Envisioning an Evangelical Economy

We finish our mini-series on “Engaging Culture” in Acts by turning to Acts 19:21-41 where we read of the way Christians in Ephesus engaged their local economy in transformational ways. Last week, we were with Paul and Barnabas on the 1st Missionary Journey in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe—cities in and around the region of Southern Galatia.

By the beginning of the 2nd Missionary Journey, we start to see Paul’s desire to be in Ephesus. The 2nd Missionary Journey begins with a visit to the same Southern Galatian cities from the first journey, followed by a desire to go west into Asia (where Ephesus is the leading city). We read this passage in Acts 13:6-10; Paul has to be restrained by the Holy Spirit from going to Ephesus. Instead, God calls him around Macedonia and down to Corinth before he is finally able to finish this 2nd Missionary Journey with a brief stay in Ephesus. We read (Acts 18:20–21) “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.”

Sure enough, when it comes time for the 3rd Missionary Journey, Paul begins with a long (for him) three year stay in Ephesus. During our time in Acts this summer, we have read of this visit in Acts 19:1-20 as an example of Long-Term Evangelism.

In the opening two verses of our text this evening, Luke articulates the rest of the travel plans for the 3rd Missionary Journey: from Ephesus back through Macedonia and Achaia (Corinth), before sailing to Jerusalem. These couple verses of travel plans would be fascinating to put along with a study on II Corinthians, so we’ll save a longer explanation for a future series.

[prayer] Almighty, eternal and merciful God whose Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths, open and illuminate our minds that we may purely and perfectly understand Your Word and that our lives may be transformed to what we have rightly understood in the Word, that nothing may be displeasing to Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Read Acts 19:21-41

There are plenty of recurring tropes in media: 1) the villain monologue, 2) walking away from an explosion, 3) long-zoom establishing shot (I’ve mentioned before). Another popular one we might call “the opposing army reveal,” where an initial view of the opposing army makes them appear to be small and easy to defeat, before a zoom out or a second wave comes into frame and we realize the opposing army is huge—and we might be in trouble. You find this in Tolkein’s The Two Towers at the famous battle of Helm’s Deep. You find it in the movie 300, where even though the Spartans initially defeat a very large Persian army, seemingly endless waves of warriors keep coming in consecutive battles. You find it in Avengers: Endgame, where Captain America struggles to fend off Thanos and his army, only to see portals open and ships drop a seemingly endless supply of fresh enemy soldiers.

This trope is meant to make us feel the enemy is stronger, or more sinister, or more unified, or more terrifying than we first thought. The strength of the enemy power goes beneath what we can see from the surface. Luke is trying to tell us something like that in Acts 19:21-41. All throughout Acts—stretching all the way back to Acts 4—there has been persecution. That the perseuction comes in the form of riots is nothing new, but here Luke pulls the mask off in a Scooby-Doo sort of way to show us that there have been powers-that-be behind these persecutions the whole time. We must be aware that we are not engaging a loosely organized but mostly aloof culture...

Proposition: We work in and against the cult of culture.

Org Sentence: In Acts 19, Luke shows us the anti-kingdom motivations behind what moves the culture to false worship.

At the beginning of Acts 19, we witness Paul’s three year ministry in Ephesus. Here, during the longest stay of his missionary career, the Gospel experiences radical success. There are miracles and sign gifts, people’s lives are transformed. It’s all going so well; it’s everything Paul hoped Ephesus would be. Then, in our text this evening, Luke peels back the curtain on the forces of culture that actively work against Gospel transformation.

Culture Conspires Against the Gospel (19:23-29)

We’re introduced to a craftsman named Demetrius, who—along with his fellow guild mates—makes his living crafting idols to the goddess Artemis. The city of Ephesus maintained a well-known temple to Artemis that is considered one of the wonders of the ancient world. Like the city of Green Bay revolves around the Packers, the city of Ephesus revolved around Artemis. Worship of Artemis created jobs, drove tourism, and generated income; they lived and breathed Artemis.

It’s important to note what it is, exactly, that bothers Demetrius and his buddies. It is the worship of Artemis, sure, but that’s a lesser reason. In verses 23 and 24, we see that the worship of Jesus is not compared to the worship of Artemis. The impact of the Gospel is equated to the economic gain. Like a Green Bay resident who owns a Packer-themed bar might be bummed if the Packers moved to LA would be more bothered that his business would close, the impact of the Gospel in Ephesus is comparable to the economic opportunity. These Christians have exposed the true idol in Ephesus: money.

Demetrius gathers together his powerful friends to conspire against the Christians. But Luke doesn’t want us to just see Demetrius and the craftsmen as a group of greedy guildsmen. This section of text is filled with religious language and well drawn comparisons to the Church. Luke is showing us that there is a cultic aspect to the culture—a religious devotion to cultural goods—set up over and against the church. To use the language of the Apostle John in Revelation, this is Babylon over and against the City of God. Augustine’s 5th century imagery is even more clear: this is The City of Man over and against the City of God.

Here are some of the comparisons Luke makes.

First, in Acts 1:8 Jesus anticipated the Church’s growth in three stages: Jerusalem, Judea/Samaria, and to the ends of the world. Demetrius, too, envisions the impact on the worship of Artemis in three stages (26-27): in Ephesus, all of Asia, and the world.

Second, Demetrius considers the acceptance of Christianity as a “turning away,” inferring that there is some thing they are leaving.

