244 No Little Disturbance

Mobs, mobs, and more mobs. Today, Paul gets to see another mob.

Well, and he's always getting beaten up and thrown out of town, so some guys protect him today. Yeah, he does not get beat up, but we think this is the biggest mob he's ever encountered. And he's not even present. Let's see what happens today. On Bore Than Inc.

Well, we are gathered once again around the dining room table. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And this is More Than Inc, where we walk our way through the Bible and make some comments. And we hope that you're doing the same thing.

And we hope that you're thinking while we're thinking. You need to be thinking here. Need to be thinking, yeah.

So, where are we? We're in the book of Acts, and we're kind of in the middle, maybe the first third of the third missionary journey. He's in his third missionary journey. We only have three complete journeys that are documented in Acts.

So this is the third and last one. But there's more. We're pretty sure there's more because of things that Paul says. But we are still in the city of Ephesus. That's a lot happened in the city.

Oh, yeah. The point we're going to pick up today, we've been there roughly about two years, but it sort of gets a little hot today.

Well, we've been there long enough to make an impact on the local. Culture and economy. And so that's going to become central in today's story. Yeah, yeah. And some conflict.

So if you're ready for some conflict, buckle up. And here we go as we look again in on Paul and his friends as they're in Ephesus talking about Jesus the Messiah. Yeah.

So, this part of the chapter begins now after these events.

So, what events is that?

Well, those two years that Paul had been there, there had been, he was doing miracles. There had been that great story of the Jewish exorcists that tried to cast out those demons and wound up being overpowered by them, right? I know about Paul and I know about Jesus, but who are you? But who are you? Yeah.

You know, and many people out of the black magic arts were abandoning that and coming to Christ. And there had been this very extravagant book burning. Yeah, expensive book burning. Yeah, and Luke kind of wraps that all up by saying then the word continued to increase and prevail. Yeah.

So, you know, those were very productive couple of years in Ephesus, but long enough that Paul had become quite well known, apparently. Yeah.

Yeah.

He was a fixture. Yeah.

So that's where we pricking up the story at verse 21 in chapter 19. You want me to read? Go for it.

Okay.

Now, after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, After I've been there, I must also see Rome. and having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. Excuse me. About that time, there arose no little disturbance concerning the way. No little disturbance.

Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but that also the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.

Well, okay. That's quite a rousing.

So there's some conflict here where the gospel comes in and false religions are there. There's going to be some conflict, and that's where we are today. Most people don't know, but Ephesus, Ephesus had a very, very famous temple. It was one of the seven wonders of the world, this temple. And the seven wonders of the world were something that were talked about quite frequently in the ancient world a century or two before Jesus.

And the hanging towers of Babylon was part of that. The big pyramids in Egypt that we know today in Giza, those are part of that. And this is another one.

So I had forgotten just how magnificent this was, so I went and did a little history. Oh, what you're doing.

Well, I found out that it was the first marble temple. Fully marble, like inside and out, that the that the Greeks had ever done. And so that's one thing. The other thing was that was enormous. If you picture a football field, which is 300 feet long, it's 100 yards long.

This temple itself was larger than that. I mean, 360 feet is what a football field is technically for its whole length. This temple was 377 feet long. It was the length of a football field and just about as wide, about 10 feet short. Wow.

So, picture that as the foundation of this temple. And then it rose 60 feet in the air as its highest part. Wow.

60 feet's a long ways. Most telephone poles in a neighborhood are 40 feet high.

So think about that. And it was rimmed around all the edges with a double row of columns that were made out of marble as well. And just the columns themselves were 40 feet tall.

So, I mean, this was a gigantic thing. If you've seen pictures of the Parthenon, multiply that with all the columns and the side. I mean, it was just enormous.

So, this would have been a major centerpiece in Ephesus, and people probably would have traveled from all over the world to see it. It made Ephesus famous. And there was, as a result, there were industries built around it as well. Let me read you this one thing: this one guy, it's like a travelogue. He wrote about the seven wonders of the world, and this is what he wrote in comparative about this particular temple to Artemis.

He says, Now, this is written about a hundred years before Jesus.

