Acts 19: 1 – 21
You Can’t Name It and Claim It Here
19 And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples 2 he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” So they said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said to them, “Into what then were you baptized?” So they said, “Into John’s baptism.” 4 Then Paul said, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” 5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. 7 Now the men were about twelve in all. 8 And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. 9 But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. 10 And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. 11 Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” 14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” 16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. 19 Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. 21 When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”
Something I do not understand nor want to mess with is exorcism. A movie which was popular 40 years ago was called the Exorcist. The Exorcist was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. on December 26, 1973. The film was initially booked in only twenty-six theaters across the U.S., although it soon became a major commercial success. The film earned ten Academy Award nominations, winning Best Sound Mixing and Best Adapted Screenplay. It became one of the highest-grossing films in history, grossing over $441 million worldwide in the aftermath of various re-releases, and was the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A person who I know loved this film. In fact he went numerous times. As a practical joker one time he went to the movies and took a container of pea soup. At the end of the movie he played the part and walking out made all kind of weird sounds and then spit out the green soup scaring those leaving the theatre. In truth I did not go to see it. I am not interested in these types of movies.
In the world we live in today this condition is explained away as being caused not by spirits but by mental issues. Psychiatric illness has been present for thousands of years. During those years, the symptoms were thought to be related to demonic possession. Modern psychiatry and psychology teach that symptoms and behaviors once felt to be related to demonic possession are related to disturbances in brain chemistry.
How do they determine that these symptoms and behaviors are related to brain chemistry? First, they can artificially duplicate almost any recognized symptom or behavior by using medications and chemicals that are known to change brain chemistry. They can create paranoia, hallucinations, etc. Almost all paranoid individuals feel they are being “possessed” in some manner — typically that something is trying to influence, monitor, or control their thoughts. Second, they can reduce and sometimes eliminate these same symptoms with the proper medications. Third, when treating folks with severe psychiatric illness, the same symptoms return when they stop their medications — then go away again when the medications are returned. Lastly, this current model works across cultures. While each culture has specific demons and labels for unusual behavior, the psychiatric process is the same and can be treated with the same, universal medications.
The medical profession states that psychiatric illness exaggerates and amplifies the existing cultural, spiritual, and personal beliefs of the individual. In short, people who believe in demonic possession are the only ones who experience it. A non-believer is unlikely to experience demonic possession. It’s also true that in most cases, only folks who have a prior belief in alien life ever report being abducted. Psychiatric symptoms, while similar in their neurochemistry, are influenced by the experience and culture of the individual. In paranoia, the person believes they are being watched by the police in their country. An individual who only speaks English never has a hallucination in a different language
Today we are going to see a different view of this condition. I believe that our Lord has instructed us not to mess around with the spiritual world. As I just mentioned the medical professionals claim that a non-believer does not get affected by demonic influences. Then the scriptures must be wrong for we will see that some sons of a Jewish priest who were not believers attempted to dabble in this area and wound up experiencing things that they never thought could happen to them.
As we begin our study of this chapter we find out that Paul, having encouraged the churches in Phrygia-Galatia arrived via the mountain regions in Ephesus. There he came across a group of believers, possibly in the synagogue, who seemingly honored Jesus and yet whose lives were lacking the glow of the Spirit.
Spread around the Jewish world was large numbers of disciples of John the Baptist. They had responded to his teaching on various visits to Jerusalem and their hearts would be waiting for the full truth about Jesus. Yet it was important for all, and especially Jews, to recognize that they were not Christians (although hopefully Christians-in-waiting), nor were they an alternative to Christianity. Thus in this incident it is made quite clear that if these disciples of John are to be true Christians they must come to believe fully in Jesus Christ, and must be baptized and given the Holy Spirit, and thus become one with the Christian church. This fact is now emphasized.
