Sermon Tone Analysis

God’s in the business of transforming lives, and Kingdom transformation is contagious.

Intro me

Ephesus = Ephesians = no!

f-esus.

so whenever I say e-fesus, you say “no, f-esus”

Peter painted a great picture of Ephesus for us last week: one of the great cities of the Roman empire, perhaps as many as three hundred thousand people; a city with wide, busy streets, a beautiful library, a huge open-air theatre - and most importantly a city with a gigantic temple to the goddess Artemis.

It was a population centre, a financial centre, a religious centre, an occult centre.

A magnet for the surrounding province and beyond.

Peter helped us explore how Paul, one of Jesus’ first followers, a small and seemingly insignificant individual, could hope to make a difference in such a great city.

How he pursued his mission to share the hope he had found in Jesus there: through the power of words - speaking, arguing, discussing; these are the actions attributed to Paul.

But it’s not just any words, any message he brings, it is the word of the Lord: a message about The Way of Jesus; a message about the Kingdom of God.

And this message confronted the powers-that-be in that city.

Last week, we heard about extraordinary miracles, about show-downs with evil powers, about curse-spells burned.

We were challenged to consider what we might have to leave behind as we follow Jesus.

Peter reminded us of Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, teaching us how the Kingdom of God - the sphere within which He is honoured as king - starts so small - think of Paul, just one individual - yet, like a seed, it has within it the potential to grow and multiply into something huge.

The message of Jesus grows and multiplies so in the end the entire region has heard it.

This week I want us to focus on another side of how the Kingdom advances, one that the next event we read of in Ephesus brings to the fore.

So let’s read together the next section of our story, telling us of another major event in that city.

And Sam’s going to read for us this morning.

Why not come with me to Acts chapter 19 and we’ll start reading at verse 23.

Page 1116 - chapter 19, big 19, verse 23, tiny 23.

Page 1116.

Sam.

Who knows the story of the boy who cried wolf?

I remember Mrs McAndrews, headmistress at my primary school - very scary lady indeed - telling it to us in an assembly.

It’s a famous story and an ancient one - purportedly one of Aesop’s fables, so around six hundred years before Jesus.

Here’s a poetic re-telling from the 1900s:

A Shepherd-boy beside a stream

“The Wolf, the Wolf,” was wont to scream,

And when the Villagers appeared,

He'd laugh and call them silly-eared.

A Wolf at last came down the steep—

“The Wolf, the Wolf—my legs, my sheep!”

The creature had a jolly feast,

Quite undisturbed, on boy and beast.

~ William Ellery Leonard

Plenty of people around us today we might accuse of “crying wolf” like this, raising the alarm again and again over things that really aren’t that alarming - often over nothing at all.

Are these metalworkers we began with today the same: just “crying wolf”?

“This new guy in town, Paul, he’s going to destroy everything” - our business, our good name, our temple’s renown, our goddesses’ honour.

“the sky is falling.”

One guy? with a strange message from another land?

A short, wordy, often confusing guy?

Really?

These are big things they are suggesting he might take down in verse 27: a major line of business for the city - think Finance in Edinburgh; a key civic building.

Well, the key civic building - the temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the world, remember - could Paul really change that?

The dominant cult of the city - I don’t know what you’d think of as the “dominant cult” of Edinburgh?

What’s the most common worldview, the most widely held belief?

Could one person possibly change that?

Surely these metalworkers are just crying wolf?

But no - as it turns out, they are better prophets than probably even they believed - because every element they fret about and feed to the mob they are whipping up will actually come to pass.

The trade would lose its good name - anyone heard people speaking approvingly of the metalworkers of Ephesus and their silver shrines?

What do we think today of those who peddle religious trinkets, preying on tourists and pilgrims?

The temple would be discredited - totally destroyed, in fact.

Like Peter showed us last week, there’s just a pillar in swamp today - and it’s not even a pillar from that temple!

Artemis would be robbed of her divine majesty.

Do you know where Artemis-worship sits in the league-table of world religions today?

Me neither but I bet it’s behind Jedi, even.

The metalworkers were right.

And that official who quelled the riot, the city clerk?

He was quite wrong.

“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?”

Well, no.

Ask me three weeks ago and I wouldn’t have known anything about Artemis, really, and I wouldn’t have labelled Ephesus as a great religious centre at all.

Shout all you want, people - for two hours in unison if you must - but change is coming anyway.

Even a riot won’t stop this.

Resistance is futile, as they say.

A riot can’t stop what’s happening in this city.

A mob won’t change things.

So what will?

What does?

I want us to think about what could change a city?

What could turn this great city - the renowned cult of Artemis, the world-wonder temple, the powerful metalworker’s business - upside down?

What could bring down a worldview so dominant it drove everything and everyone in the city?

If you wanted to change a city, a whole city - if you wanted to change our city what would you try?

What about a good old protest?

Does Paul put together an army of disciples waving placards with slogans like “Gods aren’t made of gold” and “Artemis is artificial”?

Or if he’s more modern, just glue himself to the temple door, perhaps?

That’s how many people go about trying to change things today.

A big, obstructive protest followed by lots of hand-wringing among the powers that be: “Something must be done!” and hey presto, there’s a new law which begins to force a change on the city.

But it’s the metalworkers who are protesting, not Paul.

So maybe it’s a showdown at the temple at dawn?

It wouldn’t be the first time in the Bible - think of Moses taking on the Egyptian magicians, or Elijah taking on the prophets of Baal.

Lay down an ultimatum to the cult of artemis: prayers at dawn.

But that’s not when changes a city here - Paul doesn’t even go head-to-head with his opponents when they riot - and from verse 37 it seems there’s not even a blasphemy charge to be made against the disciples.

So it’s not a showdown.

So what changes a city?

This metalworker Demetrius has grasped a part of it when he tells us what gets his goat, how he sees the problem: Acts 19:26

Acts 19:26 (NIV)

this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia.

He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all.

Paul’s changed the minds of a bunch of people - large number of people in Ephesus and even the wider province.

He’s convinced them that gods we make are no gods at all.

That the metalworker’s trade is in empty statues, not powerful things.

But it’s not simply information, an argument, an idea which has changed the city.

Demetrius’ charge against Paul is truth - but not the whole truth.

Like we saw last week, what’s changed this city is the powerful word of the Lord, or the message of the Lord.

The message that Paul has carried here with him, has planted here before, and now is back sowing and cultivating and nurturing.

Acts 19:20

And this message isn’t just informative.

It’s transformative.