most was uproar, civil confusion, riots, etc. They were really big on law and order. In fact, it was a capital offense to have a concourse. The specific terms he uses here, the two terms he uses here, those both were technical terms in Roman law and they were capital offenses if a city magistrate allowed people to have that kind of uproar and riot.

He’s saying, “Look, we’ve got authority over us here, and we got to be careful because the Romans don’t like this kind of thing. So settle yourselves down.”

This guy was slick. If you want to know how to control a crowd, study this man’s speech. See how God worked through him to control this crowd, and you can see how to be effective in public speaking. Begins with coming alongside of him. He ends with a threat, but he doesn’t make it against them. He makes it against them and him. And as a result, then the people quiet right down and they leave, and everything’s cool, and people go, and the story ends.

What’s the meaning of all this in the context of the book of Acts, the missionary journeys? What does it say to us? What is the importance of this to us?

Well, I think there are several things we can mention here, but I want to talk a little bit more about some other details of the text as well that help us to see the application.

Now remember, the context for this is the missionary journeys. The context is the progression of the kingdom of God. And Calvin pointed out that one of the things this story is meant to tell us about is the advance and progression of the kingdom of God through the preaching of the gospel, but it also is to tell us about the power of Satan who opposes that advance. There is warfare that’s being enacted. This is spiritual warfare now, not in the church, but in the marketplace.

The focus of this is not religious. It is initially a matter of trade and vocation that is threatened by the implications of the gospel. Now the gospel is advancing here, and there are sort of internal clues, indications from the text of the advance of this gospel.

Now the first of these three indications I want to mention is Paul’s stated desire to go to Rome. Paul is a tactician. He is a strategist. He is pursuing warfare. Remember, we talked before about the course he took, the physical course, mirroring the course of Alexander who had conquered the world many years prior to this. He is conquering the world for the greater Alexander, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the preaching of the gospel, not by the sword, not by physical warfare, but by spiritual warfare. And Paul very deliberately sets a course at the conclusion of this third missionary journey to go to Jerusalem and then to Rome, the ruling power of the universe.

Let me read a commentary here. “After he had placed his banner in Ephesus,” writes Ramsay, “he had established his line of communication firmly along the great road which led to the capital of the empire.” He’s talking here about the progression of the cities that Paul has marched through. “It was then after he’d finally established this outpost in Ephesus that he announced, ‘I must also see Rome.’ And a little later, thinking of the great province of the West, he told the Roman church, ‘I will come by you into Spain.’ In the same chapter, he speaks of labors in Illyricum, Macedonia, and Achaia.”

This is the language, Ramsay continues, “not of a mere enthusiast, but of a general and a statesman who plans out the conquest of the empire. He talks of provinces, and he marches on his victorious course, and on that march he plants his footsteps in the capitals of those provinces.”

Paul is marching to Rome. Paul is taking the gospel to the center of the known world, the city that ruled the world. And he means to convert people at Rome and establish headquarters for the Lord Jesus Christ in the middle of enemy territory. He is carrying out a very strategic plan.

He moves on to Rome. So that’s one indication. Secondly, we read—and we just glanced over it—but in the account Paul wants to go to the amphitheater when there’s this big riot going on. And some of his disciples say, “No, you shouldn’t do that.” And then it says that some of the Asiarchs, that’s the word in the Greek, some of the rulers in Asia who were Paul’s friends, sent a message to him saying please don’t go there.

This was May apparent when this occurred—the rulers from Asia, the different provinces in Asia, would have been there for the games that were being planned, etc. And what’s interesting here and suggestive of the abilities of Paul and the advance of the gospel is that some of these very important rulers were friends of Paul, influenced by the gospel, probably converted to the faith, at least friendly to it. And so the faith is having its effectiveness demonstrated through Paul’s desire to go to Rome.

Another indication of that is the fact that there are great political rulers in Asia now who are friends of Paul, probably converted. And then the third implication here of the effect of the Christian religion is that the small stir that occurs is said specifically to occur “about that way.” It doesn’t say the small stir is about the Christian church or about Paul. It uses the term “that way,” the Christian way.

That’s significant, I think, because the implication is it’s not necessarily the religious activities in their meeting place that’s the concern of the folks here. It is the way—it’s the lifestyle, it’s the implications of the Christian faith that is bugging Demetrius and bugging the vocational interests of these men. That’s bothering their pocketbook because it’s not just a religion that has to do with Sunday. It’s a religion that flows into the everyday and makes men change what they buy and how they go about doing their economic commerce. It’s having an effect. People are being converted and that conversion is demonstrated by the casting off of idolatrous books, the burning of them, and then through the implications that the way is threatening the very livelihood, the means of obtaining a living, of these idolatrous temple makers.

