Great Is Our God
January 31, 2021
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Acts 19:21-41
21 Now after these events Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” 22 And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while.
23 About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. 24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. 25 These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. 26 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. 27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that 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.”
28 When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29 So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. 30 But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. 31 And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. 32 Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. 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. 34 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!”
35 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? 36 Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. 37 For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. 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. 39 But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. 40 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.” 41 And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.
The time the apostle Paul is in Ephesus is nearly as long as Jesus did public ministry in the Gospels, which is to say nearly three years—so a long time. We’re only given a glimpse of that ministry in the book of Acts, but this morning’s passage was both iconic and epic. Just as hunters sit around campfires and tell each other stories of the big one that got away or, perhaps, the big one they got, we can assume those who witnessed this riot in Ephesus told about it for years and years to come. And because Luke recorded it for us in Acts, for the last two thousand years, pastors have been preaching it, and Christians have been strengthened by it.
Let’s pray as we begin. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
Next week is the Super Bowl, the most-watched football game of the year, likely the most-watched sporting event of the year. That’s next week, but what if we backed up to last summer and something happened that threatened the very existence of the economic powerhouse that is professional football and the Super Bowl? What if something happened, or several things happened, that tarnished the reputation of professional football?
Perhaps some very public abuse case became known. Or perhaps issues related to the long-term effects of concussions became a much bigger deal because some study or other found that football is far more dangerous than we even knew. What if there was a major scandal with performance-enhancing drugs where hundreds of players were suspended? What if several high-profile gambling cases were reported, including that several franchise players agreed to fix the outcome of games for money. None of this did happen. But what if all of that did—on top of the pandemic?
Corporate sponsors would drop like dominos—no more million-dollar Doritos commercials in the Super Bowl and no more, even, Budweiser commercials. Television spots would fall away. Streaming apps would no longer carry the games. Little leagues teams wouldn’t be able to fill their rosters, as many parents would choose to put their kids in other sports. College football teams might no longer pack stadiums or sell merchandise. And that would mean other college sports, the sports that depend on the economics of football for their wellbeing would now have a rocky future.
If all this happened, you could imagine Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, getting all the owners of all the teams together, all the key venders (the makers of equipment and clothing), and all the key sponsors (Nike and Under Armour and Gatorade an Powerade), and all the Television executives, and all the broadcasters, and so on. Likely you can imagine the fear and anxiety of that room. Likely you can imagine a situation so charged that one spark could set everything ablaze. If you can imagine that, you have a sense of what goes on in this passage.
There is a good and right place for our love of work and business and providing for one’s family. The Bible says the stuff of life matters to God, and it should matter to us. But there is a disproportionate love of work and money and business or anything, and when we love something as the ultimate god in our life—and that someone or something is not God himself—the Bible calls that idolatry. And one way we know our idolatry is being pricked—one way we might learn that our functional, day to day trust and hope and joy is found in something other than God—is when we respond violently and disproportionately. That’s what happens in this passage.
1. The Summary
Let’s go back through the passage, and then I’ll come back around at the end to underscore what I think is the main point. The passage begins in v. 21. with Paul saying, “Now after these events Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, “ ‘After I have been there, I must also see Rome.’ ”
This verse is the outline for the rest of the book of Acts. He’s going from Macedonia to Jerusalem and then to Rome. That is what Paul had “resolved in the Spirit” to do.
I chuckle a bit at that, though it’s not really all that funny. I’ll explain. We don’t immediately imagine the geography in our minds because we’re not familiar with what it means to go from Macedonia to Jerusalem and then to Rome. Basically, it’s like being on the East Coast, and saying you’ve got to go to Los Angeles and then to England. You’ll go one direction, then back across where you started to end somewhere else. And Paul did. The book ends with him in Rome. But I chuckle because at this point in the book because Paul has no idea the way God would get him to Rome. God will get him there, but it will come through death threats, prison, beatings, and a shipwreck that culminates with him under house arrest in Rome. That’s what we have coming in the rest of the book.