19 And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples 2 he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” So they said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”
When Paul arrived in Ephesus he ‘found’ certain disciples. They would probably be Jews whose faith had been extended by acceptance of the teaching of John the Baptist and belief in the Coming One. They followed ‘the way of righteousness’ and repentance of their sins but did not know everything regarding our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ nor had they heard of the Holy Spirit.
3 And he said to them, “Into what then were you baptized?” So they said, “Into John’s baptism.”
This lack of the Spirit puzzled him because he knew that they had been baptized. How could they have been baptized having not experienced the Spirit? So he asked them the nature of their baptism and was told that it was the baptism of John whose baptism was of acknowledgment of sins.
4 Then Paul said, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.”
Paul explained to them that John’s baptism had pointed ahead to the need for a change of mind and heart about sin, so that they might receive the forgiveness of sins. Then he reminded them that John had also pointed forward to the Coming One, calling on all his disciples to believe on Him. This Coming One, he informed them, was Jesus. So while Apollos was declaring that the Messiah was Jesus in Corinth, this group of disciples was learning the same truth from Paul in Ephesus.
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
When they heard this their hearts responded to the message. The fact that they believed is assumed, for that is what Paul had directed them to do (verse 4). And on believing they were baptized into the name of the LORD Jesus. Note that the baptism was into the name of Jesus as ‘the LORD’. Baptism ‘into the Name’ is always in the Name of the LORD, a title which signifies the God of Israel.
6 And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.
But the Holy Spirit did not come on them until Paul laid his hands on them and identified them with the Christian church. It was necessary that this be so, so that it would be crystal clear that initially the disciples of John had only ‘received the Spirit’ on becoming united with the Christian church through the laying on of hands of an Apostle.
The laying on of hands is always a mark of identification. Where it takes place under the strict direction of God the result will always be that the Holy Spirit comes on the one who has hands laid on him if he has not previously known the Spirit. It can also result in a special unction from the Holy One. Such anointed ones have vision and glow. It is a filling. The life completely opened to God is so possessed by the Divine Spirit that the human personality is heightened and enriched. Such lives display one chosen by God. But it is not the laying on of hands that ensure either. It is the fact that God has made His will known, and His people then identify those whom God has chosen. Once God has made His will known the identification by holy men of that one will ensure the coming of the equipping of power. But where the will of God is lacking, any laying on of hands will be an empty ceremony.
We also learn that when the Holy Spirit came on these men they ‘spoke with tongues and prophesied’. This would identify them with Pentecost, and with Cornelius and his men, for the same thing happened in both cases. They too were being received by God on the same basis as both Jew and Gentile, through the reception of the Spirit. It was sealing the fact that the disciples of John were now being united in the body of Christ, and that without that union what they had experienced was only partial and insufficient.
7 Now the men were about twelve in all.
The men to whom this happened numbered ‘about twelve’ (when citing numbers Luke always says ‘about’). There seems little doubt that one main reason that Luke had for describing this incident was precisely because it was a kind of re-enactment of Pentecost. There too those who had been baptized by John received the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues and prophesied. It was a seal on Paul’s ministry preparatory for what was to come.
Meanwhile we are reminded that Paul’s’ ministry continues in Ephesus in the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Like the working of the Holy Spirit, and the expansion of ‘the word’ this idea of the proclamation of the Kingdom of God lies at the root of the book all the way through. So now, having ensured the giving of the Holy Spirit in the same way as at Pentecost, Paul reveals Pentecostal power in his ministry along with signs and wonders and in the disorientation of the world of evil spirits. God inundates ‘in the Holy Spirit’ and ‘by fire’. The Spirit of Pentecost is still active.
8 And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.
Encouraged by this experience Paul entered the synagogue and for three months boldly ‘reasoned and persuaded’ about the ‘things concerning the Kingdom of God’. However in verse 9 he also ‘reasons’ daily in the school of Tyrannus in the new group that he has formed, which marks a new beginning.
