Reaching a City

I invite you to turn, if you would, to the portion of Scripture that was read earlier from Acts chapter 19.

Now, before we look at the Bible together, before we turn to the Word of the Lord, we turn to the Lord of the Word:

O Lord, you have given us your Word as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.[1] We pray now that by the Holy Spirit the light may shine out in such a way that we both understand and heed what it says. We are entirely dependent upon you for this, and it is to you alone that we look. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, we’ve set ourselves the task of following Paul on the tail end of his missionary journey, a journey that is going to take him, by the time we get to the final verses of Acts, to the city of Rome itself, and it will be there that he takes his leave of us. We have been looking at chapter 19 and have discovered that what we have here is, if you like, a synopsis of a tremendous amount of time and a great deal of material. Paul spent longer in Ephesus than he did in any other city, at least as Luke records it for us, and indeed, much of what he refers to in 1 and 2 Corinthians concerning his imprisonment and various factors in his life probably took place during his time in Ephesus.

But what Luke does for us in chapter 19 is essentially provide a series of four pictures with, if you like, comments that are interwoven between them. And I like to think in terms of pictures, as you know, and some of you do too. And the first picture that he has essentially provided for us, which we saw a couple of weeks ago, was a picture of “about twelve men,” there in verse 7—twelve individuals who were simply apparently almost Christians. And from that he would have given us a picture of him in the lecture hall of Tyrannus as he engaged in these daily discussions over a period of some months and, indeed, years; then the picture of the seven sons of Sceva, who was a Jewish chief priest by his own designation. Actually, he probably had very little attachment to that, but he and his sons were involved in all kinds of magic hocus-pocus, and when they tried to employ the name of Jesus, it backfired on them, and they became the seven streakers of Sceva, as we saw in verse 16. And then, into this final section, he provides us with a picture of what is a large group scene, which becomes a mob scene, which, in point of fact, eventually becomes simply a riot.

Now, it is with this “great disturbance” that he refers to in verse 23—“a great disturbance about the Way,” “the Way” being another way of referring to Christianity. “About that time,” Luke says, “there arose a great disturbance about the Way.” And then he proceeds to tell us what had happened, why it ensued, and provide for us not simply a record of what Paul did on that occasion but also essentially provide for us something of a strategy, if you like, for how men and women in any generation may seek to make an impact for the gospel in the cities and urban centers of their day.

The Craftsmen

Now, in order to help us through what is a fairly large section of verses, I’d like for us simply to pay attention to the various characters or groups of characters as we’re introduced to them. And we are initially introduced to a character in verse 24 representative of a group of craftsmen. And you will see there that the craftspeople who were directly involved in the construction of silver shrines, along with related craftsmen in verse 25, were brought together under the leadership of a silversmith by the name of Demetrius.

Demetrius was greatly concerned as a result of a number of things. He identifies them: he says, you can see in verse 26, “And you [can actually] hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people [not only] here in Ephesus [but] practically the whole province of Asia.” Why, what is it that he’s saying that is causing such a disruption? Well, he’s saying “that man-made gods are no gods at all.” Well, that’s a bit of a problem if you earn your living by creating little man-made gods. It would be one thing if it was simply a philosophical discussion: Are man-made gods real, or are they not real? But when you got up in the morning with a big box of man-made gods and put them on a table somewhere in the city, and you put food on the table for your family on a daily basis on the strength of your sale of these things, for somebody to walk into the city and begin to declare that these things were superstitious relics and were largely irrelevant is to be confronted by a great and pressing problem. And so, in these few verses—25 and 26 and 27—he provides his concerns. He says, “You know, if this man is able to continue this, then our trade will lose its good name, the prestige of this great temple will be discredited”—you see that there in verse 27—“and indeed, Artemis herself, the one who is worshipped,” he says, “throughout the province of Asia and the world, she’s going to be robbed of her divine majesty.”

