Grounded in Truth

What led up to this unfortunate incident in Ephesus? The bright light of God’s truth was shining into the satanic darkness brought about by idol worship – and the battle lines were drawn! Paul started his ministry there by baptizing only twelve disciples in the name of the Lord Jesus. When he laid his hands upon them afterwards, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. This was the core group that then went on to evangelize the rest of the city.

As Paul usually did, he started teaching in the synagogues, until some people there became increasingly stubborn and started discrediting the teachings of Jesus. Paul then moved to a lecture room in the city and for two years held revival meetings there, teaching from ten to three every day. God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, for instance any cloth that had touched his skin was put on the sick anywhere and their diseases left them, and they were even delivered from evil spirits! After the incident between the Sons of Sceva and a demon-possessed man, the whole city took note of Who Jesus was, and many previous magical arts believers openly confessed their evil ways and burned their magical books.

This is where we start seeing the parallels to the times we now live in. A silversmith who made silver shrines of the goddess Artemis, seeing the alarming rate at which he was losing his customers, called his craftsmen together and started inciting them to great fury by playing on their loss of wealth and the challenge to their false beliefs in this pagan goddess.

They stormed out in great rage, rousing the city as they went, and dragged Paul’s travel companions with them to the amphitheatre with the intent of doing them harm. Some shouted one thing, some another, but as is quoted above, most of them did not even know why they were protesting. None of them had gone to the trouble of ascertaining for themselves what the truth of these allegations were.

We see the same sweeping up of emotions over irrational and false claims among people today. Worldwide people are up in arms, brandishing banners and placards with slogans like “From the river to the sea”, and when asked by reporters on live TV broadcasts what those words mean – which river and which sea are they referring to – they cannot say. Answers like “I just picked up the banner from the organizers’ table”, show that no effort was made to investigate the truth behind the allegations they are protesting about.

Points to ponder:  Am I diligently guarding the building of my belief system by checking the truth of statements that cross my path daily? Am I perhaps listening to the wrong sources? Do I turn to the Word of the eternal living God for my answers, or do I start believing lies simply because they are being repeated long enough and loud enough?