Last week, we discovered that when the door closed for Paul to preach the Gospel in the synagogue in Ephesus, God opened up the lecture hall of Tyrannus for him to evangelize and disciple those who had come to faith in Christ. During the next two years, Paul shared the message of Jesus so that multitudes who lived in Asia not only heard the Word of the Lord, but also grew in their faith as well. 

In addition, Luke tells us that,

God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out (Acts 19:11-12).

As we have seen in the past, Paul was granted the authority and power by the Lord to perform miracles, and this time it was through objects of clothing that had come into contact with Paul and through them came the power for healing or deliverance as that power was transferred from the clothing to the one who was sick. Of course, the ultimate importance of the miracles was not so much about those who were delivered from physical infirmities or demonic forces, but the hearts and minds of those that were opened to hear the message of the Gospel, the message that was being shared by Paul, the one who was given the power to heal. Thus, these miraculous healings gave Paul an even wider door to share the Good News of Jesus.

But now a challenge came to Paul and his ministry from an unlikely source, the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest. These sons were Jewish exorcists who went from place to place attempting to cast out evil spirits in the name of the Lord Jesus. During one of their exorcisms,

…the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded (Acts 19:15-16).

The evil spirit within the man knew about Jesus and Paul, but he did not recognize the authority of the seven sons of Sceva. In other words, they were using the name of Jesus to acquire more money from those being exorcised, and Paul would have none of it! Consequently, the man, empowered by the evil spirit within him, beat up those gathered around, including the seven sons of Sceva. All of those present left the attempted exorcism naked and wounded. What a beating they must have taken! Needless to say, the sons of Sceva were out of a job as their income from performing exorcisms ground to a halt!

Incredibly, this incident resulted in the Gospel spreading even more, as Luke records,

This incident became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it to be; fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing (Acts 19:17-20).

Did you catch all of that? Jesus’ name was being magnified; conversions kept multiplying as they confessed their sins and evil practices; the books of those who performed magic arts were thrown into the fire and burned; and the word of God kept growing mightily and prevailing against all opposition. Just a quick note on the value of the books burned – A piece of silver amounted to about a day’s wage, and so we have 50,000 days of wages. What does this amount to today? If a person earns $100/day wage, then we are looking at a book value of $5,000,000, or 5 million dollars of books burned in Ephesus that day! Wow!

With things going so well in Ephesus, Paul felt it was time for him to return to the churches in Macedonia and Achaia, and therefore he sent Timothy and Erastus ahead to prepare the believers for his arrival. But, as you might have guessed, after Paul sent them on their journey, 

There occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way (Acts 19:23).

After dealing with the seven sons of Sceva, you might have thought that things would settle down a bit. However, while the Gospel was flourishing, more opposition to The Way (of Jesus) or (the Church) arose. And Luke says that it was “no small disturbance,” meaning that it was “quite a large disturbance.” What happened?

It is to this second phase of opposition that we will turn our attention next week. I hope that you will join me.

May the Lord extend His abundant blessings to you this week.