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Acts 19:28–34
“When they recognized that [Paul] was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’” (v. 34).
Upset that the gospel was hurting trade in artifacts related to the cult of Artemis and threatened devotion to the goddess in Asia Minor, the silversmith Demetrius gathered the craftsmen who profited from idolatry in Ephesus. He stirred them up with warnings of long-term economic decline and the abandonment of the Artemis cult in Ephesus and elsewhere (Acts 19:23–27). Demetrius’ efforts to get the missionaries evicted from the city began to stir up those whose livelihoods depended on the city’s idolatry. As we see in today’s passage, the craftsmen were enraged by the threat posed by the preaching of the Apostle Paul and his co-laborers, and they went forth to stir up a mob.
The craftsmen threw the city into a confusion with their cries, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (v. 28). Many people rushed to the theater in response, for that was the place where men and women gathered to conduct civic business. This theater of Ephesus was cut into the side of Mount Pion, and it could seat nearly twenty-five thousand people, which speaks to how large the mob really was. They were not able to get Paul, but they did drag out two of Paul’s coworkers from Macedonia, Gaius and Aristarchus (v. 29).
Paul wanted to go to the theater to help his friends and defend his ministry, but the believers in Ephesus kept him from going because the situation was too dangerous. Even the Apostle’s friends among the Asiarchs, members of the aristocracy from various cities in the province of Asia, warned Paul to stay away. We can imagine the confusion and chaos in the theater, for Luke says that people were crying out many different things and that most of the people did not even know why they were there. What started out as little more than a riot over religion had become a frenzy that many Ephesians thought they had to join but could not explain why (vv. 30–32).
This prompted the Jews to set forth Alexander to speak to the crowd. Most likely, the Jews feared what the unthinking mob might do to them because Paul was a Jew and animosity toward him might spill over against them. Alexander’s goal would have been to explain that even though Paul was Jewish, the Jews should not be harmed because they did not share Paul’s Christian convictions. As has always been the case, however, one cannot reason with a mob, and the crowd shouted Alexander down, crying out for two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (vv. 33–34).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
It is easy for people to get stirred up into an emotional frenzy, and that is true even for Christians. When people are appealing to our emotions, we must be even more careful that we are thinking through the facts and seeking to reason to the right conclusion. Christians are called to exercise self-control and temperance.
For further study
- Exodus 23:2
- Proverbs 18:17
- Mark 15:6–15
- James 1:19–20
The bible in a year
- Psalms 138–141
- 1 Corinthians 10:1–22