Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Following Jesus Costs You | New Testament | Acts 19

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Have you gone too far in your relationship with God? How much should your faith govern your life? In today’s episode, Tanya looks at Acts 19 to discuss how while following Jesus doesn’t promise you an easy life, you’ll live a life of hope.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Acts 19

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. If following King Jesus affects our livelihood, have we gone too far? If it affects the way we approach work and the amount we can get done in a week, have we gone too far? If following King Jesus affects the way our company earns money, have we gone too far? If it changes the way we spend our money, have we gone too far? If following King Jesus affects the kind of job you choose after you graduate from high school or college, have we gone too far?

If it affects the job you keep when you have a family, have we gone too far? Following King Jesus changes people, and it changes the way those people live and interact in their communities. Take, for example, the way the gospel changed the history of pagan worship. In the days of Jesus, idol worship was a huge part of daily life. There was an intensity and pervasiveness to the way people worshipped false gods. There were temples, there were statues dedicated to the practice, and whole groups of people whose occupations centered around it. But within 300 years of the gospel going out through Greece and Rome, pagan worship almost ceased to exist. But we still deal with idol worship today.

Our idols aren't Artemis and they don't live in shrines, but they sound like productivity, possessions, bylines, self-sufficiency and LinkedIn profiles. Today I'm going to walk you through Acts Chapter 19 in one of the most detailed historical descriptions we have of an Asian city in the days just after Jesus resurrection. This is a place where those very questions about going too far with Jesus came to a head because of the clash in the economic system there. And then I'm going to walk you through a prayer of confession for my own idols of productivity and self-sufficiency taken straight from the pages of my journal.

But first stop, Acts 19, and Ephesus. In yesterday's chapter, we heard about the remarkable success that Paul's preaching was having in Ephesus. When people heard the things that Paul said about Jesus, as the risen Savior and king, it spread from Ephesus throughout the Roman provinces of Asia. The Paul's preaching was also met with opposition because of the all-encompassing way it affected the city. Interestingly, the opposition started among a group of silversmiths whose livelihoods sent to around making little statues that people could buy and take into the shrines to offer a sacrifice to the gods who they were worshipping there. Ephesus was the cultural center for the god of fertility, Artemis, and there were shrines

dedicated to the worship of Artemis and other pagan gods. This was a lucrative business and one the silversmiths probably handed down from generation to generation. The guild was upset, to say the least, because the their incomes were being threatened when people stopped going to the shrines to worship the pagan gods and stopped buying the little silver statues to take with them and sacrifice to the idols there. As more people heard about Jesus, more lifestyles changed. And the more people that heard, the more the Silversmiths thought they would suffer financially.

So the impact of Christianity had seeped out of the circles of people who were hearing Paul and into their homes and into their lives. And the changes were so deep and so pervasive, they began to affect the culture and the economy of Ephesus. Following King Jesus meant people lost interest in things that had captivated them for years. It changed cycles of work and worship. The shrines, the statues lost their value.

So with supply high and demand low, the group, and their head, Demetri, Demetrius started a riot to drive Paul and his preaching out of the city. Demetrius tried to sway the people of Ephesus to follow his lead with two tactics. First, he tried appealing to their emotional sense of belonging and, of course, FOMO. And secondly, he tried to use repetition. Starting in verse 27, Demetrius says,

And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into destraput, 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 all the world worship. Did you hear that at the end? Demetrius says, who all of Asia and the world worship. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but Demetrius was using the, Everyone is doing his speech,

to convince the people of Ephesus that it was more dangerous to be the one not worshipping Artemis than be part of the crowd. And we know this isn't true. It's still not true when we hear it today. But the more exposure we give to things that are culturally acceptable, the more it feels like everyone is doing it. And the more our brains begin to think it's okay. When the crowd heard what Artemis said, they were enraged and they started crying out,

great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And then Luke describes how the city was filled with confusion. Listen to what verse 32 says. It sounds like the inside that our brains probably look like when we're inundated with these kinds of messages. It says 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. Sounds like me about three and a half minutes after I've picked up my phone. You've got to love Luke's hot take on what this really looked like. So Demetrius took advantage of the crowd and the confusion and he urged them on crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians for two hours.

You know, when you see something on TV or, who are we kidding? YouTube or Instagram, you see it so often it becomes an unconscious desire or maybe an even belief. Well, repetition makes us forget to think. And Demetrius had the crowd down the rabbit hole of group thing that was completely void of reasoning. And so what do we learn from this? Well, we should probably think about the times that we are vulnerable to the tactics of Demetrius. Everybody is doing it. Everyone is working 80 hours at my farm.

Working this much, it's required of me. Everyone, my age is getting ahead financially. Getting ahead is required of me at this stage of life. Everyone is saying the same thing, so it must be the right thing for right now. The crowd in Ephesus was probably vulnerable because they were going through a time of transition. Things were changing. What would life look like now? And there are sometimes I think we are most vulnerable.

Times of newness, like going to college or sending kids to college. Times of tiredness, like having a lot on your plate or balancing home and family life. Times of sadness, going through loss or rejection. In times of busyness, going along on autopilot? Well, you may be wondering, who wins in Ephesus? Did Demetrius' arguments sway the people to kick Paul out? Well, there are two ways to answer the question of who wins. First, the city officials couldn't find grounds to arrest Paul,

so he didn't have to flee the city, at least not yet. But the real winner? Well, the people who put their hope in something weightier than the crowd, weightier than the silver, the shrines, weightier than the cultural moment. Following Jesus didn't mean an easy life for the early Christians. And it doesn't mean an easy life for us either. But we get to choose something greater to put our hope in than ourselves, and the things the crowd is shouting at us to do or worship.

Lord, I don't need anything else to be happy. I don't need to get more things done. I don't need to buy one more thing. I don't need to have more people like me. Yet, my mind buzzes with things I need to do or say or have. Help me remember, only you are all sufficient. You gave me the one thing, Jesus Christ,

who removes my fear of insufficiency on the cross. I need only your loving care and forgiveness. Everything else comes and goes, but you are steadfast. I will be steadfast and not shaken. when I surrender my work and my plans to you. Amen. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus.

Thanks for listening.