Bible Studies

Acts 19, The Word of God Growing Mightily

by John Clark 
02/02/17
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As is true all through the Book of Acts, if anyone caused disturbance and uproars, the early disciples did. They spoke boldly about the gospel and did things that caused much confusion and even riots. They were not just sitting in chuch singing songs, praying, and listening to sermons. Interaction and confrontation with the culture of their day was a trademark of the early Christian Church. This chapter has some significants events. The key verse for this chapter is 20. "So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing" (emphasis mine). 

     Rather than doing a running commentary like I often do, in this chapter I am going to point out several significant things within the context of what is mentioned in the sentence written in bold lettering in the above paragraph. 

     1. The first event is given in verses 1-7. Paul encountered a group of 12 new believers who had not yet received the Holy Spirit. This brings up an interesting question. How is it possible to become a Christian and yet not have the Holy Spirit indwelling one's life? Verse 6 says, "And when Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying." What kind of tongues are we talking about here? If one wants to argue that it is the kind the Pentecostals do, the context of Acts does not support this. If you think back to chapter 2 in our study, tongues during Pentecost were known foreign languages supernaturally spoken by people who had never learned them, for the sole purpose of evangelism. There is no reason to believe in the context, that the tongues spoken were anything different.

     2. This next section from verses 11-12 talks about God "performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out." This is a very intriguing passage. You hear people on TV sometimes talking about prayer cloths. I have never had much confidence in that teaching, so this verse caught my attention. God used handkerchiefs and aprons to show his power. Whether there is an application for today, in my mind however, would remain very questionable. To my knowledge this is the only reference to something like this in all of scripture. 

     3.  In verses 13-16 one might say that there was an exorcism gone wrong. Jewish exorcists had
attempted to cast out an evil spirit from a man, but instead the man jumped on the exorcists.

     4. The gospel had so much power that in verses 18-19 we read that "those who had believed kept coming, confessing, and disclosing their practices." Wow! What a couple of powerful verses.
Some peple were so convicted by their sin that they had a huge book burning. Oh, how we could use that today, couldn't we? There are so many books that are destroying people's thinking. They are trash!

     The remainder of this chapter deals with the travels of Paul, his interaction and confrontation with the people of his time, and sharing the messaage of the gospel at every opportunity. As a result people were filled with rage, confusion, and disorderly conduct. Wouldn't that be something to see today, disorder and distrubances caused by sharing one's faith? The key verse in this chapter (20), however, says that the word of the Lord prevailed. 

     Application questions:

     1. Can you think of any examples where the message of the gospel is being used in a powerful way?

     2. What are some specific titles of worthless books today being read by our culture that probably ought to be thrown into a fire?