And before he even left Macedonia, all of those plans nearly fall apart in Ephesus. In v. 23 we read that there “arose no little disturbance concerning the Way.” The way is shorthand for Christianity, the way of the cross, the way of finding forgiveness with God through Jesus Messiah. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through [him]” (John 14:6). And this way of Jesus causes no little disturbance in their culture. Luke puts it mildly, as he does when he describes the business of Demetrius in v. 24, which he calls “no little business.” That’s meant to be ironic—“no little business in Ephesus,” just as the Super Bowl is “no little business.” Listen to how Luke introduces us to the ringleader Demetrius and his speech.
24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. 25 These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. 26 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. 27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that 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.”
In last week’s passage, when Paul preaches and teaches about Jesus and does miracles, we read that many former pagans and instructors of witchcraft became Christians and held a bonfire to burn all their religious spell books and demonic paraphernalia. The total cost was fifty thousand silver coins or, in today’s money, something like six million dollars (vv. 18–19). That dip in customers got Demetrius’s attention.
Let me move away from the imagery of football and instead frame Ephesus in terms of Las Vegas. What would happen in Vegas if so many people converted to Christianity that the Luxor and the Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace starting going out of business? I’ve walked up and down the strip on Las Vegas; some of you probably have too. What if, right along that strip, a group of new Christians gathered to burn pornography and gambling paraphernalia? You think that would get the attention of certain people? I do.
Let’s talk about Artemis. Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York the Statue of Liberty, St. Louis the Arch, and Seattle the Space Needle. Ephesus had the temple of Artemis.[1] Her temple was just outside of the city of Ephesus. It was huge, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. And when I say huge, I mean huge. Here’s a picture of a rebuilt version of what it might have looked like.[2]
The temple was a little bigger than a football field. At 60 feet in height, it would be twice as tall as our sanctuary. It had 127 marble columns around the exterior. So, when I say huge, it was huge.
And speaking of huge, the response to Demetrius’s speech results in a crowd gathering in the theater, an outdoor amphitheater. Reservoir Park in Harrisburg, just down Walnut Street and below the Civil War Museum, has an amphitheater. But this theater was huge. Look at this picture.[3]
It held 24,000 thousand people. For context, the Giant Center in Hershey holds less than half of that.
In v. 28 we read that, “When [the crowd] heard this they were enraged and were crying out, “ ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’ ” Paul wanted to go out to the crowd, but his friends said, No way.
There’s an interesting line that Luke adds about mobs and riots. Look at v. 32: “Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.” This statement is a warning and a caution to readers. In the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts there are several mob scenes, and they are always dangerous. For example, when the crowd shouts, “Crucify him.” The momentum of a mob causes people to be more cruel and evil than they would be as themselves. There is a current in the stream of a mob, so to speak. It pulls people along. Whether mobs in the street or mobs online, Luke is telling readers to be careful, to not be naïve about the danger of mobs.
Then some in the crowd wanted a Jew named Alexander to go out and speak to them. Likely this Jew named Alexander wanted to say that, while Paul was nationally and ethnically Jewish, Paul was a Christian, and thus he should not be confused with the rest of the Jews. But he’s not even given a chance to speak. When they see him, the crowd begins to shout for two hours, “Meg-a-la hay art-e-mis eph-es-i-own! Meg-a-la hay art-e-mis eph-es-i-own!” Two hours. It could feel kind silly to us, couldn’t it? Kind of obnoxious too? Can you imagine shouting Baby Shark for two hours? “Ba-by shark, dot, do, dot do…”
But we ought not to think too low of them. Their reaction is strong because their idolatry was strong; their reaction was disproportionate because their love of their lifestyle was disproportionate. We can scoff at these Ephesians, but how often have you responded disproportionately when one of your idols is poked? In fact, I’d submit to you that if you think back over this past month and how you responded to certain events or criticism or disappointments, that might tell you something about your functional savior. Yes, if you’re a Christian, Jesus is your savior. But practically, on a day-to-day basis, all of us struggle to trust him as our savior. Practically, we tend to draw our hope and strength and courage from somewhere else. Again, think about over the last few weeks about where your reactions have been the strongest, perhaps even disproportionate. If you’re brave, ask a trusted friend to tell you where they see strong, perhaps sinful reactions in your life?
