Acts 19

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the inland regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. ²He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ They replied, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ ³Then he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ They answered, ‘Into John’s baptism.’ ⁴Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.’ ⁵On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied— ⁷altogether there were about twelve of them. 8 He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly, and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God. ⁹When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.^{* 10}This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.

The Sons of Sceva

11 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, ¹²so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. ¹³Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, ‘I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.’ ¹⁴Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. ¹⁵But the evil spirit said to them in reply, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?’ ¹⁶Then the man with the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. ¹⁷When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck; and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised. ¹⁸Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices. ¹⁹A number of those who practised magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books^* was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins. ²⁰So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

The Riot in Ephesus

21 Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, ‘After I have gone there, I must also see Rome.’ ²²So he sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself stayed for some time longer in Asia.
23 About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. ²⁴A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. ²⁵These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, ‘Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. ²⁶You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods his god is better than other gods. ²⁷And there is danger not only that this trade of ours 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.’


Commentary:
19:6 The Holy Spirit is good at activating your latent superhuman abilities, like the mutants in Marvel comics. So Paul is like Professor X.
19:7 It either was exactly twelve, or it was not. Or maybe it's better to assume there was initially twenty and when all twenty got the riot act on what it meant to follow Paul, some of them left.
19:12-16 Superfluous, unless you're a demon-possession movie plot writer.
19:26 Demetrius wouldn't have said that. Let's forget for a moment that Paul's god is no better than Artemis and also "made from (Jewish) hands"; Demetrius implies "Gods made from hands" are somehow fake or inferior, but in the subsequent passage reveals himself to be a faithful follower. Can't have it both ways. This smells like a Middle Ages rewrite to me. I can see a team of monks, tapping their chins, troubled that this particular pagan doesn't appear to get his comeuppance like Simon Magus. "I got it," offered one, "how about we add a line where he admits to knowing his religion is fake? That way the flock will think he sounds like a greedy blasphemer, not just a blasphemer." That idea probably got the guy a week off candle-light transcription duties, you think?