Okay, he says, I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon, on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus. That was one of the seven as well, and the hanging gardens of Babylon, and the colossus of the sun. It was a gigantic statue, this guy, and the huge labor of the high pyramids, what we know today. We've seen those pyramids, and also the vast tomb of Mausolis. But, but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, Lo!

Apart from Olympus, the sun never looked on aught so grand a thing. Wow.

So, this was really quite something. Yeah, and you're right. People would come from all over the place, like a big tourist thing. They would do that. And so, an industry rose up about it, too.

And this guy, Demetrius, is one of the guys who made money making, as a silversmith, making things that were about the temple to Artemis.

Well, and these little silver models of the temple were apparently locally purchased regularly as offerings.

So, I don't know what happened to him after that. Maybe they melted them back down and resold them. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

But this is a big deal. And Artemis, inside the temple, by the way, this is a strange thing. And we only find this out through Acts, the book of Acts right here, is the fact that there's what they think is a meteorite that had hit the ground. Right. And then they refashioned it slightly into what they thought Artemis looked like.

And that's what was in the middle of this temple. It was this meteorite that had been shaped to look like a god.

Well, apparently the worship of Artemis was associated. With meteorites. Yes.

So that's pretty interesting, isn't it? And that's going to come up actually later in the chapter. Excuse me. So that's where we are.

So this is a very big deal. This is a real countercultural moment. And this being such a giant edifice right in the middle of the city, it would have attracted not just local tourism, but it was kind of a civic landmark. Oh, yeah. There clearly was all this economic impact from it.

And then, of course, the religious aspect. And by the way, sometimes it's referred to as the temple to Diana, right? Diana is the Roman name for the same god. Artemis is the Greek one.

So that's just the confusion.

So here we are. And Demetrius is making money out of selling these things made out of silver, his little silver shrines. And it says in verse 24 that brought no little business to the craftsmen.

Well, not only him, there were other craftsmen doing similar things.

So he gathered together the whole trade union and said, man, so he's getting everyone together who do like as he does. And the motivation for this is economic. He's having an impact on his business from people coming to Christ and leaving their ideas. Idolatry.

So they're no longer buying his little silver art pieces. And this isn't just a single guy. He's gathering together the whole guild of these guys. And that way they're going to have some more power to be able to fight against Paul.

So that's what they're doing in 25. He gets them all together. And then in 26, his argument against Paul, he actually expands it to not just Ephesus. Right. And this is smart.

This is what you do if you want to mount an opposition. You say that Paul is a danger to all of Asia, which means Turkey in our lingo.

So he says, you see in here that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people.

So he's saying Paul is like a large regional danger, not just to our business. It's interesting, though, because what he's saying is pretty much true, right? It is. Paul's ministry had had a huge impact in that area. And he was turning people from idolatry.

Well, God was turning people from idolatry.

So yes, God's little gods made with hands are not gods at all. Exactly. That is true. And it's almost as direct. Quote, you know, when Paul was saying, you know, God does not reside in temples made with hands.

And so these guys have got the message. It's been spoken about, and they understand the threat to them, and they understand how Paul is kind of putting in its place this silly statue to Artemis.

So they know what's going on. And so in 27, he continues to say, look, this is a danger here. There's a danger, not only to our trade, but also that the temple of the great goddess will be counted as nothing.

So he's not only wiping out their trade, he's dissing, he's dissing Artemis to work.

Well, our mascot. Exactly. The reason people come to visit our city. She'll be deposed of her magnificence. Yeah, he kind of moves into this theatric theatric statement at the end.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

You know, he's going to depose this Artemis that all of Asia and the world worship.

So he's suddenly taken this to huge heights and said, this guy is a. Not just a pain to us in Ephesus, but a pain to the world.

Well, and apparently there was a week-long festival celebrating Artemis in the springtime.

So maybe that was coming up, or maybe it was happening at this point. We don't know exactly. But the crowd is easily enraged, right? He's so brought to a mob. That's smart.

He has whipped up the mob until we pick up the mob's response in 28.

Okay.

Here we go. Mob response. When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

So the city was filled with confusion and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and were urging him not to venture near the theater.