So the Christian religion is on a march here. And what this tells us at the end of the three missionary journeys is that the Christian faith is not a thing that is somehow able to peacefully coexist with the culture in which it is placed.

It’s an interesting thing that Josephus tells us that one of the things that Jews were very committed not to do in the context of captivity and being in other countries was to blaspheme their gods. But if you look at Demetrius’s speech about the blaspheming of Diana and saying that idols made without hands are nothing, you’re not gods, that is precisely what Paul had told idolators in Athens and also in the city where they worshipped him as a god. Demetrius’s charges are true. The Christian faith does set at naught the religions of idolators. And it explicitly says that the gods made with hands are laughable in their inability to do anything. They’re no gods at all. They can’t speak. They can’t talk. They’re deaf and dumb, and the people that make them become like them as well, as the scriptures tell that explicitly.

What’s the difference between Paul and what Josephus tells us of the Jews’ activities? The Jews were not primarily an evangelistic faith at that particular time. They were cloistered. To this day, Orthodox Judaism is primarily concerned with the preservation of the purity of the community, not with conquering the world by preaching the gospel.

The Christian faith is different. And the Old Testament faith is certainly evangelistic as well. Paul gets in trouble and the Christians get into trouble precisely because they do engage in spiritual warfare not just in the church but in the marketplace as well.

So we have these indications of the success of the Christian endeavor. No peaceful coexistence will be allowed between God’s people and the context of the cultures in which they find themselves. Now they’re not going to act like yahoos. We don’t want to act like yahoos, but we’re going to press the implications of the gospel of Christ into every area of life and thought. And that’s the difference, and that’s why this last recorded event in Ephesus is so important for us to see the full-blown implications of the preaching of the gospel.

What does this mean to us?

Well, it tells us some very important things—things that you know already, but things that need to be said again. It tells us that the Christian faith presses forward into every area of life and thought. And it tells, as Calvin said, the progression of the gospel, but it also tells us that pressing forward will be opposed by Satan. And that opposition will take varying forms.

What is the dollar or what is the god rather of Demetrius? Is it the dollar or Diana? It’s the dollar primarily. The Christian faith, when it remains cloistered and doesn’t press the implications of that faith into the marketplace, will not find this kind of opposition. On the other hand, when we do press the implications of the Christian faith in the marketplace, we will find the kind of steadfast opposition that is portrayed to us both by Demetrius and also by the town clerk. The town clerk was used by God to settle the mob, but he still was opposed to the Christian faith.

You know, I wanted to mention here just very briefly in the context of this—Jim Jordan’s model again of the progression of biblical history. It’s very simple, sounds complicated. It really isn’t. Basically, what he says is there are particular times in history when the third commandment is the primary commandment that is going to be broken by God’s people. The third commandment is a warning not to take God’s name upon us vainly.

Now we usually refer to it in terms of swearing. Mr. Jordan points out, other commentators point out, that what the third commandment is all about is having an explicitly Christian witness in everything that we do and say. We don’t take the name of Jesus Christ upon us in vanity, lightly, or with nothingness. And when we go into the marketplace, we don’t go as other people. We go as Christians. We go distinctively as Christians.

And at a time of empire building, as opposed to a tribal or kingdom phase, in a time of empire building, it’s a real temptation to the Christian church to kind of hide its Christianity under its coat and just talk about it in the context of one’s private life. And so we’re at a time today when the church is suffering, I think, the judgments of God for that specific violation—for not taking the Christian faith into the marketplace and not taking the Christian faith explicitly into the political arena as well.

You know, I don’t know if you’ve ever called anybody an idiot, but an idiot in the technical Greek sense of the term idiotes means one who did not go into the marketplace, who kept his views to himself at home and was privatized. To the extent that the Christian faith has become privatized and not found its way into the marketplace, into the exchange of goods and commerce, it has become idiotic, and the Christian church has become to a degree idiotic in our day and age.

God, however, doesn’t allow his people to stay there. There are many things going on right now that we see at first as persecutions. We talked about the anti-abortion movement, some of the implications of the way that God is purifying his church through that. This last week we had another incident with the CSD took away people’s kids for spanking them. Why does that happen? Well, ultimately it happens because God is sovereign, and because the church has said, “We’ll be happy to spank our kids in our home and not talk about it in the public arena, and we’ll back right out of all those things. We won’t enter into the government sphere, the political sphere, or the marketplace. And as a result, God brings chastisements upon his people to get them to declare definitively that they have a biblical standard for everything that they do and say.

And so we have a great opportunity because of this Whitehead case in Hillsboro. The legislature is going to be holding hearings, more hearings, bills will be introduced, legislation will be passed, and we have a tremendous opportunity, the Christian community, to go to Salem and not be idiotic, but to say that we take the faith that the scriptures give us and that God graciously gives us into every area of life and thought, and it will determine how we discipline our children, not the civil state. And we want to see laws crafted that are in conformity to the scriptures.