Now, we should just step back for a moment and remind ourselves of what we may have learned—namely, that this particular temple, which was about a mile and a half outside of Ephesus, dominated the skyline. It didn’t simply dominate the skyline, but it dominated the whole city. It had been constructed to replace a temple that had been destroyed by fire in the fourth century BC—356 BC, to be exact. And this temple was of gargantuan proportions. It was four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens. It was built on 127 columns, each of which were sixty feet in height and of a significant girth as well, as you can imagine, to hold up such a vast superstructure.

Within the framework of this temple sat the defining presence of Artemis, also known as Diana, and she became the focal point of the trade that emerged in the construction of these little shrines. And people had made these shrines. Some of them were in terra-cotta; archaeologists have discovered some of those. But the ones that are mentioned here were made of silver; no archaeologist has discovered any of them to this point—probably melted down and stashed away by some entrepreneur. But the little shrines were the epitome of the structure of the temple, and they contained a little effigy, if you like, of Artemis herself. And what people did was they came into Ephesus, they bought these little shrines, then they took them up to the temple, and in the temple they had somebody bless them, and then, as a result of the little blessing that they had, they were able to take them home and put them in a place of significance and attach great attention to them.

In other words, what was happening in Ephesus is the same thing that was happening yesterday when we were in Washington, DC: people were out in the souvenir trade, plying their wares, offering things to men and women so that they could have a little representation of the Capitol building or the Washington Monument or perhaps of the White House itself; lots of signs saying, “Three T-shirts for $10.00,” and if you saw the T-shirts, you’d understand why they were as inexpensive as they were; but eventually, crowds of people just wandering the city, bearing testimony to the fact that they have found significance in their purchases. Most of that is largely innocuous. Where it becomes significant is when people are making purchases and attaching to them religious significance and attaching to them the kind of allegiance and devotion that is due only to the living God.

Demetrius became a rabble-rouser. He was obviously concerned for the well-being of himself and his colleagues, and he was concerned that people were being led astray. “Paul is coming here suggesting something that clearly isn’t true,” he said to them, “and if we’re not careful, all kinds of people are going to be led astray.” “He says”—again, notice verse 26c—“he says that man-made gods are no gods at all.”

If the gospel really began to impinge upon the structures of authority and of government and of economics in our city, where and how would it be obvious to men and women?

Now, you get the picture clearly. The religious devotion and their economic receipts were being impinged upon by the visit of Paul and his friends. This was the prevalent way in which the story of Jesus was showing its face in the city of Ephesus. It wasn’t because there were a lot of people walking around with banners or with signs. It was identified as a result of the drop-off in economic activity.

We should note that for just a moment, especially when we think, “Oh, well, how would it become apparent that the gospel message was making an impact in Cleveland?” Well, of course, we may not be able even to answer that accurately. But it is a good question to ask. I wonder: If the gospel really began to impinge upon the structures of authority and of government and of economics in the city of Cleveland, where and how would it be obvious to men and women? ’Cause this is quite a striking thing, isn’t it? What we’re discovering here in Ephesus is not that the people in Ephesus began to recognize that Paul was a terrific preacher, began to recognize that Paul and his companions were saying significant things. That was happening. But the way in which the gospel got out, if you like—the way in which it made an impact—was in an entirely different way.

The Crowd

And people began to look at their receipts at the end of the day and said, “What is happening in Ephesus, that people are not buying these little shrines in the quantities that they were? Something must have happened to change their minds or change their convictions.” And Demetrius said, “It’s that character Paul. That stuff that he’s saying in the synagogues and when he gossips it around in the marketplace and that material that he was offering in the lecture hall of Tyrannus, that is subversive material!” And he got the crowd so pumped up that in verse 28, the crowd scene is quite spectacular: “When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting.” “Began shouting.” What did they shout? “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” And as the little group began to shout, it begins to build. Verse 29: “Soon the whole city was in an uproar.”

