Pastor David B. Curtis
Pastor David B. Curtis
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Good morning, Bereans. Today we are going to be looking at a text from the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts shows us the transition from Judaism to Yeshua. If we are going to correctly understand the New Testament, we must understand "The Transition Period." If someone were to ask you what the Transition Period is, could you explain it? When did it begin? When did it end? What was happening during it? These are questions that we need to be able to answer if we are going to understand the Transition Period.
The Transition Period began on Pentecost in A.D. 30, and it ended at the destruction of the Jewish temple in A.D. 70. During the Transition Period, the church was growing from infancy to maturity. A spiritual house was being built for God to dwell in. This was a time of change and growth; it was a time of transformation from the Old to the New.
The book of Acts shows us the transition for the Jews of the early church. The old things of Judaism, the Old Covenant, faded out very slowly, and the New Covenant gradually phased in. The book of Acts is not a book upon which we can base a systematic theology. In other words, you can't go to the book of Acts and just take these things and frame them as a normal theology. People create problems when they build their doctrine on the book of Acts.
Ray Steadman writes, "We are studying the section of the book of Acts which sets before us the account of the early church in operation and which outlines for us the pattern of normal Christianity. We must remember that this book is intended to describe Christianity as it ought to be in every age."
Is what we see in the book of Acts normal Christianity? How many of you have seen someone drop dead in church for lying? How many of you have seen someone blinded for interfering with the Gospel message? How many of you have seen the lame healed so that they immediately leap and dance? How many of you have seen someone healed from the rubbing of a prayer cloth on them? How many of you have seen the dead raised to life? OK, I guess you get my point.
Why is it that these things happened in Acts but do not happen for us today? How are we different from those who lived in Acts? Those first-century saints lived in the Transition Period; we do not. In the Transition Period, from Pentecost to the Second Coming in A.D. 70, God worked in the church through miraculous gifts and spoke to His prophets.
When Christianity was established and a New Covenant was introduced, there were many Jews who found it very difficult to make all of the transition. In the midst of the transition, there were people coming to Yeshua from Judaism.
On Paul’s second missionary journey, his voyage brought him to Ephesus in the Roman province of Asia. Earlier, Paul had been forbidden by the Spirit to preach the word of the Lord in Asia. But now he arrives at Ephesus.
And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there, but he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined. But on taking leave of them he said, "I will return to you if God wills," and he set sail from Ephesus. Acts 18:19-21 ESV
For the first time in his experience as an apostle, he went into a synagogue, and they wanted him there. They asked him to stay longer. There was a wide-open door for ministry in Ephesus. But notice what the verse says: "He declined." That's a switch. Usually, they wanted him to leave, but he stayed. This time, they want him to stay, but he left.
Paul left because he was intent on reaching Jerusalem for the feast, so he spent only a short time there. He did, however, leave Priscilla and Aquila behind, and they must have played a significant part in preparation for Paul's lengthy stay, as recorded in our text. So, in out text Paul is back in Ephesus.
The city of Ephesus probably ranked with Corinth as the two most important cities on the road east from Rome. In the Eastern Division of the Roman Empire, the three main cities would be Antioch, Alexandria, and Ephesus. It was a big-time place. It was a commercial center.
Four main roads crisscrossed right there in Ephesus. It was a port city. Although it was three miles inland, the Caster River flowed into it. It was navigable even though there were dredging problem.
Ephesus had a huge religious influence due to the Temple of Artemis (Greek) or Diana (Roman). Tourists traveled from all over the Roman Empire to see it. The temple was four hundred and twenty-five feet long, two hundred and twenty feet wide, sixty feet high; it was a 120-year project started by Croesus of Lydia. It was described by Antipater of Sidon, who compiled a list of the Seven Wonders:
I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, 'Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught [anything] so grand." (Antipater, Greek Anthology [IX.58])
Nothing remains of the original temple, which was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Ephesus was also a great city of pagan superstition because it was one of those refuge cities. It was a place where sorcery, witchcraft, and all kinds of perversions existed. There were magical imposters and exorcists all over the place.
In one of Shakespeare's plays, "The Comedy of Errors," there is a Syracusian by the name of Antipholus, who speaks concerning Ephesus. He says, "They say this town is full of cozenage as nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, soul-killing witches that deform the body, disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, and many such-like liberties of sin."