9 But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
Such continual efforts could only result in some being ‘hardened’ because they refused to accept the message. This word is also described as being ‘disobedient. In the Old Testament it was used of Pharaoh in his attitude towards God during his battles with Moses, and elsewhere in the Old Testament of Israel, with this significance of a heart that is gradually hardened because of a refusal to submit to God. The idea in the New Testament is that those who had the Scriptures hardened their hearts against its message.
The result was that they spoke evil of ‘the Way’ before the whole congregation. That this is to be seen as more than simply disagreeing comes out in the consequences. It was on open and determined attack, no doubt including blasphemy against our Lord Jesus Christ. It presumably made further teaching in the synagogue impossible. These may well have been the ‘wild beasts at Ephesus’ that Paul listed in his first letter to the Corinthians in chapter 15.32. If so it suggests that Luke is toning the situation down.
‘The Way’ - Is a regular description of the new teaching indicating that those who followed it lived in a special way, the way of holiness. It may well have been a name that they gave to themselves. If so it would be because they were saw themselves as walking in God’s new way, and following a way of life different from all others, although it may also have connection with our Lord Jesus’ claim to be ‘The Way’ in John 14.6. Alternately it may be a title applied to them by observers, who noted their different way of life, a title which they then took over for themselves.
Realizing that the synagogue could no longer be a suitable place for speaking of Christ Paul moved the disciples in their entirety to the School of Tyrannus. There could now be no true worship in the atmosphere of the synagogue. From now on the church would meet in the School of Tyrannus, and it was there that the future evangelistic activity would take place, and where Paul established his own outreach. It would make him more accessible to Gentiles.
It was possibly partly with regard to this situation that he wrote to the Corinthians and said, ‘a great door and effectual is opened to me, and there are many adversaries’ (1 Corinthians 16.9).
10 And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
The move was successful and, far from hindering the church, resulted within two years in the spreading of ‘the word of the Lord’ throughout the whole of Asia Minor, among both Jews and Gentiles. ‘All those’ is an exaggeration indicating the widespread nature of the spreading of the word. From this evangelism would arise the ‘seven churches of Asia’ to which John writes to in the book of Revelation.
11 Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.
It was a period also of great signs and wonders, such that God wrought special miracles ‘through the hands of Paul’ in an unprecedented way, probably literally. He laid hands on the sick and they recovered. He cast out evil spirits. On top of the wonders he himself performed, cloths (and aprons were taken from his body, and the suggestion would appear to be that these resulted in men and women being healed. But there is no need to see this as having been widespread. It is mentioned as unusual. The cloths may have been worn around his head as sweatbands, and the aprons have been worn while he was at work. Both may have been taken without his knowledge. This was no indication of a precedent to be followed. So all these phonies who are TV and tell you to send in a hefty offering to them they will send you some cloth that will do miracles for you are not true.
The deliverance from evil spirits is probably a separate issue as they would be responsive to commands given in the name of Jesus. Evil spirits are never cast out by the laying on of hands. They are cast out by the name of Jesus. But the whole point is that the wonders of the early days are being repeated (or are continuing), with Messianic healings and demonstrations of the defeat of the tyranny of Satan
13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.”
Ephesus is here revealed to be a center of the occult. We have already encountered Bar-jesus in Cyprus back in chapter 13.6. Jews especially appear to have been involved in exorcisms which dated itself back to the time of Solomon, and even Abraham. Here in Ephesus, seeing the wonders performed in the name of Jesus, Jewish exorcists took His name and added it to their personal inventory. Their failure to appreciate Who He was or to seek to have any relationship with Him comes out in the way in which they are said to have used the name, ‘by Jesus Whom Paul preaches’.
14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”
Included among these exorcists were seven sons of Sceva, a chief priest (which suggests connection with one of the Jerusalem hierarchy, a member of a high priestly family). They also sought to use the name of Jesus in order to cast out evil spirits. The ‘seven sons’, the divinely perfect number, would be seen as signifying that working together they had ‘sevenfold’ effectiveness. Their connection with ‘a chief priest’ would be considered to further proof of their effectiveness. So if any could succeed these could. But when they made the attempt the spirit replied through his victim, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?” The reply is significant to Luke. The realms of evil were very much aware of Jesus and Paul. But of connections with the chief priests they knew nothing. There was no name it and claim it here. If you do not know The Lord Jesus personally how can you ever think you would be able to use His Name to accomplish anything?
