When Your Deity Needs you for His or Her Glory and You Need the Deity for Your Income
September 27, 2024
Demetrius and the artisans had a complaint.
Paul was stirring the truth pot urging people to seek God.
By Gid, Paul meant, the self-actualizing, self-sufficient, self-defining God of Abraham, God of the nations, God of the universe who had been sub-divided by divine characteristics into thousands of sub-deities in the kinds of the peoples. Their gods had been tribalized, trivialized, and memorialized in objects made with hands.
A solid income had been developed by those who were skilled at crafting hand held deities. Religious merchandise had a life of its own.
Paul's unorthodox preaching was resonating with the hearts of the people and threatened a lifestyle of privilege that gathered around a civil religion. Demetrius stirred the artisans with a chant that appealed, on the surface, to their local religion, but was really about their money and power.
One fears this sounds familiar in any time or generation when we must examine our centers of faith.
Genuine God-seeking can drift into regions of commercial, civil, or political self-interest. When that happens, something drive theology other than the Theos.
When we stop seeking and commence repeating repetitious chants designed to silence people's thinking or attentiveness to the Spirit, we reveal our true motives.
Do money, empowerment, and leadership have no place in matters of spirituality, religion, or faith?
No, that is not the message. But they are subservient to the ultimate. They are not gods to be worshipped and served. They are life worthy motives for lifetime commitment. They are incidental accoutrements to facilitate, but not dominate.
God does not need us to exist or receive glory. and religion that merely exists to provide wealth for an elite few is idolatry.
No wonder Demetrius and his friends felt threatened.
Acts 19:21-41 New International Version
After all this had happened, Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. “After I have been there,” he said, “I must visit Rome also.” He sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he stayed in the province of Asia a little longer.
About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”
When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into the theater together. Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater.
The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. The Jews in the crowd pushed Alexander to the front, and they shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Fellow Ephesians, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to calm down and not do anything rash. You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess. If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges. If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly. As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of what happened today. In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it.” After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.