About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”

Acts 19: 23-27

When your ministry starts slowing down the idol factory down the street, you must be doing something right.

When we visited Ephesus we saw some of the examples of the idols worshipped by the ancient people during Paul’s time there. While we may laugh to ourselves wondering how anyone would ever pray or worship a god “made with hands,” maybe we should take a look at the things we’ve created that serve as functional gods in our lives.

In Ezekiel 14:3, God addresses the motives of the elders of Israel by saying, “These men have set up idols in their hearts.”

Consider this definition of a modern idol –

Now back to the plight of Demetrius. It was his job to fashion physical idols for profit and business wasn’t exactly booming thanks to Paul’s speaking “boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God…so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.”

Has the Gospel made a similar impact on the idols in our hearts? Idols of success or sexuality or even something as seemingly good and innocent as our family?

Remember the last sentence from the quote above -“a god is a (good) finite thing that is loved and adored and viewed as that without which one cannot receive life joyfully.”