So, Ephesus was a city of unusual pagan superstition. It was the place where you could buy charms and amulets, the phrase "Ephesian writings" (Ephesia grammata) was common in antiquity for documents containing spells and magical formulae. They were little scraps of paper that had spells and other occult material on them that you could recite if you wanted to control the spirits in some way.
When Paul returned to Ephesus, as he had promised them that he would, it seems as if he picked up exactly where he had left off.
And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. Acts 19:8 ESV
The singular "synagogue" probably signifies "the sphere of the synagogue." There would have been a number of synagogues in Ephesus, and he probably visited many of them.
Paul continued to speak "Boldly" (in the imperfect tense). He continued speaking boldly for three months. Three months in a synagogue without a riot was something of a record for Paul. "Reasoning and persuading"—we see these same two verbs over and over in Acts. The first one means dialogue or a back-and-forth question-answer type of event. Persuading means to convince by argument. This is Paul's customary method. He would take his readers through the history of Israel and point to the fulfillment of the great promises in the ministry of the Lord Yeshua.
Luke says that "He preached 'About the kingdom of God." The idea of "kingdom" in both Testaments is primarily dynamic rather than spatial. Paul is not preaching about a future physical reign on the earth. It is not so much a kingdom with geographic borders as it is a "kingdominion" or reign. The kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven is, quite simply, the rule and reign of God. The kingdom of God is not a democracy; it's a monarchy. God is in charge, and that's the way it works. Christianity is the kingdom of God. To trust in the Lord Yeshua the Christ is to be a kingdom citizen.
He has delivered us (believers) from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, Colossians 1:13 ESV
All believers, and only believers, are kingdom citizens.
But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. Acts 19:9 ESV
"Stubborn"—this word, when used in the New Testament, is always used of Jews. True Israel believed the message and embraced Messiah. But those not of true Israel, not of the remnant, rejected the message and became hardened. Their rejection was expressed in a public maligning of Christianity; no doubt including blasphemy against Yeshua. It presumably made further teaching in the synagogue impossible.
"The Way"—this seems to be the earliest "name" for the Christian movement. It is used five times in Acts. Where did this name come from? It may have a connection with Yeshua’s claim to be "The Way," (a Messianic term). So, when Yeshua said, "I am the Way," He was saying that He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 35 and 40. The disciples, calling themselves "The Way," were saying that Israel was being restored and that the promises about "The Way" were made to Israel.
Because of the resistance of the Jews, Paul, together with his disciples, walked out of the synagogue. The Jews would see this act as apostasy.
They moved their operation to the "hall of Tyrannus." The name Tyrannus means "tyrant," and since it is difficult to think that any parent would name his or her child "Tyrant," this must have been a nickname given by the man's students.
The Western text (i.e., Codex Beza, one of the ancient copies of Acts) added that this was "from the fifth to the tenth hour" (Acts 19:9—from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.). The Mediterranean "siesta" occurred from the fifth hour (11:00 a.m.) to the tenth hour (4:00p.m.). The working day began at about seven in the morning. The shops closed at eleven, and everyone went home until four when the shops reopened, and business went on until about nine-thirty at night.
We know from Acts 20:34 that Paul worked at his trade while in Ephesus. So, he would have worked at his trade in the morning hours and then taught his students for five hours in this school building during the middle of the day (and you think my sermons are long)! Most likely, he would have then gone back to work in the evening. This gives us a picture of a tireless apostle and an eager audience. Each is willing to give up the normal time of rest in order to speak and hear of the kingdom. If he taught for five hours every day for two years, it adds up to 1,500-1,800 hours of teaching—a substantial amount! We have about 831 hours of teaching on our web site.
Can you even begin to imagine the Spiritual hunger of these Ephesians? They would give up their nap time to study the Bible for five hours every day. Some few years later when Paul called the Ephesian elders to meet him at Miletus on his trip back to Jerusalem, he said to them:
"You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house," Acts 20:18-20 ESV
Paul is saying that the whole of Asia got evangelized. But there is no way that Paul, by himself, could reach this region. He could, however, equip Christians to do the work of the ministry. And so those who were listening to Paul evidently went out proclaiming the things that they were hearing. And because Ephesus was the capital of Asia and people from all over that Roman province came there from time to time, the Gospel through Paul's preaching was not limited to the citizens of Ephesus. It spread throughout the entire region.