Now, there’s no sense in which this is orchestrated, particularly. It’s just the overspill of people’s fervent reaction to what they’ve discovered. The gospel has hit their pocketbook. The gospel has hit their bottom line. The gospel has challenged their religious devotion. There’s no way in which they can simply sideline this. There’s no way in which Paul has simply entered Ephesus and said, “You know, I know that Ephesus is largely in control of Artemis. I know you have a big temple here. I’m just a little converted Jewish man. I don’t want to make a fuss. I don’t really want to influence anybody unduly. But I wonder if I could have a little table here in the market square. I’d just like to put out some literature about Jesus of Nazareth.” No, he doesn’t do that. He walks into town, and he says, “Jesus is Lord. Therefore, Jesus is the living God and King. Therefore, man-made gods are no gods at all.” Of course, he’d done the same in [Athens], hadn’t he? He spoke to the folks in [Athens], and he said, “The God who made the world and everything in it … does not live in temples [made] by hands.”[2] In other words, he challenged the thought forms of his day. He spoke with absolute certainty.

The current issue of Time magazine has an article by Charles Krauthammer, a Jewish gentleman, entitled “In Defense of Certainty.” I commend it to you. You can find it in the magazine racks. It will be worth a read. I won’t read it to you all, but it makes a point that is necessary and applicable here. He begins, “Things come in waves, of course, but waves need to be resisted …. The new wave is fashionable doubt. Doubt is in. Certainty is out.” And then he goes on to say,

Do you remember 9/11? [Do you remember] how you felt? The moral clarity of that day and the days thereafter? Just days after 9/11, on this very page, Lance Morrow wrote a brilliant, searing affirmation of right against wrong, good against evil.

A few years of that near papal certainty is more than any self-respecting intelligentsia can take. The overwhelmingly secular intellectuals are embarrassed that they once nodded in assent to Morrow-like certainty, an affront to their self-flattering pose as skeptics.

Enough. A new day, a new wave. Time again for nuance, doubt, and the comforts of relativism. It is not just the restless search for novelty, the artist’s Holy Grail. It is weariness with the responsibilities and the nightmares that come with clarity—and the demands that moral certainty make on us as individuals and as a nation.[3]

Certainty causes men and women to take sides. Certainty causes men and women to make decisions. Certainty forces a response. But the waves of uncertainty and the waves of doubt which are prevalent in our culture make it such that anyone who then speaks with certainty or speaks with clarity is regarded as immediately being suspect.

Paul, within the framework of the pluralism of a Greco-Roman world, remains certain. He says when he writes to the Corinthians, “The love of Christ compels me.”[4] On another occasion he says, “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.”[5] No shilly-shallying. Why? Because he is convinced of the eternal validity of the truth that he has been made a bearer of. And again, in our contemporary culture, the challenge of speaking with certainty is more than mitigated by the concerns of men and women who want simply to shout down the convinced. And that’s all this group does. Their only response to the clarity of Paul from the crowd is the shouting of themselves hoarse.

And in the uprising that ensues, we’re told that they seize a couple of Paul’s companions, Gaius and Aristarchus. They march them as one man into the theater. If you’ve been to Ephesus, you’ve seen the theater. It’s an immensely wonderful thing to stand in the midst of all of that and realize you’re standing essentially within the framework where the apostles and others stood. In contemporary terms, it would be that a great uprising took place, people came out into the streets, they began to chant against the declaration that the gospel was making, they begin to move in a surging crowd, eventually going down into the city and arriving at the Browns’ stadium, and there in the Browns’ stadium, gathered into a great arena and conflagration of fervor for Artemis, they chanted and chanted and chanted. And in the midst of that, as one man, they picked up a couple of unsuspecting characters, who are identified here, and they rushed them in to use them as illustrations.

The City Clerk

So you have, then, the craftsmen, and then you have the crowd, and then we’re introduced to the city clerk. Well, actually, we’re not really immediately introduced to the city clerk, because in verses 32 and 33 and 34, we have a couple of important insights. First of all, that “the assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some [were shouting] another [thing],” and “most of the people did[n’t] even know why they were there.” It’s almost humorous, isn’t it? I think it probably is. I think this is one of the little insights into Luke’s humor: “Some shouted one thing, some shouted another thing, and if you asked the majority of the people, they didn’t even know what they were shouting at all.”

