September 5 -Ephesians & Artemis

Happy Thursday to you. I woke up in the middle of the night with a killer headache. I hate it when I get those. I take a shot one a month and I still get 3 or 4. My friend Linda has lived with them for years and can find nothing to help hers. It boggles the mind to think about the kinds of issues most of us live with in this life. It does make us realize that this world isn’t our home and it surely isn’t perfect. The apostle knew that better than most even when things were going well for him. 

The church was growing at an unprecedented rate. Paul obviously couldn’t be everywhere at once so God was even blessing things Paul had touched! Amazing? Yes, incredible. But to know how quickly all this was about to come to an end is incredible as well. He is about to be persecuted, beaten, shipwrecked and murdered. It isn’t all a wonderfully blessed life for Paul, but this two years, when the church needs him desperately, it’s not bad. 

. ““When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied...This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them...In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.” Acts‬ ‭19:6, 10-11, 20‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Times were pretty good until he began to interfere with the wallets of some folks. 

“A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how 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.” Acts‬ ‭19:24-26‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In Ephesus, people had strong emotions about the silver statues of their goddess, Artemis. The city was considered to be the guardian of the temple of the goddess Artemis. The silversmiths knew if people started believing in God instead of their man-made idols worshipping this goddess, their income would surely suffer.

It’s fairly obvious they weren’t too concerned about the lack of worship of the goddess, but mostly about the lack of selling their statues—the loss of income. Silver statues of a goddess really are not the objects of our affection either, but we share a false god with the silversmith—the unquenchable desire for more—more income and we probably even add to that a bigger home or maybe just a new pair of boots or a cooler phone.

Solid biblical principles can help us to break the idolatry of more, bigger and better. When we learn to steward our resources God’s way, we can bring peace to our finances and break that hold of idolatry in our life.

Dear Father, teach us to love you more than money. Help us Lord to not be selfish and to be generous with all you have given to us, knowing you will care for us. Teach us how to be more like you and how we can love you better. We want to know your heart God and we truly seek to be more like you. So many of our friends and family are fighting disease and illness today. We join together and ask that you touch them and heal them as you did in this chapter of Acts. We know you have told us that you are the same today, yesterday and forever. We love you and praise you Jehovah Rapha. Amen and amen. 

Love you dear one,

Pam.