16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
The possessed man was then moved to violence, leaping on the seven men and ‘mastering them and prevailing against them’. This suggests that he had supernormal strength, although he would have been helped by the element of surprise and the fears that his condition aroused. But the fact that he was able to tear off their robes and wound them demonstrates the fierceness of the attack. The result was that they fled from the house, bleeding, leaving their robes behind, their discomfort and defeat clear for all to see. We can compare this possessed man with the Gadarene demoniac who also revealed his possession by violence (Luke 8.26-39).
Many years ago at a Pastor’s Conference a call came in asking if anyone was able to do an exorcism. A few of the Pastor’s were game in tackling this issue and drove over to where the need was. The call came in from a church. As the group of Pastor’s got out of the car the local Pastor met them. He pointed to a little lady who was sitting on the church steps in front of the building. The group approached her and one of the guys said, ‘In the name of Jesus I order you to come out of her.’ At this comment the woman shrieked a loud scream and attacked the men. She threw them around like they were rag dolls. After a good battle the group pinned the woman down and one of the Pastor’s remembered the words of our Lord when the disciples could not cast a demon out of a boy that was recorded in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 17, “19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
Like the sons of Sceva these Pastor’s came back a little beat up.
17 This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
The result of this demonstration, both of the power of the name of Jesus, and of the treatment of exorcists who mis-used it, became widely known in Ephesus, both among Jews and Gentiles. And all were filled with awe. And the name of the LORD Jesus was magnified.
18 And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds.
It resulted in a widespread awareness of the seriousness of sin in God’s eyes, and especially of being involved with the occult, and believers came and admitted to their secret sins. This suggests a period of true revival. In periods of true ‘revival’, when the presence of God is experienced in a new way in the community, open confessions of sin become a regular feature as people seek to bring all out into the open for cleansing. Like Isaiah of old they have seen the Lord and they cry, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone’ (Isaiah 6.5) because they are horrified at their sins as they see them in the light of God’s presence (John 3.19-21). That is clearly what was happening here.
19 Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver.
Amazingly the result was that a good number of them who had practiced magical arts brought their books and burned them openly in the sight of all. They were now only too glad to get rid of them and destroy them for they recognized them for what they were. Satan was in full retreat. It may well be that Luke saw here a sense in which the Holy Spirit had come in fire to purge the believers from their sins and to destroy the evil that was among them.
Fifty thousand pieces of silver went up in smoke. Now, you have to stop and think about this for a moment. Here we had in this city a bunch of people who proclaimed that they were believers. They regularly attended the church gatherings. So the action of the ignorant sons of Sceva and what happened to them woke the believers up to total getting their lives in proper order with the Lord. Our Precious Holy Spirit accomplished a major cleansing. He will not put up with us believers attempting to live a double life. We cannot have one foot in the world and the other in our following Jesus. Do I get an Amen on this point?
20 So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.
The word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed, and this in contrast to the word of Satan which was doomed to the fire. God’s word had gone forth and had accomplished its purposes in both Asia Minor and Europe and was triumphant.
21 When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”
Now I have personally learned from our Precious Holy Spirit lessons in being obedient. I have made a lot of wrong choices in my life and I have had to pay the consequences of making the wrong decisions. Paul loves to go to as many areas as possible. Two upcoming trips are on his mind. One is that he wants to get to Rome. However, before that I believe that he does not listen to the Holy Spirit telling him not to go to Jerusalem. He ignores various prophets who tell him the consequences of going there but he goes there anyway. As you know he will be thrown into prison. God will still get him to Rome but the trip is not as smooth as it could have been.