Third—and I don’t mean to make a mountain out of a mole hill hear, but I find it odd that Luke refers to the rioters as an “ekklesia” three times. Ekklesia simply means “assembly,” and is perfectly appropriate to use as Luke does here, but the word is taken up by the New Testament writers as a term for the Church. In fact, the word is used 117 in the New Testament: 113 times it’s translated “church,” once it’s translated “congregation,” and the remaining three uses are all in this passage (32, 39, 41) describing a pagan assembly—the cult of culture.

Fourth, just as we saw last week in Acts 14 that Paul and Barnabas, as messengers of the City of God, rush out, so too do the craftsmen, as messengers of the City of Man, “rush together” in verse 29.

But, fifth, whereas in Acts 14 Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes and cried out, the craftsmen are filled with rage and cry out (28). Their efforts to engage another religion is not motivated by love for God, it’s motivated by love for money. Like Paul and Barnabas, they are crying out; but not motivated by love for neighbor, it’s motivated by manipulation of their neighbors.

We see this same economic manipulation today, by the way. When the Bucks or the Brewers have “Faith & Family Night,” what do you think the motivation is, the spread of the Gospel? No, they want to sell you tickets. They want the Christians in their marketplace. The Christian group Newsboys have attracted plenty of deservedly negative attention this year, and articles point out that they are owned and managed by a non-believer. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t ever go to a Brewers game or listen to a Newsboys song, I just want to make you aware of the fact that controlling interests in the cult of culture are interested in manipulating you.

And it works.

Culture is Captivated by Idolatry (19:30-34)

The craftsmen stir up the people on their way to the theatre—probably a 25,000 seat arena for civic/political use—and, while the people are initially confused as to their purpose, they end up joining the conspirators in the mantra: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Like Pastor Drew mentioned this morning, there are rote repeated prayers.

But what is their motivation? We know the motivation of the craftsmen, but what’s the motivation of the crowd? Certainly not everyone in the crowd is a craftsmen worried about their pocketbook. Rather, the people have bought the lie the conspirators are selling. They want Artemis and everything she promises—this is the purpose of their repetitious prayer.

And Here’s an important distinction: we think idols used to be different, and by metaphor or something we can make an application to the things we like today; as if, back then, people worshiped images and today we worship ideas. In actuality, what the Greeks and Romans were doing is very much the same kind of idol worship as today, they just followed the logic to its conclusion, whereas today we pretend like it’s not worship. In Greco-Roman culture, gods were named after the people identified a pursuit of a vice or virtue. For example, the people would recognize in themselves a deep desire for fertility and family, and they would pursue that virtue. They gave the pursuit of the virtue of family a name: Artemis. Or, they would pursue the virtue of provision, and they would pursue that virtue with their whole being. They gave the pursuit of the virtue of family the same name: Artemis. Artemis was the goddess of fertility and the goddess of the hunt. Or, the deep and life altering desire for family and provision/career.

See, we don’t need some kind of metaphor to make that hit home today, do we?

Brings up some challenging questions each of us must answer:

Have you been manipulated? Have you bought into the conspiracy? Has the cult of culture successful captured the attention of your heart and mind?

Worse: are you part of the conspiracy? Is Christianity a means to a worldly end?

Are Christians impacting the economy and culture of America the way they did in Ephesus? In less than three years, a city that had no Christianity was so transformed by the Gospel that the the cultural powers got nervous. Are culture powers in America nervous about Christians? Are they concerned with the transformative power of the Gospel, or is the Church something limp and moldable?

What if Christians just opted out of “hustle culture,” committees and boards, sports teams, AP classes, advanced degrees for everyone?

What if Christians made better media choices, how might it begin to impact the direction of Netflix or Disney; or to send a death blow to that terrible billion dollar online industry destroying the hearts and minds of our fathers and sons?

c. What if we weren’t content with the mere overturning of Roe v Wade, but moved our politicians toward the total and complete abolition of abortion?

Does the Gospel have any power here?

But then, just as we’re getting fired up, we get totally surprised by a twist ending.

Culture Contributes to the Spread of the Gospel (19:35-41)

Perhaps we postulate persuasive Paul pops in, putting an end to the false worship, like in Acts 14:18.

Or, rather, realize rioters run roughshod over the Christians, as in Acts 14:19.

Those two conclusions we could understand: the City of God wars against the City of Man, and one of them wins.

But Paul doesn’t rush in and save the day. And when the Jewish Alexander can’t quiet the crowd, we assume the rioters will get the best of our band of missionaries again, until a town clerk succeeds in quieting and dismissing the crowd. This is God-ordained government, the way Romans 13 describes. The civic leader comes with a sword for the evil doer and protections for those who do good. This is government the way God intended.

The fact that God ordained and is sovereign over our civic leaders and institutions means we can work in and against the cult of culture confident that we can make God ordained progress. This reality forces us to recalibrate our sensors. Our job isn’t to burn down the City of Man, King Jesus will do a plenty fine job at that when He returns. In the meantime, the City of Man and the City of God are intertwined like wheat and tares. But let this not be an excuse for inactivity. The Gospel has transformative power; people who follow Jesus all the way contribute to the advancement of the Kingdom of God. Starting even today, you and I can make choices so that Oostburg feels the weight of the Gospel the way Ephesus did.

As we look out at the enemy that stands against us, this may feel like an overwhelming task. But...

2 Kings 6:15–17 “When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw.”

Acts is about the continuation of the ministry of Christ. Christ has not left us defenseless, He lead us.

Amen.