To say it another way, I’m encouraging you to be suspicious of your strong responses. Don’t assume they are right and good, or as holy as you take them to be. Assume that at the moment you are being the most defensive and fearful, at the moment you yell and storm about your house for two hours that you are right and you should get what you want and everyone else is an idiot and they don’t understand you and so on, that perhaps something deeper is going on in your heart. We might not yell, “Great is Artemis,” but we do yell when our idols get poked.
Next in the story a city clerk sends them all home. It’s really quite anticlimactic. Demetrius spoke of the danger to Artemis’s reputation and the wellbeing of Ephesus. The city clerk says everyone knows Artemis and her temple are great, and the real danger is that the Roman government will put the smackdown on this riot. Then the clerk tells the mob that if they want to make a case with the courts, go for it. They’re open for business (vv. 35–40). Luke ends the story by saying, “And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly” (v. 41). It’s really quite anticlimactic.
2. The Main Point
I’ll close with what I believe is the main point, the main encouragement for Christians. We’ll see it best if I re-read a line from Demetrius’s speech. Look at vv. 25–26.
25 These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. 26 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.
If you were where a few weeks ago, you heard me preach about when Paul preached Jesus on Mars Hill to a crowd of philosophers. Paul used a very similar line to the one that Demetrius attributes to Paul: gods made with hands are not gods; if you have to serve and protect your god, it’s not a god. Back in chapter 17 the exact words were this:
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
If you have to make a god with your hands, Paul says, if you have to care for it and have to serve it and it needs you to maintain its existence, then it’s not a god, Paul says. The real God doesn’t need to be served, but serves. For two hours they shout, “Meg-a-la hay art-e-mis eph-es-i-own!” Great is Artemis of Ephesus. They had to defend their goddess’s honor. Today, if you go to Ephesus, which is in Turkey, you’ll see the great temple of Artemis in ruins. It looks like this.[4]
Whatever greatness the temple had, is long gone. So it will be with all gods who are not the real God.
This passage reminds us that the greatness of our God is not that he needs our service, but that he serves us—though we do not deserve it. Jesus said that he did not come to be served, but to give his life away (Mark 10:45).
At a former church many years ago, during an especially tiring six months of ministry, a church member came up to me and asked if he could take me to breakfast because he had something he wanted to talk about with me. As a young, new-ish pastor, this man was particularly intimidating to me. He was elite special forces in the military for twenty years. I had no idea what complaint or frustration he had with me and the church, but I was sure I wouldn’t be able to hear it. We ordered our food at iHop, and the pleasantries started to wind down. Then he said, “I wanted to come to breakfast with you to see how you are doing.” I just stared back at him. The look on my face said that I didn’t believe him. He reiterated, “I’m here to see how I can help you.”
I started to cry. In my life now, I have several people who do this for me. At the time, all I knew of pastoring was being poured out, of serving others. And here he was, wealthy, strong, and needing nothing from me. I didn’t know how to receive his kindness. This is who Jesus is to us in the gospel. He came, not to be served, but to serve. Yes, we do get to serve him, but the greatness of our God, unlike “the greatness” of Artemis and all other gods, is that although the real God, the only God is served, he doesn’t need to be served.
Let’s pray and sing to him now. . .
[1] This was pointed out by Chase Replogle in his sermon “Responses” on Acts 19 at Bent Oak Church on December 2, 2018, https://bentoakchurch.org/sermons/responses-acts-19/.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis#/media/File:Miniaturk_009.jpg.
[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ephesus_Theater.jpg.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis#/media/File:Templo-Artemisa-Efeso-2017.jpg.
