Acts 19:18-20 The lesson of what
happened to the sons of Sceva was not lost on the believers in Ephesus. So
great was their conviction that they came forward and confessed that they had
been practicing magic of one sort or another. And wanting to be under the
protection of Christ, they realized that they had to forsake all of their
magical arts. We don't have details about what sorts of magic they practiced,
but we have already run into a few such persons in previous chapters (Simon in
Acts 8:9-13, and bar-Jesus in Acts 13:6-11), so it seems clear that this
practice was widespread in this part of the world in those days. Once people
turned to Christ and realized that they were dealing with demons when they
practiced the magical arts, and having seen the object lesson of the sons of
Sceva, they chose to have a great public bonfire of their books about magic.
The total value of the books that were destroyed was estimated at 50,000 pieces
of silver. If a piece of silver was typically a day's wage in those days, to
translate this into modern value, it would be something like 25 years of
salary. So at a typical salary of $40,000 per year, this meant that $1 million dollars’ worth of books were burned. Of course, books were much
rarer and more expensive in those days, before the printing press was invented.
Nevertheless, this is still a staggeringly expensive repentance.
The
practice of magic or patronage of magicians can have more than one root. For
some, it may come from a desire to have some kind of power denied them in the
normal physical world. This could simply be knowledge about future events or things
going on that they have no way of knowing about, or influence over events that
will take place. For some, it may be to seek favor of or protection from
supernatural beings that they sense are lurking around them, for good or ill,
that need to be influenced or controlled. And for some, magic seeks to satisfy
that interior spiritual void. A final category would be those who want to cash
in on all of these other motivations either for money or power over people.
The
rejection of all the magic arts goes back to the books of Moses. (Genesis 41
& Exodus 7-9 in which God demonstrated His power over them; and Leviticus
20 & Deuteronomy 18 in which all such arts were banned.) There are multiple
injunctions against several different types of magic, which are punctuated with
admonitions that The Lord God is the complete and sufficient satisfaction of
all needs and motivations for contact with the spiritual world. Jesus demonstrated His power over demons on
numerous occasions. It is here in Acts 19 that the obvious is brought out. The
magical arts that exist are part and parcel of the demonic activity associated
with idolatry. Any spiritual or supernatural being or power that does not come
from God, and honor God, is part of and takes part in the rebellion of evil
spiritual beings against God. God's authority over these beings is sovereign.
But no believer in Christ should ever take part in or even desire to be part of
this rebellion. And we should not be fooled. We pray to God, we receive from
God, and we honor God with our lives.
In
this instance, it was recorded after the bonfire that the word of God continued
to grow and prevail.
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