It’s not dissimilar to many crowds that we find in the cites of our day. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know. I’m part of Rent-a-Riot. I don’t know why I’m here. Some guy came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you know, if you hold this sign and shout…’”

“What do I have to shout?”

“‘Great is Artemis!’”

“Yeah, I can shout that for a while. That’s fine.”

“Okay. Well then, let’s get going.”

Now, in the midst of that confused crowd, the Jews, wishing—verse 33—to distinguish themselves from Paul and his colleagues, choose a poor, unsuspecting fellow, Alexander, and they push him to the front. We daren’t delay here, but I don’t want you to miss this. There’s nothing in the Bible except for our help. And again, I think this is vaguely humorous, isn’t it? “The Jews pushed Alexander to the front.” And once he got to the front, standing there, poor soul, some of them began to shout instructions to him: “Okay, go ahead, Alexander. Come on now. Go, Alexander. Start. Say your piece, Alexander.” The poor fellow’s standing there; people are prompting him from the front rows. And eventually he manages to motion for silence. You see him standing there in front of the vast crowd, putting up his hands for silence. Then he just turns around and walks back to his place. Because as a result of his request for silence, “when they realized he was a Jew, they … shouted in unison for about two hours.”

“Alexander, you’re our man. Step up.”

“Okay, here I go. What should I do?

“Well, go ahead now, Alexander.”

“Okay, let’s try this. Okay, fine, thank you.”

And his wife asked him in the evening, “What was the highlight of your day?”

“Well, I spoke before a large crowd in Ephesus.”

“You did?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did you say?”

“Well, not a lot, actually. Well, actually, nothing. Well, I never spoke at all.”

But the city clerk, the liaison officer between the civic government and the Roman provincial administration, he knew how to do it. He was a politician. He understood it. And he was able to do what Alexander was unable to do—namely, silence the crowd. Verse 35: “The city clerk, quieted the crowd.” This fellow is polished, he’s intelligent, he knows the ropes, he has influence, and he, in a masterful way, brings a measure of clarity and sanity to these riotous proceedings.

And look at what he does. He just says four things. I’ll point them out to you.

First of all, he says, “Men of Ephesus, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven?” “Come on, fellows,” he says, “we don’t need this. The whole world knows about Artemis. Ephesus is known by Artemis. And not only that, the world knows that Artemis was not created by mortal men. Artemis fell from heaven like a meteor. You know that, I know that, we all know that, the world knows that. You don’t need to stand in here and shout hour after hour, ‘Great is Artemis!’ The whole world knows that Artemis is great.”

Now, the immediate impact on that—of course, once he’s got quiet—is for people to begin to say, “Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Uh-huh. Yeah.” Well, of course, the people who didn’t know why they were there in the first place, they’re saying yes, ’cause they were saying yes before, they’re saying yes now, they say yes to anything. “That’s terrific, isn’t it?” “Oh, yes, yes!”

“Secondly,” he says, “you need to realize that since these facts are undeniable, you should just be quiet and not do anything rash.” This fellow’s a pragmatist. He’s a good politician. Then in verse 37 he says, “And furthermore, you need to realize that these men that you’ve brought here, they’re innocent. I mean, they haven’t been robbing temples. They haven’t been blaspheming our goddess. I mean, we’ve got no legitimate charge against them. So,” thirdly, “if you folks know something I don’t know, if Demetrius and his friends has a concern that is a legitimate concern, then they can use the normal legal channels. The proconsuls are around; they can be approached, and they can get a verdict on the strength of the structures of our time.”

Fourthly, “If we’re not careful,” he says, “we as a city are in danger of being charged with civil disorder. And if it was to get back to Rome…” Then, of course, there’s a measure of self-preservation in this, presumably. He’s the liaison officer; he’s supposed to look after things. “If it was to get back to Rome that there’s a commotion that has ensued, then we wouldn’t be able to give an account for the commotion,” at the end of verse 40 there. Why? “’Cause there’s no reason for it.”