And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, Acts 19:11 ESV
God was working through Paul to do "extraordinary miracles." This is the only time this phrase is used in the Bible. Paul had done many miracles, but Luke states that these are extraordinary. We'll see what he means in the next verse.
Those mighty miracles that were done in the history of the early church were the product of the apostolic ministry. It is significant that apart from Stephen and Philip, who worked closely under the apostles, there are no miracles recorded as performed by anyone other than the apostles. The purpose of these apostolic miracles (according to Hebrews 2:3-4) was to confirm the message of salvation that Yeshua and the apostles proclaimed. In fact, throughout the entire Bible, miracles are not uniformly sprinkled as everyday occurrences.
In the late 1970's, John Wimber and the Vineyard churches that he spawned began claiming that miracles should be the ordinary experience of the church. Yeshua said that His followers would do greater works than He Himself did (John 14:12). Wimber asserted that the main reason that we do not see such works of power is because of our skeptical Western mind-set. According Wimber, if we are not doing miracles along with our preaching, we are not preaching the Gospel as we should.
The hope of miraculous healing attracts many people to churches that claim to see such miracles happening. They easily draw to themselves many desperate people who are afflicted with serious, incurable illnesses.
so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Acts 19:12 ESV
This verse has been greatly misused and abused down through the centuries. These "handkerchiefs" that people carried from Paul to the sick were actually sweat-cloths that he tied around his head to keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes as he worked. The artisans or anybody in the crafts or anybody who did manual labor in those days, carried about these cloths with which they would wipe their brow. Sometimes they would tie them around their head. The aprons mentioned were Paul’s work aprons.
The people were hauling off anything that Paul touched, and when the sick came in contact with these items, they were delivered. Can you imagine how hard it would be for Paul to keep a hankie or apron once this word got out? They would be taking all his things.
As I said, these signs and wonders were accomplished to validate and underscore the words that Paul was speaking—the words of the Gospel. The fact that people were healed is explained, I think, purely in terms of the grace of God. These people, with their pagan background, knew of only this way of being healed, and they acted in a very simple faith. God, in His grace, gave them what they sought by faith—deliverance.
How did the handkerchiefs or aprons work? In the same way that the shadow of Peter (Acts 5:15) or the hem of Yeshua's garment (Matthew 14:36) might heal. The item became a point of contact by which a person expressed his faith in Yeshua as healer.
How many of you have heard of an "anointed prayer cloth"? Modern TV preachers send out little squares of cloth that they have "anointed." They ask their audiences to touch them as a point-of-contact and, of course, to send in their donation.
Ora Parish writes:
Are prayer hankies Scriptural? Prayer handkerchiefs are very Scriptural and have been used throughout history with exciting supernatural results…Modern day believers are still using anointing cloths, or prayer hankies, to give to those who are in need of a miracle, or an answer to prayer, and it seems that the popularity of prayer hankies is increasing. Pastors, or elders of the church, will anoint the cloth with oil, usually olive oil, and then pray over the cloth asking God to meet the need of the one it is intended for. Most of the time the person is given the cloth to keep, however, sometimes the cloth is anointed for someone who is unaware that they are being prayed for. In these circumstances, the cloth or handkerchief is usually placed in a home, under a mattress, or in a vehicle. This is usually done when you are praying for someone who is in spiritual bondage and would not be willing to receive prayer for themselves, or even be willing to receive a prayer cloth, or prayer hankie…There are many anointed men and women of God who use prayer hankies on a regular basis, and have been blessed to see exceptional answers to prayers, by an exceptional prayer-answering God.
If you are interested in purchasing a prayer handkerchief for yourself or someone you love, visit http://hankieblessings.com.
This is a bunch of hocus-pocus and makes Christianity sound like voodoo. Luke makes it clear that what happened with Paul's clothing was "extraordinary." It was not something to be used for all time.
Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Yeshua over those who had evil spirits, saying, "I adjure you by the Yeshua whom Paul proclaims." Acts 19:13 ESV
There's only one use of the word exorcist in the New Testament, and that's in this passage. Exorcism is the process of expelling demons. There were in Ephesus, as in Israel (see Luke 11:19), Jewish exorcists who sought to cast out demons through the use of the name of one who had great power. This was a kind of spiritual "name dropping" whereby the power of the one named was believed to be able to exorcise demons. Such "ministry" was hardly to be performed without a fee, and so it appears to be a business, not altogether unlike fortunetelling business of Acts 16.