There’s opposition to us, but the opposition doesn’t just come from those who want to cram down some kind of orthodoxy apart from the scriptures. The opposition as well comes from those people who want to make sure the Christian faith stays privatized in terms of its use of dollars.

How can we have a distinctively Christian approach to the marketplace?

Let me mention eight things that are an evaluation of our use of the Christian marketplace.

Debt. Yeah, there’s Johnny one note up there again talking about the debt thing. You know, Assyria conquered people through terror and horror. Babylon primarily conquered people through indebtedness. They would go into a country, loan it at cheap rates, start to collect the debts, increase the rates, demoralize the population, and then they’d come in and roll over them.

Well, in America, the Christian church can be co-opted quite easily when it becomes indebted economically. When we take debt as part of our normal operation in the marketplace, we back off a step from the spiritual warfare that God has called us to do. What is spiritual warfare? It’s combating the idolatries of our day, the heresies of our day with the Christian faith. And the Christian faith says you’re not supposed to be in debt normally, and you’re certainly not supposed to have a lifestyle that’s characterized by debt. Debt is one of the indications of a Christian view of the marketplace.

The removal of debt: the Sabbath, the elimination of commerce on Sunday. You know, what a Christian—the whole point of this text from Ephesus is that the Christian faith has implications and changes things. But the other side of that coin is when the Christian faith backs out of a culture, increasingly the pagan forces come right back in. We used to have what are called blue laws, Sabbath laws in this country. Then we had Sabbath practices continue into our very lifetime, the early parts of it. And now commerce is full-blown on the Sabbath even in the context of Christian people. Many Christian people don’t see any requirement to cease commerce on the Sabbath.

Shifty dealings. Shifty dealings for someone’s loan is expressly warned against in the book of Proverbs. There’s three things.

Fourth, advertising. Does the way we advertise, is there a distinctively Christian way to advertise? You bet there is. You bet there is. It’s called truth. We ought to be truth tellers. The scriptures tell us specifically that you can’t puff up your product when you’re trying to sell it to somebody else. Our advertising must be regulated by the word of God.

Quick gain. I know men who have used advertising to try to achieve quick gain without work, almost extortion—the attempt to get quick gains, to get the right idea, get the big hit financially for us, is a non-Christian idea that creeps into our heads from the culture round about us. The biblical view of money is that oldfashioned way. We’re supposed to earn money. We’re supposed to work to produce wealth, not quick gain.

Debt, Sabbath, shifty dealings, advertising, quick gain. Personnel management. How do you manage personnel in the context of the marketplace? The scriptures have a lot to say about that. Evaluate the way you handle your personnel in the context of your vocational calling. Are you distinctly Christian? Have you taken the Christian faith that you have been converted into out of the church and into the marketplace? This text of scripture tells us we must do just that.

Swearing to our own hurt. If you’re a businessman and enter into contracts that you cannot fulfill without suffering economic damage, the scriptures say that one of the entrance requirements for people to worship God is to swear to one’s own hurt. That’s seven.

And then eight: tithes and offerings, which we talked about for the last three or four weeks. You know, it’s interesting. I didn’t know how this was all going to pan out, but I realized a couple of days ago that you know, this is really a good transition of what we’ve just talked about. Tithes and offerings, our attitude toward them and our practice of them, is one of the indications by God whether we become idolatrous relative to economic gain.

What is the God of Christians? Is it Christ or is it coin?

And you know, if you’re prone to economic sin, if you’re prone to engage in debt, failing to keep the Sabbath relative to business, if you’re prone to go shifty for people or want people to go shifty for you, if you’re prone to pump up your product a little bit too much in advertising and make claims that are not exactly truthful, if you’re prone to want to go after the quick hit of money instead of the long slow accumulation of wealth through hard work, the way the Proverbs speak of, and if you’re prone to look at the world around us, its philosophy of people management, and if you have a difficult time giving tithes and offerings, then you are in danger of letting the idolatry of coin drive out the God of Jesus Christ.

And so I would just by way of application from this text: money can eat people up. A love of it. The scriptures are—I know we all probably know, but I certainly know personal cases where a desire for gain, to achieve gain through some of these means that I’ve listed here, have caused people’s faith to go shipwrecked, to cause them to abandon the Christian community.

That reminds us that these are the biblical truths relative to the application of the Christian faith to the marketplace, the way to go about waging spiritual warfare, and it starts in the heart. If you’re prone to idolatry relative to money or wealth, root it out of your heart. Confess it to God as sin. Make commitments. Make a vow. Talk to your wife, talk to your friends about it, and get help because money will eat you up. It’ll eat you alive. A love of money will.

So by way of application, we want to look first at our own hearts and root out the idolatry there. And recognize that as we go about our business as Christians, we’re going to be tempted.