Okay, let's stop there for a minute.

So there's this massive mob this theater was huge seated about 20 000 people or more so a big open-air theater and why they seized gaius and aristarchus instead of paul i don't know maybe they were just the the ones who were visible yeah but the asiarchs are uh not necessarily believers but they're guys that are also romans and so they're concerned for the welfare of their fellow roman so that's kind of interesting that they're urging paul you know and they have some local credibility don't don't you go in there you're gonna get killed yeah it's gonna be a mass mob scene it's gonna be a lynching this is dangerous yeah it's gonna be a lynching yeah because you take the entire industry that's completely centered around the temple of artemis and all these guys and you're gonna threaten all these guys income all their labors so well and it seems to me i was thinking of the kind of riots that have happened around soccer games right in our own age right that it's real easy to stir up a crowd that's emotionally stirred already yeah and so once they start hearing this cry great is artemis of the ephesians everybody Is like, well, we can get behind that. I don't know what this demonstration is about, but we can get behind Artemis. Yeah, because that's normal for them. Is Artemis is everything? Great enthusiasm about Artemis.

Ephesus is Artemis, and Artemis is Ephesus.

So this is an affront to the entire city and the entire region and all of Asia.

So it's interesting that in verse 32, it says, Now, some cried out one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. That tells you it's a mob. Yeah, it's like today. Yeah, we need to have a mob. We need to get together.

We need to have a demonstration. Right, right, right. There's even some rumors today that demonstrations are paid for by rich people for, you know, and so, and many of them don't know why they're there. And that's this. This is literally mob emotional reaction.

We don't know why we're here. That's why he says they would say one thing and some others would say something else. And they, you know, it doesn't matter. We're here. We're just here to make a scene and attract some attention.

And we know this is wrong, so we're going to do something about this. Yeah.

Okay.

So verse 33.

Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours, they all cried out with one voice, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

So this is drowning him out. Oh my gosh, this is drowning. He's drowning him out. He tries to make a reasoned defense to the crowd, but all they could do is keep saying over and over, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. This Artemis is a Jew.

Right? And Alexander. Oh, Alexander, sorry. But he's not necessarily a believer. Doesn't sound like it.

It sounds like maybe he's trying to separate the Jewish community from the Christian. I think that's what he's doing. I think that's what he's doing. He's just trying to make some order. Because Alexander was pushed forward by the Jews in the community.

Right. And so there was no little amount of.

Well, I don't know. Who's Alexander? We don't really know, tell you the truth. But this guy is out there.

So he is sort of speaking for the Jews. You see that in demonstrations or riotous situations that various people will come forward and try to take the microphone and bring peace or tout their part of the argument.

So this ring is awfully true to me. Yeah, he's trying to bring peace in this particular thing, motioning with his hand, which you'd have to do with a large crowd. You can't speak louder than they are. But the amazing thing is that he tries for two hours, tries for two hours to bring some peace of this whole thing. We don't have any clue that any of Paul's guys are involved in trying to bring peace, but Alexander, yes.

So. We don't know. This is crazy.

Well, Paul's guys were just visitors in the city. They wouldn't have had any grounds for recognition. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, their problem that started this, that kindled this, was that Paul is speaking against their entire theology and their life, their livelihood as a result. And I think, you know, the Jews had put forward Alexander, and there's speculation about why the Jews would do that.

But part of the reason is that if they figure out what Paul is saying, they're going to put two and two together and realize that the Jews, in terms of the old Mosaic law, are in the same place against Artemis as Paul is.

So they're threatened as well in this entire thing. And I think that's why, in the end, when they realized that he was a Jew, they also kind of. Overrode him. They knew that the Jews were monotheistic. They knew that the God was the creator.

I mean, they knew something because of the Jewish presence at Ephesus. But they weren't actually going around and talking about it like Paul was.

So this is really threatening.

Well, okay. So they also knew that not so long before this, the Jews had been expelled from Rome as troublemakers. Yes, yes, yes. Within the last few years.

So, you know, Jews had a reputation as troublemakers, even though they weren't. Right. But yeah, that's pretty interesting to me. Just as a general confusion.

