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Truth and Money - Acts 19
Truth and Money - Acts 19
As Paul preached to the people of Ephesus there arose ‘no small disturbance concerning the Way’ (20:23). Among the pagan people, Paul preached concerning the nature of the true God versus the idols. Ephesus was the home of the great temple to the idol Artemis. People came from all over the Roman empire to see this temple and the idol. A thriving business was made out of selling ‘tourist trinkets’ - small silver copies of this idol. Demetrius was able to stir up the people saying: "Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business” (vs. 25). There was no seeming concern about the truth of the message. There was no seeming concern about the actual religious value that they were trying to protect. It was their loss of income.
On the other hand, many of those who had practiced magic before they were converted reacted totally in a different manner. They knew that their former teachings and practices were wrong and sinful. They not only repented of having done this, but they also wanted to make sure that no one else would be deceived into such practices. They brought their books to a public place and openly burned them.
Books / scrolls of any sort were a prized possession in the time. Without printing presses, they were hand copied. Without cheap paper, they were copied onto expensive materials. Yet, they burned them readily. Luke records that the price of them was fifty thousand pieces of silver. Judas betrayed Jesus for ‘only’ 30 such pieces of silver!
The estimated value in today’s money is difficult to assess. We usually end up using a ‘days wage’ value. The drachma (thought to be the silver coin spoken of here) is understood to be the daily wage for labor in the first century. [The denarius is thought to be the rough equivalent to the drachma. The difference is that the denarius is a Roman coin and the drachma is a Greek coin]. We can see an example of this in the parable of the laborers (Matt. 20) when the laborers were each given a denarius/drachma for their days work. 50,000 days labor? Even taking $10 an hour and figuring only an 8 hours workday (not likely in the first century!), we would end up with a staggering figure of 4 million dollars. If you use $15 per hour it becomes 6 million dollars. These books COULD have been sold by their owners, but only if they were willing to have others be deceived and led into the very sin they were turning from. They burned the books!
Some people’s actions are governed by money and not truth or principles. Others set out to do what is right no matter the cost. Which group do you belong to?
Hugh DeLong
