Our Summer Sermon Series is drawn from Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus. To give a little background to this letter, there are details in Acts 19 and 20.
Paul caused a riot.
Ephesus was the home to a Temple of Artemis and with Paul showing up
with his cronies, they were making a dent in the religious trade. Because that is what the riot was about. It was not about the truth of Jesus versus
the truth of Artemis.
No, it was about religious tourism. There was a silversmith guild in Ephesus that
apparently made its money off of religious icons of the goddess Artemis. Along comes Paul and company and people are
beginning to listen to this new guy. In
fact, it reflected the efficacy of Paul’s entire operation in Asia.
Now, that might sound deceiving in today's consideration, because Asia
is really, really huge-now, a whole
continent. In the time
of the Roman Empire, it was a province that occupied the western part of what
is now the nation of Turkey, a region of Greek speaking cities (again, a different
time from the present).
But the kicker is Ephesus is NOT so different from us
today. Why did Demetrius, the ringleader
from the silversmiths, kick up a fuss? Well,
after complaining about how Paul was finding success all over Asia (the province),
he said, “And there is danger not only that this trade of ours (silver trinkets
of Artemis) may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess
Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought
all Asia and the world to worship her… (and buy the silver trinkets of the silversmiths)”.
Wrap up economics in religious terms and start a riot.
I was curious as to what these trinkets looked like, so here is one possibility, with free advertising to the folks providing the link. I have no connection or link to them other than a convenient pic.
https://images.app.goo.gl/d5427PTzhfTbts1c6
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