Okay, let's look at what the town clerk says.

So he's the guy holding office. Yeah, Alexander tries to bring some level of discussion and peace, but another person steps in and is more fruitful at this. That's where we go next.

Well, because he's an office holder, he's recognized as a guy with authority. We don't know his name. But in verse 35, it says, And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians? Is temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky. Oh, there's your meteorite.

There it is, meteorite. Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash.

Okay, let's pause there for a minute because that's just a great argument. He says, you know, you're acting like idiots. Yeah.

Everybody in the world knows this. You don't need to be screaming it at the top of your lungs and making a riot. And the danger in making a riot was that potentially someone, Romans, maybe, peacekeepers, would come in and squelch it. Yeah, and that's really what the town clerk's motivation is: is the Romans coming in and forcing there to be peace, which can be pretty bloody.

So we don't want to do that.

However, he's right in saying, too, he says, look, these things we're talking about about Arnold cannot be denied. You know, the meteor, the sacred stone that fell out of the sky. I mean, it's in a way he's saying, when you have the truth, you don't have to react like this, is what he's saying. Of course, they don't have the truth. But he thinks they do.

They have the rock and the temple. Right. So he says, you don't have to get so worked up about this. This is what it is. And so there you go.

And it's actually a way, if you have the truth, and some of the. Makes a spurious claim against you. You know, if you're not confident in your truth, you're just, you're going to be, you're going to be emotionally going to go crazy.

So he's basically saying, aren't you confident in the truth of Artemis? Don't you have the stone in there that fell this guy? Then you just need to. Right. Everybody already knows this.

So just calm down. Don't do anything rash because you could bring the ire of Rome down on you.

Well, because he sees that a lynching is potentially possible here.

So he says in verse 37, for you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. Isn't that stop there? Isn't that interesting? That's pretty interesting.

So the town clerk recognizes that Paul's not preaching specifically against Artemis.

Well, the town clerk probably was aware of Paul's ministry over these two years, and Paul had not caused trouble.

Now, there had been a little trouble with the Jews when they didn't want him in the synagogue anymore. But he was just peaceably talking to people about Christ in the school of Tyrannus. Yeah.

And I think that's what's particular here. What the town clerk was saying is not. Not that Paul is preaching anti-Artemis, he's just preaching pro-Christ.

So, you know, you make your decision after that. That's all he's saying. He's not a blasphemer of our goddess, but he is preaching a lot about Jesus. Yeah.

So, okay, so he calls out the ringleader. Verse 38: If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.

And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. Very rational. Yeah.

Yeah, very rational. Wish we knew his name. There might be a reason that we don't. Yeah, so he's saying, you know, there are avenues to take your grievances in. You need to take those.

The mob rule thing is not the way to do it because if you do the mob rule thing, it's going to end up with riots and killings. It's going to go badly. It's going to go bad. Rome's going to hear about it. They're going to send troops here and a lot of people are going to die.

So just go by the standard avenues. If you've got a real complaint, if you have a real complaint against anyone, look, the courts are open. The courts aren't closed. There's pro-councils that are ready to hear your case. Use the channels that are already here.

That's what a civilized bunch of people do. And that way, we are admired by Rome as being people who can self-govern and they don't have to intercede with troops. I mean, he's just being very rational. It's really nice. Yeah.

So, and there's actually two levels of avenues, he says, in 39. If you seek anything further, it's like the appellate courts we have here. If you don't like the ruling on one court, you appeal it, right?

Well, we can sell it in regular assembly.

Well, I guess there was a regular public assembly in this very theater that was kind of local governance. Yeah, which is a larger venue you can bring your stuff to.

So, he's saying, you know, we have avenues to do this.

So, use those. Don't riot. Because, you know, we in 40, he says, and this is the worst thing you can do. We really are in danger of being charged with rioting. Don't do this.

And then he says, there's no cause that we can give to justify this commotion. There's nothing these guys have done that can justify this level of rioting and commotion. Wow.

You know, we have seen so much rioting and commotion in our own country in recent years. Yeah.

