Acts 19:20

Verse 20. So mightily. So powerfully. It had such efficacy and power in this wicked city. The power must have been mighty that would thus make them willing, not only to cease to practise imposition, but to give up all hopes of future gains, and to destroy their property. On this instructive narrative, we may remark,

(1.) that religion has power to break the hold of sinners on unjust and dishonest means of living.

(2.) That those who have been engaged in an unchristian and dishonourable practice, will abandon it when they become Christians.

(3.) That their abhorrence of their former course will be, and ought to be, expressed as publicly as was the offence.

(4.) That the evil practice will be abandoned at any sacrifice, however great. The only question will be, what is right; not, what will it cost. Property, in the view of a converted man, is nothing When compared with a good conscience.

(5.) This conduct of those who had used curious arts shows us what ought to be done by those who have been engaged in any evil course of life, and who are then converted. If their conduct was right--and who can doubt it?--it settles a great principle on which young converts should act. If a man has been engaged in the slave-trade, he will abandon it; and his duty will not be to sell his ship to one who he knows will continue the traffic. His property should be withdrawn from the business publicly, either by being destroyed, or by being converted to a useful purpose. If a man has been a distiller of ardent spirits as a drink, his duty will be to forsake his evil course. Nor will it be his duty to sell his distillery to one who will continue the business; but to withdraw his property from it publicly, either by destroying it, or converting it to some useful purpose. If a man has been engaged in traffic in ardent spirits, his duty is not to sell his stock to those who will continue the sale of the poison, but to withdraw it from public use; converting it to some useful purpose, if he can; if not, by destroying it. All that has ever been said by money- loving distillers, or vendors of ardent spirits, about the loss which they would sustain by abandoning the business, might have been said by these practitioners of curious arts in Ephesus. And if the excuses of rum-selling men are valid, their conduct was folly; and they should either have continued the business of practicing "curious arts," after they were converted, or have sold their "books" to those who would have continued it. For assuredly it was not worse to practise jugglery and fortune-telling than it is to destroy the bodies and souls of men by the traffic in ardent spirits. And yet how few men there are in Christian lands who practise on the principle of these honest, but comparatively unenlightened men at Ephesus!

(c) "grew the word" Acts 12:24

Albert Barnes, 1834 · public domain

Verse 20 So mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed - The Codex Bezae reads this verse thus: "So mightily grew the word of the Lord, and prevailed; and the faith of God increased and multiplied." It is probable that it was about this time that St. Paul had that conflict which he mentions, 1Cor 15:32 : If I after the manner of men, have fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, etc. See the note there. It means some severe trials not here mentioned, unless we may suppose him to refer to the ferocious insurrection headed by Demetrius, mentioned at the end of this chapter.

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain