Robbing gods
The nineteenth chapter of Acts gives an account of Paul's time in the city of Ephesus. By all measures, Paul’s first missionary journey to this ancient Greek city was a great success. That is, all measures except the response from the religious Jews and Greek merchants. While they tried to stop the preacher, God provided a way for Paul to continue his work. The Gospel was shared, and people came to salvation through Jesus Christ. God even used a demon to put the Jews and Greeks in the right spirit to revere Jesus.
So, why did the Jews and Greek merchants get so excited? The move of the Holy Spirit was so powerful that it impacted commerce in this metropolis. There was a blacksmith named Demetrius who made a great deal of money by crafting shrines to Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting and matron god of the Ephesians. Through Paul’s teaching, people in Ephesus turned to the one true God and turned from Artemis. This caused sales of the blacksmith’s crafts to decline, down and to the left. Old Demetrius was not going to sit back and watch his fortunes change. He gathered up the craftsmen in Ephesus’ market and started a riot!
The blacksmith gave an inspiring speech, working himself and all the merchants into a lather. From there, the whole thing just snowballed out of control. The people started chanting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” They “seized” Gaius and Aristarchus, two men traveling with Paul, and took them to the theater. Upon arriving at their desired destination, it seems that the crowd could not come to an agreement on what the problem was. Not unlike today, Different groups were protesting different things!
The only thing the crowd could agree on was that they did not want to hear from a Jew. So when Alexander, a member of the Jewish community, was “pushed forward to talk to the crowd," they shut that down with more of the Great Artemis chanting. The town officials finally quieted the crowd and regained order. The town clerk advised the crowd how to handle their grievances before the courts and “dismissed” the crowd. That was the end of it. What? This crowd was ready to tear the city apart, but their riot ended with a clerk advising them on how to file a complaint with the court.
What can we learn from this Biblical account? First, riots can be started by anybody for any reason. Don’t put too much clout in the fact that people riot. Riots appear to be mostly made up of hot air. Second, ancient Ephesians believed that the goddess Artemis was their god. They also thought that she needed their defense. This is a big one! If your god can be “robbed” of its “divine majesty,” it ain’t no god at all. If you need to riot for your god, you worship a powerless idol.
The last thing we learn is that town clerks wielded real persuasive power in ancient Greece.