The early church had to deal with a great deal of exorcism in their day. The exorcists and the necromancers of the East were often influenced by Jewish individuals, because they were the recipients of the revelation of God. It would be natural that they would have a better understanding of divine things.
Interestingly, a papyrus that has been discovered mentions the use of the name of Yeshua in exorcisms in the form, "I adjure you by Yeshua, the God of the Hebrews." It seems certain, then, that such exorcisms occurred, even though it was contrary to the rabbinic prohibition of using the name of Yeshua in exorcisms.
We know from history that there were many Jewish people among the exorcists. We see an example of Jewish exorcism in the apocryphal Book of Tobit.
And as they went on their journey, they came in the evening to the River Tigris, and they lodged there. And when the young man went down to wash himself, a fish leaped out of the river, and would have devoured him. Then the angel said unto him, 'Take the fish.' And the young man laid hold of the fish and drew it to land. To whom the angel said, 'Open the fish, and take the heart and the liver and the gall, and put them up safely.' So the young man did as the angel commanded him; and when they had roasted the fish, they did eat it: then they both went on their way, till they drew near to Ecbatane. Then the young man said to the angel, 'Brother Azarias, to what use is the heart and the liver and the gal of the fish?' And he said unto him, Touching the heart and the liver, 'If a devil or an evil spirit trouble any, we must make a smoke thereof before the man or the woman, and the party shall be no more vexed.' (Tobit 6:1-7 KJVA)
The resulting smell and smoke of the burning heart and liver are supposed to drive away the demons.
Josephus, who was a very intelligent person and a noted Jewish historian, told of a cure in which a demon was drawn through the nostrils of a demoniac by the use of magic root supposedly prescribed by Solomon. And there are other rabbinical writers who reflect the same fanciful magic superstitions.
Historically, for example, the Roman Catholic Church has been involved in rites of exorcism, and they have all of the secret formulas for it. A Newsweek article stated: "Among Pentecostal Christians, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, exorcism has become as common as speaking in tongues."
Methods of exorcism have been used for centuries by witch doctors and by sophisticated people today. There are people today who claim to have some authority over unclean spirits and claim to know a great deal about demons. I heard about some landlord in some apartment who paid people $3,500.00 to get rid of some demons. It's always been big business.
This is the testimony of Doctor Loughton Smith, MD, In Miami, Florida:
What happened thereafter was an amazing thing. Jerry commanded in the name of the Lord Yeshua that the demon should name himself. I heard a voice speak out of my own lyrics, with an entirely different tone and inflection than my own voice and say, "Fingernail biting."
I had bitten my nails since I was a small child and never gotten the victory over this in my Christian life. The Rutkins then prayed in tongues and commanded the demon to come out in the name of the Lord Yeshua. I felt the pulling sensation in my fingers and began gagging and coughing. As soon as this stopped, I felt a tremendous relief, and I had the witness of the Holy Spirit that the demon had gone.
Do you bite your nails? You may have a demon. You might be thinking that because you are Christian, you can't have a demon. According to the website deamonbuster.com, a Christian can have a demon. The website states:
HOW YOU CAN, AND DO, HAVE DEMONS EVERYONE HAS DEMONS, NO EXCEPTIONS (so this includes all Christians). For those of you who demand to see a Scripture before you can believe something, there are NO Scriptures that say YOU do NOT have demons. That should settle it!
When you are Born Again as a Christian/Believer/True Worshipper, YESHUA/Holy Spirit comes to abide in your SPIRIT. Demons CANNOT get INTO your Spirit. You are a triune being--BODY, SOUL and SPIRIT. Your SOUL is your MIND, WILL, and EMOTIONS. BODY--Christians can have a sickness/disease just like the unsaved. That's caused by demons (if not caused by other factors). SOUL--Do you have a bad temper? That's a demon. Is there mental illness in your family background? That is a demon. Do you have trouble serving God? That's a demon. Do you have problems with bad thoughts? That is a demon(s) in your mind, will, or emotions.
