Summary:

When it looked like Paul and his fellowworkers in the Lord’s work were about to be killed (Acts 19:23-40), a city official “appeased” the murderous mob (v.41).  Since they wanted the apostles dead, he probably appeased them by just beating Gaius and Aristarchus to satisfy their bloodlust (cf.Gen. 32:20).

Since that angry mob was worried that people wouldn’t come visit the temple of Diana they had built in Ephesus, the townclerk reminded them that they also had “the image which fell down from Jupiter” that people came to worship (v.35).  They claimed a meteorite that landed in Ephesus fell from Jupiter because it is the largest of the planets, and because Jupiter was the name of the king of all their gods.

They also named it Jupiter because Jupiter was the father of their goddess Diana!  Once that rock landed, they claimed Jupiter thought enough of them to send them that image.  This may have led to the justification of building her magni-ficent temple there, making Ephesus the headquarters of all worship of Diana.  So as long as they had that rock, these things could not be “spoken against” (Acts 19:36). And since no one could speak against it, the townclerk encouraged the mob not to do anything rash by killing the apostles.

He went on to remind them of the only two legal reasons they could kill them under Roman law (v.37).  The first reason was if Paul had robbed any churches of their most highly valued commodity—their idol.  That was a crime that had historically been punishable by death (Gen.31:32).  The second crime punishable by death in Rome was blaspheming another religion’s god.  That’s why the Jews charged Stephen with blasphemy (Acts 6:11,13).  They knew Rome wouldn’t censure them for killing him for that, and they were right.  So when they wanted to kill Paul, that’s what they charged him with as well (25:7,8).

So how did the townclerk know Paul hadn’t robbed any churches of their gods? Well, he knew he hadn’t robbed their temple, for they still had that rock, and their statue of Diana.  And he knew Paul hadn’t robbed other churches, for he’d been in Ephesus three years.  Paul did say there was no such thing as idols (19:26), but that must not have met the stand-ard of blasphemy under Roman law, for he wasn’t executed for saying it in Athens (17:29).  The townclerk probably meant Paul never singled out Diana, or any other god, to say he or she wasn’t a god.  His point was: if they killed a man who hadn’t broken any laws, they’d be breaking the law.

And all the townclerk cared about was the law.  He spoke of “your” goddess (v.37), not “ours.”  He didn’t care about Diana.  He just cared about keeping the peace.  He then went on to remind the angry mob that there were legal ways to settle their differences with Paul (19:38-41).  He pointed out that the courts were open to hear such cases, and there were “deputies” who judged court cases (cf.18:12-17).

But when it came to “other” matters that were outside the jurisdiction of Roman law, things that Roman judges would not judge (cf.18:14,15), they could settle those differences in a “lawful assembly,” i.e., in a venue similar to Mars Hill in Athens.  This riot was an unlawful assembly.  He then made it clear that there’d be an inquiry into this riot if they took things any further by killing Paul (v.40).  And he didn’t say it’d be one in which “you” could give no legal account to justify.  He said “we” couldn’t justify it. He knew that he’d be accountable if he let a mob murder someone on his watch.

Paul was putting idol makers out of business, just as God will one day put Babylon out of business, the church of the Antichrist (Rev.18:10-18).  But in that dispensation of wrath, God will do it by burning Babylon.  In the dispensation of grace, Paul did it by grace.  That’s the way to put abortion clinics out of business.  It’s also the way to deal with govern-ment corruption, instead of bombing federal buildings, etc.

A video of this message is available on YouTube: “The Townclerk Comes To The Rescue” Acts 19:35-41

A video of this message is available on YouTube: “The Riot At Ephesus” Acts 19:23-34

These Jews who rejected Paul (v.8) were the ones who begged to hear more (18:19,20), but evidently they still didn’t want to hear the lowly carpenter was their Christ.  So they hardened their hearts (cf.IIChron.36:11-13) against the truth, and spoke evil of “that way,” i.e., of the Lord (Jo.14:6cf.Acts 9:1,2).  Some must have believed though, for Paul had “disciples” he took with him when he left (19:9).  We don’t know if the school Paul joined was next to the synagogue, as in Corinth, but those unsaved Jews were surely provoked to envy when they saw the success of Paul’s school (v.10).

Once Paul popularized Jesus in Asia, men tried to capitalize on Him by associating with Him, so God gave Paul the power to do things they couldn’t (19:11,12).  His old tentmaker aprons could cast devils out from a distance, something that made him stand out from the Jews in verse 13 in the way Moses stood out when God worked a special miracle by him (Ex.8:17-19).Only God could make life from dust (Gen.2:7).

These “vagabond” Jews were types of the nation Israel, who should have been in their homeland in the kingdom by this time in Acts (cf.Ezek.36:24,25).  Cain was a type of them.  He killed his brother, so God made him a vagabond (Gen.4: 9,12), and the Jews killed their brother Jesus, and God made them vagabonds.  Judas was another type of them (Ps.109:8, 10cf.Acts 1:15-26).  He had no physical kids to become vagabonds, so that psalm cursed his spiritual children, the children of Israel.  The psalm’s reference to making them “desolate” should remind you of Matthew 23:37-39.

If that sounds harsh, remember, these Jews were using the name of the Christ they crucified and the apostle they persecuted to make money.  But that’s the purpose of Acts: to show how low the nation of Israel had fallen, spiritually.

