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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to Acts · About this commentary

Jesus I know, and Paul I know: the books burned

Acts 19:13-20

13 But some of the itinerant Jews, exorcists, took on themselves to invoke over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” · WEB

Men who use the name as a formula are beaten by the spirit they addressed, and the city's magicians burn their own libraries.

Some of the itinerant Jews, exorcists, took on themselves to invoke over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus. The verb is exact — they took it on themselves. Nobody gave it to them, and the formula they use gives them away: We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. The name is borrowed at second hand, and its power is understood as belonging to whoever pronounces it correctly.

Seven sons of a Jewish chief priest named Sceva are practicing this. A priestly pedigree and a Jewish name for God were valuable commodities in the magical market, and these men were working the trade.

The reply from the spirit is one of the most chilling sentences in Scripture, and it turns on a distinction between two kinds of knowing. Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? The first verb is recognition of authority; the second, used of Paul, is acquaintance. The unseen world knows the Lord, and knows who his servants are, and this spirit has checked the list.

The outcome is violent and slightly ridiculous. One man overpowers seven, and they flee the house naked and wounded. The name of Jesus is not a technique. Used by men with no relation to him, it does not fail quietly; it exposes them.

The effect on the city is the reverse of what the incident might suggest. Fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. A public humiliation of men using the name produced reverence for it, because everyone in Ephesus understood exactly what had been demonstrated: this name is not for sale, and it is not safe to handle at a distance.

Then the consequence inside the church, and it is the most searching part of the paragraph. Many also of those who had believed came, confessing and declaring their deeds. Believers — already baptized, part of the congregation — had been keeping something. In a city where charms were normal, converts had evidently held on to theirs, and the affair of the exorcists brought it into the open.

What they do is public and expensive. Those who practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. The books were the trade's capital: formulas, names, procedures, accumulated over years and worth money. They could have been sold. Selling them would have moved the problem to another buyer, and the price is what the text records instead — fifty thousand pieces of silver, on the likeliest reckoning something near fifty thousand days' wages.

And then the fifth progress report, placed exactly here: So the word of the Lord was growing and becoming mighty. The book's measure of growth is not the size of the congregation but the strength of the word, and it is announced on the day a fortune went up in smoke in the street.

settled What this mark means