So, whatever you do that is bad is caused by a demon. This is a belief that is held by many today who call themselves Christians. The web site goes on to say:
BOYCE and BOICE are two demons that interfere with any electronic equipment, i.e., phone, computer, printer, automobile. If something malfunctions, command these two demons to leave your equipment, in the name of Yeshua. We get many emails saying this worked.
If this isn't absolute nonsense, I don't know what is. The Bible says:
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8 ESV
Yeshua Christ was not a failure in His mission. He destroyed the devil and his demons. For more on the subject of the defeat of the devil and his demons, see Paul Exorcises The Python.
All right, let’s get back to our text:
Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Yeshua over those who had evil spirits, saying, "I adjure you by the Yeshua whom Paul proclaims." Acts 19:13 ESV
"I adjure you by Yeshua whom Paul proclaims." In the Greek text, there is an article there before "Yeshua," rendering the verse as, "By the Yeshua whom Paul preaches." These Jewish exorcists thought that if Paul could accomplish what he did through the name of Yeshua, so could they.
The following incident throws more light on the Spiritual darkness that enveloped Ephesus as well as on the power of Yeshua Christ and the Gospel to dispel it:
Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. Acts 19:14 ESV
The "seven sons" expresses the divinely perfect number and would have been understood as signifying that working together, they had "sevenfold" effectiveness. Because there is no record of any Jewish chief priest by that name, Sceva was either a member of a high priestly family, or, more likely, he took the title for himself to impress his clientele.
They would try to gain power over the evil spirits by invoking the name of a more powerful spirit being. When they heard about Paul's success using the name of Yeshua, they added it to their repertoire. But they found out that the name of Yeshua was not to be used lightly.
But the evil spirit answered them, "Yeshua I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?" Acts 19:15 ESV
The reply is significant to Luke. The realm of evil was very much aware of Yeshua and Paul. Notice what Mark records for us in the first chapter of Mark.
And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Yeshua of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God." Mark 1:23-24 ESV
They know Yeshua. "Yeshua I know," he said. In other words, if it was Yeshua who was casting them out, they'd move. And then I like this: "Paul I recognize." They didn't know Paul nearly as well as they knew Yeshua.
And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. Acts 19:16 ESV
The so-called exorcists receive such a beating that they barely escape with their lives. If these Jewish exorcists were attempting to copy the ministry of Paul, they ended up being a very clear contrast to it. And in his rebellion against authority, this demon served the cause of Christ by testifying to the power of the Gospel in contrast to the counterfeit ministry of the sons of Sceva, and others like them.
And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Yeshua was extolled. Acts 19:17 ESV
News of this incident spread abroad, serving to contrast the power of God at work through Paul with the counterfeit power of the exorcists. Even the unsaved began to recognize something stupendous about the Name of Yeshua.
Many in Ephesus whose usual cry had been, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians" (verses 28 & 34), now instead cried, "Great is the Name of the LORD Yeshua." People no longer feared demons. but they feared the Lord, whose name was being "magnified." Another result was that the church was purified.
Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. Acts 19:18 ESV
And for Christians who have believed for a while (as the perfect tense of pisteuo indicates), it is now time for a final break with their past. They make the break by coming and openly confessing (literally, "confessing and announcing") the evil deeds in their magic practices, possibly even revealing the spells themselves.
How does this verse fit with Lordship/salvation? These are believers who were still practicing sorcery.
Some people in ancient times believed that the power of sorcerers' rites and incantations lay in their secrecy. Magical secrets supposedly lost their power when they were made public. The fact that the converted Ephesian magicians disclosed these, shows the genuineness of their repentance.
And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. Acts 19:19 ESV
Although they had come to trust in Yeshua as their Savior, they did not see the evil of their magical practices, and they had not yet renounced them as both worthless and evil. As a result of the shaming of the sons of Sceva, a great conviction of sin fell upon the saints in Ephesus, causing them to renounce their magical practices and to destroy the magical books that they possessed. If these were drachmas, the value was 50,000 days’ worth of wages. That would amount to several million dollars’ worth of wages in present earning power.
So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Acts 19:20 ESV
The word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. This is in contrast to the word of Satan which was doomed to the fire. There was a revival in Ephesus!
We don't need the confirming signs today because we have the Word of God. And through a study of the Bible, we can know who and what is of God.