When Paul used the name of Jesus, demons were cast out. Unbelieving Jewish exorcists decided to invoke Jesus’ name to cast out a demon. It backfired. Not only did the demon not come out, but he empowered the possessed man to beat up the exorcists. This caused “all” to fear, both Jews and Greeks (19:17).
Counter attacking, Satan used a named Demetrius to try to squelch the spread of the Gospel. Demetrius was a silversmith who made his living making silver idols of Artemis to sell as souvenirs to pilgrims. He feared that so many people would turn to Jesus that it would hurt his business. His concern was financial (as the old saying goes, “Follow the money”). However, he realized that the general populace didn’t care about a downturn in his personal business, so he also added that if present trends continued, Artemis might be deposed from her magnificence. This added the incentive of both civic and religious pride, and got the crowds stirred up. (So too in politics today: there is often a publicly stated reason for something and that is different from the real reason for it).
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Stephen Atkerson helps church leaders discover simple growth strategies that Jesus gave the early church. For over 30 years, he has worked with evangelists, missionaries, church planters, and pastors in Asia, the Americas, Europe and Africa. He is one of the pastors of a Baptist...