You wish that this kind of a voice had been present, perhaps, some of the time. It's nice and rational. And it's basically saying, let's just work this out calmly and. You know, let's do what we do in the standard avenues of discussion. Yeah.

Yeah, so that's the right thing to do.

So we have to give all accolades to this town clerk who did what Alexander could not do in two hours. Right, right. He just couldn't do it. And so he's one of them, and they recognize that he has a little bit of authority and he's just being reasonable, which kind of calms down the emotions of the moment. By the way, that's why mobs are so dangerous.

They don't even know why they're there, many of them. And they're irrational by definition. And their emotions are very unpredictable and they're not easily controlled. And you can instill, you can invoke that in other people.

So it ends up being kind of a tidal wave of action, misaction, actually, in so many ways.

So that's why mobs are just a bad deal all around. You know, it's interesting. It doesn't tell us what guys and Aristarchus were doing. Right. But you can imagine that they were wiping the sweat off their brow and breathing a sigh of relief after this.

Kind of dispelling of the crowd. Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

And it's worth noting too that Aristarchus and Gaius were Macedonians. Right. So they're still outsiders because we're not in Macedon. Macedon is northern Greece, and here we are on the western tip of Asia, of Turkey. And so they're still outsiders too.

But. Um, things don't go bad for him, it seems like.

So Yeah.

So we're kind of stopping in the middle of the story because we're going to go back to Paul at the beginning of the next chapter. Yeah.

Yeah.

Excuse me. Yeah.

But it is fascinating. A couple of closing comments about this. It's nice to see an example here where God uses the government order in order to do something constructive and positive. And we're told that as we read the scriptures, it says God has instituted governments to bring order. And if you go against the public order, you deserve the sword.

Well, it's interesting that it's Paul who wrote that. He writes that in Romans. Yeah.

And so here we see a good example. And he could be thinking this when he's writing those passages because he saw it happen for real. This guy, even though he's not a believer, still there is order that comes from the governmental structures that are around the world. And they're meant to preserve order. And they did here.

You know, Paul had appealed to that same thing back when he was in jail in Philippi and unjustly imprisoned as a Roman citizen. And he says, no, you can't treat a Roman citizen this way. Way let them come themselves and take us out. Yeah, that's exactly right. He was very aware of the civil options that were available to him and to utilize those instead of just making trouble.

Yeah, yeah. And those aspects of government and culture at the time, both Greek, which is older, but it's there, Greek and Roman both, is a time in history where God said, I can actually spread my gospel faster and more completely if I rely on these structures of order. And so he uses the structures of order from both Rome and Greece, as well as other things that both of them accomplished. The Greeks gave us the Greek language, which at this time was nearly universal.

So Paul could go anywhere and speak Greek and get it. And the Romans had built a gigantic road system to make the travel travel so much easier and relatively safer. Right. So God used these positive aspects of these cultures to move the gospel along, although it wasn't always. An easy road.

No, and these were not Christian governments, right? Yeah.

But they did impose an order on the world, the Romans particularly. Yeah.

Even though it was an order by piece by force in many cases. But it just created an atmosphere or it created a physical environment where the gospel could easily spread. Right, right. And, you know, and I'll make another just kind of a captain obvious observation. You're good at those.

Artemis. Artemis. Do you know anyone who follows Artemis today? I don't. I don't know.

I don't. And I say that because a third of the world's religions are Christian. They follow Jesus.

So here's a case where these people, the mob is screaming, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And yet here we are, how many hundreds of years later? And There are no followers of this, but the followers of Jesus are all over the world. Yeah, that's see an obvious point, but I just want to make that because at this point in the narrative, Artemis is everything, but in the end, Jesus is everything. He's the one who's great.

So yeah, and we're going to close this story next time when we come back in Acts, and we're going to see exactly how it falls out. And Paul's going to move on a little bit.

So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us. And we hope that you're reading with us here on Morning. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org.

And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Thanks for joining us today. I found this a really encouraging conversation. Yeah, I did too, and I was glad to see the town clerk unexpectedly be the guy who brings peace. Thanks for being with us.

Bye. Bye. Yeah.

I don't need to say especially twice. Did I say especially twice? Uh-huh. Um This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.