As the sons of a priest (Acts 19:14), these Jews should have been priests themselves in the kingdom by now, not exorcists, with Gentiles bringing them “riches” (Isa.61:6). They were exorcists before Paul (Acts 19:13), but once he made Jesus popular, they combined exorcism with His name, and regretted it (v.15,16). Possessed men had superhuman strength (Mark 5:2-4).  The wounds of these men disqualified them from being priests (Lev.21:17-21).  That’s where Israel stands today, defeated by the devil and disqualified from being the priests God wants them to be in the kingdom.

Job was a type of how Jews will be priests in the kingdom.  He was his family’s priest and, like Sceva, had 7 sons (Job1: 2,5) who died (v.19); but after much tribulation he got 7 sons back in his “latter end” (42:12,13).  Jews will get their priests back after they go through tribulation in their latter days. These Jews typified how Israel was just reaping what she sowed when one of their priests left a Gentile naked of God’s righteousness and spiritually wounded (Lu.10:30-34). As in Acts 13, Jews are judged while Gentiles are saved  (19:18).

“Curious” arts (19:19,20) are black arts, i.e., dabbling with spirits—like these exorcists! Curio cabinets originally featured things people are curious about, like black arts objects.  They must have been at it a long time to have that many books on it.  The “deeds” they showed (v.18) were talismans  they sold to ward off evil spirits.  That means they “confessed” to doing what the exorcists were doing, combining Jesus with their black arts.  Crucifixes are talismans that priests use to ward off evil spirits during exorcisms.  When they heard what happened to the exorcists, they feared (v.17) that the devils they were trafficking with would turn on them.

If you think evil spirits can prevail (v.16) against you, v.20 says the Word prevailed against them.  Of course, today they oppose us by duplicating the doctrines we teach, the way Pharaoh’s magicians withstood Moses’ miracles (IITim.3:8 cf.ITim.4:1-3). But their doctrines can’t produce eternal life, something that will be obvious in heaven, if not sooner.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: “Paul Goes Back To School” Acts 19:8-22

Summary:

Apollos was from Alexandria (18:24), home of the world’s largest library.  But being a bookworm of the Bible is what made him “mighty in the Scriptures.”  Then, when he heard of “the baptism of John” (v.25), he knew it was time to go preach the kingdom he’d read about in Scripture all his life.

But if all he knew was John’s baptism, he didn’t know the King had come and been rejected, and the kingdom was on hold; but he met some grace folk who knew it (v.26)! Paul led them to Christ (18:1-3), and taught them all that Apollos didn’t know.  Then they taught it to Apollos—including how God reacted to the Jews rejecting their kingdom by sending Paul to preach salvation without John’s baptism.

Once Apollos knew all that, he went to Corinth in Achaia (18:27cf.19:1), where he helped the grace believers there by convincing the unsaved Jews that Jesus was Christ (v.28).  That made them stop persecuting them. That’s how Apollos watered the seed of the gospel Paul planted there (ICor.3:6).

Meanwhile, Paul met some believers who evidently couldn’t speak in tongues (Acts 19:1-3).  He knew that Jews baptized unto Peter were baptized with the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38) and could speak in tongues (2:1-4), so he asked them what they were baptized unto.  They replied they hadn’t heard if there “be any Holy Ghost.”  The Spirit is mentioned in the Old Testament often, but the mystery is mentioned often in the New Testament, and many believers haven’t heard of it.

John mentioned the Spirit (Mt.3:11), but he didn’t start out saying Christ would come and baptize them with the Holy Ghost (John 1:35-42).  So these Jews here were early converts of John who hadn’t heard of the Holy Ghost.  That means they didn’t know John later baptized Jews in Christ’s name, so Paul brought them up to date (v.4), adding that when people heard John say that, they were baptized (v.5).

Why would Paul give them the Holy Ghost (v.6)?  Why wouldn’t he?  Wouldn’t you help Jewish kingdom believers in the Tribulation if God left you behind at the Rapture?

Some Bible teachers teach Paul rebaptized those Jews in verse 5, but John’s baptism was for salvation (Mark 1:4), and you only need to get saved once.  There’d have been no reason for Paul to rebaptize them.  Andrew and Peter were baptized by John (John 1:35-42), and they weren’t rebaptized.  Verse 7 ends this passage by telling us that there were 12 of these Jews, and 12 is the number of Israel (Gen.49:28; Mt.19:28).  This is to emphasize that John’s baptism was Jewish.  Despite many Gentiles who look to him as the first Baptist, he only baptized Jews (Acts 13:24).

This passage starts with a man stuck on John’s baptism and ends with more men stuck on it.  That’s a type of how this dispensation began with men who found it hard to leave baptism behind when the dispensation of grace began, and how it will end with more men stuck on it.  They’ll depart from the faith Paul preached (ITim.4:1), salvation without baptism. Baptism has a form of godliness (IITim.3:1,2,5).

The middle of this passage also pictures what’s happening in between the beginning and end of this dispensation.  Paul went to Ephesus (19:1), and later wrote the Ephesians that there’s only one baptism in this dispensation (Eph.4:4,5), the spiritual baptism of I Corinthians 12:13.

Paul had to pass through “the upper coasts” to get to Ephesus (Acts 19:1), and when Paul preached, he bought people into the upper heavens, the third heaven, as pictured when he preached in Acts 20:7-9, where it talks about “the upper chamber” and “the third loft.”  Like Eutychus, the church of today is falling asleep under Paul’s preaching. And at the end of this dispensation, it will fall from the third heaven where Pauline preaching takes us, and they’ll go back to preaching baptism for the remission of sins again like John preached.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: “The Perfecting Of A Bookworm” Acts 18:24-19:7