Now, I want you to note that, because this is very, very important as we come to our final point. Here is the testimony of, if you like, an objective bystander. Here is the testimony of someone who takes the political route, takes the pragmatic journey, stands on the side and looks at things, but is honest enough to report it as is: “There’s no reason for all the shouting. The two characters that you’ve dragged in here are innocent. There are normal legal channels if someone has a beef. And fourthly, frankly, we ought to get home to our beds as soon as possible, because if this commotion reaches Rome and they come to investigate, neither myself nor anyone else is going to give any reasonable explanation for what is going on, because there is no reason for it.” And then verse 41: “After he … said this, he dismissed the assembly.” We go to chapter 20 next time: “When the uproar had ended…”[6] So it came to a conclusion.

The Christians

Now, the only group that we haven’t considered—and it’s here that we finish—are the Christians themselves, represented by Paul and by his colleagues. They’re the ones who’ve been at the heart of the issue, and their strategy has been very clear.

You know, there’s a sense in which the real impact here is not in what they were doing, but it is in what they weren’t doing. Now, I know you’ve come to expect this of me, and I don’t mean to be a broken gramophone record, but I think it is legitimate to point it out once again—namely, that Paul and his colleagues have not been involved in a ministry of denunciation. Right? There is no indication here that when Paul confronts the paganism of Ephesus, his immediate reaction is to put together a kind of sociopolitical group who will challenge the thought forms and structures of the government of Ephesus. He is challenging the thought forms and the structures of the government of Ephesus, but not as a result of dissing the people and their views.

That’s an easy game. That’s an easy one.

“You’re wrong.”

“No, you’re wrong.”

“No, you’re wrong.”

“No, you’re wronger than I’m wronger.”

No, that is a complete futility, a waste of breath and energy. I point it out because it has been indicative of a large waste of breath and energy on the part of conservative evangelicalism for the past thirty years in this country.

See, it’s much harder, isn’t it, to proclaim the gospel? To tell people who are so misguided in their convictions, so off the line, not that they are misguided and off the line but that there is a seeking Savior who came, providing grace and transforming power, and it’s actually possible not simply to have a little shrine that speaks of some kind of god, but it is actually for your heart to become the shrine of the living God. But of course, you see, that’s so hard, because I can’t do that in your life. Nobody’s going to know whether that’s happening. I’m not going to look successful in raising a movement like that. No one in the church can get excited about that, because it seems to happen so sparingly, and it seems to happen despite us, not because of us. So why not just forget that for the time being and get a group of people, and we’ll stand outside the temple. We’ll let them know these little shrines are rubbish! We’ll let them know there is nothing of validity in what they’re saying! We’ll let them know what we are opposed to, what we don’t like, what we resist in them and resent in them!

Now, don’t allow me to overstep my boundaries, but the response of homosexuality to evangelical Christianity is largely completely negative, completely disinterested. Seldom do we find folks from that community seeking out the average evangelical local church because in that they will find someone who can listen, someone who can respond, someone who can care, as opposed to someone who is the great proponent of denunciation.

Is there a strategy here in what they don’t do? No special rallies held against the religion of the temple. No special words of denunciation. No, what they do is speak in such a way that they are free from accusation, that they are clear in their proclamation, and they are forceful in their persuasion. The city clerk, the liaison officer, stands up and says, “You might as well let Gaius and Aristarchus go. Because there is no way in the world that we can do anything with them at all. They are not desecrating our temples; they are not dissing our goddess.” That’s remarkable to me. It should be remarkable to you too.

The gospel is not about the fact that everything is wrong. The gospel is about the power of God transforming a life. It’s good news.

The tone of contemporary effective Christianity in the continental United States is largely denunciatory. People expect that of us. They expect that whatever else we do, whatever else we’re like, we are the ones who will denounce them, will denounce this, will explain that this is wrong and that is wrong and everything’s wrong. And we wonder why it is that they find so little interest in hearing from us. Because we’re not telling them the gospel! The gospel is not about the fact that everything is wrong. The gospel is about the power of God transforming a life. It’s good news.

