{"id":14648,"date":"2025-10-19T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=14648"},"modified":"2025-10-27T11:12:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T03:12:39","slug":"a-out-of-control-mob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2025\/10\/19\/a-out-of-control-mob\/","title":{"rendered":"An Out of Control Mob"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acts 19:28-34 28<\/sup>And when they heard this and becoming fully enraged, they cried out, saying, \u201cGreat is Artemis of the Ephesians!\u201d 29<\/sup>So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed in one mind into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul\u2019s travel companions. 30<\/sup>But when Paul wanted to enter into the assembly, the disciples would not let him. 31<\/sup>And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sending to him, were urging him not to venture himself into the theater. 32<\/sup>Then some cried out one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and the majority did not know why they had gathered together. 33<\/sup>But some of the crowd advised Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the assembly. 34<\/sup>But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all were crying out with one voice, \u201cGreat is Artemis of the Ephesians!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Demetrius had a significant influence over the silversmiths with his complaint against Paul. They agreed with his assessment of the situation and joined his vitriol, creating chaos and confusion in the whole city. The cheer in praise of Artemis was almost like at a sports event. It mixed city pride with religious pride, appealing to people’s emotional attachment to Artemis and the city’s identity. As often happens with ill-informed people caught up in the emotion of the moment, a mob developed. The city was confused because they saw and heard one thing in Paul and the Christians and heard another from Demetrius and the smiths. When religious and civic pride become part of the appeal, rationality and evidence disappear.<\/p>\n

As the mob looked for scapegoats, they found the foreign believers, Gaius and Aristarchus. How they found these two or knew they were part of Paul’s group is unclear, but often it is not difficult to determine foreigners by the way they talk or dress. According to Acts 20:4,\u00a0Aristarchus was from Thessalonica. Gaius was a common name but could be the one mentioned also in 20:4. The problem with that determination is that Derbe is not in Macedonia but Asia. So, this could be a different Gaius or Luke could just be summarizing the Ephesian mob’s belief that Gaius was Macedonian. Luke does not mention these two being beaten or stoned, but the danger was very present and a possibility. The arena was the typical place for town meetings, but this one was getting out of control.<\/p>\n

Paul had in his mind to go and likely defend his two companions and, more likely, defend the message he preached. He was not afraid to confront even an arena full of riotous people. There is a time and situation to do something like this, but other times, a cool and cautious approach may be better. In this case, other believers saw the danger and persuaded Paul not to go. He would have endangered himself and likely made the situation even worse.<\/p>\n

Verse 32 highlights the increasing chaos that was developing in the arena. People were shouting out different ideas and claims. Many were just there for the fun and excitement. They had all the characteristics of an uninformed mob caught up in the emotional moment. The Jews appeared to want to make a defense of themselves and possibly to show they were not part of the problem by pushing forward a man named Alexander. He only made the situation worse by unifying the crowd in their pride in Artemis. Two hours of shouting for Artemis would be exhausting, but it showed how massive the situation had become. One man, Demetrius, had stirred up the whole city against one man, Paul. Both represented different ways of life. Demetrius was a pagan worshipper interested in getting wealthy. Paul was a devoted servant of Jesus, willing to suffer for his message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acts 19:28-34 28And when they heard this and becoming fully enraged, they cried out, saying, \u201cGreat is Artemis of the Ephesians!\u201d 29So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed in one mind into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul\u2019s travel companions. 30But when Paul wanted to enter into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14648"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14682,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14648\/revisions\/14682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}