As Paul traveled around the Roman world, he had made numerous disciples in various places. They were all regular people, and they all had different home towns. But they began to congregate around him, and the truly international nature of the Christian church began to take shape. It was becoming visible. The secularists play at unity and diversity, but it always veers to one side or the other. It either collapses into an anarchic mess, or it solidifies into a total state.

Only Christ can give us form and freedom together. Paul had gathered these men together, and he was going to Jerusalem with them, a trip that would certainly underscore the point.

Mammon is frequently a behind-the-scenes god. The celebrity goddess has an impressive sacred space dedicated to her, which cost a lot of money, but that was just the investment, the outlay. The returns come in the form of the merch. The sacred space was there on the hill, but going in or coming out you would be likely to walk past the Stoa, where the T-shirts and knick-knacks were for sale.

We have already discussed the economics of grace, but here we see it on full display. The overture was the burning of the occult materials. The full performance was the spectacle of rioting merchants.

I want to take a step back and highlight certain patterns in the first nine chapters of Acts, lest we miss the forest for the trees. This section has particular relevance for us given the events of the last ten days. We want to read the story that we’re in, in light of God’s story in the Scriptures, because while history does not repeat itself, it does rhyme.

Ephesus was one of the places where the apostle Paul invested a goodly amount of time. On this occasion, he was there for two years, and you should recall that he had visited earlier in Acts. It was a port city in western Asia Minor, and the temple to Diana there (Artemis) was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was a notable city. We know it as Christians from the riches found in the book of Ephesians, and from the exhortation to return to their first love that is found in Revelation 2.

As we have seen in the book of Acts, the time between the resurrection of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was a time of overlap between the old and new covenants. Christ Himself was the sacrifice of the new covenant, which was better by far than the blood of bulls and goats. Christ is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and our text today is designed in order that we would join with those heavenly voices saying, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Revelation 5:12).