Now, if you think about it, that was what had happened to shut down the business. That was the reason for the riot. It was because these people were persuasive. Their lifestyles were persuasive. Their words were persuasive. Their gatherings were persuasive.

Yesterday in the New York Times, in the leader page, the editorial page, there was a piece by Matt Miller under the heading “Is Persuasion Dead?” “Is Persuasion Dead?” It’s a fascinating piece as well. It’s interesting to put it in the context of the article on certainty from Krauthammer that’s falling just on the same weekend. And essentially what this fellow is saying is, “I’m a journalist, I write lead articles, I’m involved in the art of persuasion, but I don’t know if I’m persuading anybody. In fact, I don’t know if it’s even possible to persuade anybody anymore,” he says. “You can’t persuade anybody. People don’t like persuasion. They don’t want to be persuaded. You can’t take somebody from here and move ’em there by the art of persuasion”—that’s what he’s saying—“whether by rhetoric or by intellectual ideas and so on.”[7] It’s quite a sad piece.

And, of course, we would say that the observation of Demetrius that this man Paul was doing this is accurate only up to a point. Surely Paul was the mouthpiece, but Paul wasn’t doing anything other than speaking. It was the work of the Spirit of God who was bringing home the voice of a Paul—a faltering voice, often, and sometimes a very unimaginative voice, a kind of repetitive voice—it was the work of the Spirit of God to bring that truth home and shine light into the hearts of men and women, and they were persuaded. Persuaded.

I’ll give you just a piece of this, and then I’m going to stop: “The signs are not good,” he writes.

Ninety percent of political conversation amounts to dueling “talking points.” Best-selling books reinforce what folks thought when they bought them. Talk [and] radio … opinion journals preach to the converted. Let’s face it: the purpose of most political speech is not to persuade but to win, be it power, ratings, celebrity or … cash.

By contrast, marshaling a case to persuade those who start from a different position is a lost art.[8]

Which is actually the challenge of the gospel. I mean, every time you take your Bible and speak to men and women, you are speaking to people from a different persuasion. By nature they’re from a different persuasion. “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”[9] That’s not intellectual stupidity; that is moral perversity. And the art of persuasion is lost, and certainty is suspect. You could go crazy thinking about this if your task was the task of the gospel.

Honoring what’s right in the other side’s argument seems a superfluous thing that can only cause trouble, like an appendix. Politicos huddle with like-minded souls in opinion cocoons that seem impervious to facts.

The politicians and the press didn’t kill off persuasion intentionally, of course; it’s more manslaughter than murder. … Elections may turn on emotions like hope and fear …, But with persuasion’s passing, there’s no alternative.[10]

Now, what are we going to do with this? See, to the extent that this article speaks to our contemporary culture, to the extent that Krauthammer is accurate when he says this—and I believe that both these things speak to the issues of the day—you and I go back out into a community that lives within the framework identified by these two journalists. And Paul says, “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men”—to persuade where the art of persuasion is gone, to speak with conviction in a world where certainty is suspect. What possible hope is there? Well, every hope. Why? Because “the message of the cross,” which is “foolishness” to those who do not believe, “is the power of God”[11] for salvation.

Think about this as we finish—and we are finished. “You said you were finished some time ago.” Well, that’s okay, but now we’re finished. This is how it was happening.

Mrs. Levi is putting on her nightie. Mr. Levi is brushing his teeth. Mrs. Levi shouts from the bedroom, “Hey, Reuben!”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think we should get Rebekah a shrine for her graduation.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t think we should get her one.”

“I’ll talk to you when I get in the bedroom.”

“Let’s get her a book instead.”

Mr. Simeon, who’s been running a successful business, buzzes through to his secretary and says, “Is it possible to hold the supply of shrines that we ordered last Tuesday to give to the successful amongst my marketing team?”

Answer: “Yes.”

“Well, do that.”

“But Mr. Simeon, we always give shrines. They expect the shrines.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to give them this time.”

Multiply that throughout the culture. That then hits the bottom line of Demetrius and his buddies: “What’s happened to the sale of the shrines? Who’s dissing the shrines? Who’s arguing against our position? Who’s cutting in on our business?” And they go, and they ask, and they ask.

And they get into the home of Mrs. Levi: “Why are you not buying your niece a shrine?”

“Why would I buy her a shrine? I’ve come to know the living and true God. I want my niece to know the living and true God.”

“Hey, Mr. Simeon, what about the order for the shrines? We were just checking up if you still want them. I’m calling you from the temple,” priest says.

“No, actually, I’ve changed my mind. I’m gonna buy them books.”

“Books?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

And to his colleagues, he brings them in, and he says, “You know, I would normally, in fact, in the last few years, I would normally have given you a shrine. You know that that’s the kind of standard practice for a job well done. The shrines are throughout our whole company. But I haven’t bought you shrines today, and I want to tell you why: my life has been turned upside down by the power of Jesus of Nazareth. I’ve discovered that the living God can come and indwell my life and change me, and he has totally changed my affections. And therefore, I want to offer to you the opportunity to come to know the living God rather than to live but one further day in the superstition of this little piece provided by Demetrius the silversmith.”

See, God says that his Word and his weapons have divine power for tearing down strongholds.[12] When God’s people do not believe that, they will go for other mechanisms with which to tear down strongholds and in the process of doing so may appear to be very momentarily effective. But in the long run, only the power of the risen Jesus can change a heart, change a home, change a business, change a street, change a university, change a culture, change a nation.

If Christ does not return in the next hundred years, our children’s children will live to bemoan the fact that our generation that enjoyed such freedom, such opportunity for the proclaiming of the gospel in overt, imaginative, persuasive, gracious ways took the easy way out with 1-800 numbers and placards on the corner of the street and the denunciatory posture of angry men and women—very unlike the tenderness of Jesus of Nazareth.

It was the Pharisees who couldn’t stand him. It was the sinners that loved to listen. Why? Because he, having modeled the pattern for his apostles to follow, beckoned them not with denunciation but with an invitation. “Hey, I could give you a drink of water,” he said to the woman who had been married five times and had a live-in lover. “I could give you a drink of water, and you’d never have to have another drink of water in your life.”[13] Instead of “If you think you’re joining our church after five marriages and a live-in lover…”

I think you get the point. Let’s finish.

God, thank you for the Bible. Thank you for the example of Paul and his colleagues. Thank you that there was no charge of disruption that could be leveled against them. They were not bringing down the structures of the day by their overt judgmental posture, but that they were impinging upon the economic sanctity and the religious proclivity of Ephesus as a result of the transforming message of the gospel of faith in Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, as a church to pray to you constantly that you would help us to learn this lesson; that you will help us to make an impact on the city of Cleveland in more ways than we are even clever enough to envisage; that you will come and surprise us by your intervention; that as a result of the gospel taking root in our hearts and in our homes and in our lives, we may genuinely “rescue the perishing, care for the dying,” and “tell them of Jesus” who’s “mighty to save.”[14]

And may the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon us, now and forevermore. Amen.

[1] See Psalm 119:105.

[2] Acts 17:24 (NIV 1984).

[3] Charles Krauthammer, “In Defense of Certainty,” Time, June 1, 2005, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1066928,00.html.

[4] 2 Corinthians 5:14 (paraphrased).

[5] 2 Corinthians 5:11 (RSV).

[6] Acts 20:1 (NIV 1984).

[7] Matt Miller, “Is Persuasion Dead?,” New York Times, June 4, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/04/opinion/is-persuasion-dead.html. Paraphrased.

[8] Miller.

[9] Psalm 14:1; 53:1 (paraphrased).

[10] Miller, “Is Persuasion Dead?”

[11] 1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV 1984).

[12] See 2 Corinthians 10:4.

[13] John 4:13–14 (paraphrased).

[14] Fanny Crosby, “Rescue the Perishing” (1869).