Acts 18:24-19:22 | You Don't Need to Know It AllSample

Let’s review the week.

God works through your limitations. Take what you know. Put it into practice. Stay open to what you have yet to learn about God. God will advance greater things and bring people to new levels beyond imagination. Don’t wait. Put yourself out there.

Because it’s God’s power. Not your own. The power of God at work is an incredible thing.

Acts 19:20 (NIV) again: “The word of the Lord increased and grew strong, according to [God’s] power.” According to God’s power. What a wonderful relief to know it does not depend on our own.

The New Testament scholar NT Wright draws out some insights, showing how this idea of dependence on God’s power permeates Paul’s letters.

• Ephesians 1:19 (NIV) – That you may know the surpassing greatness of his energy upon us who believe, according to the working of the strength of his power…
• Ephesians 3:16 (NIV) – May God grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with all energy through his Spirit…
• Ephesians 3:20 (NIV) – to him who has the capability to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, according to the energy that is working in us…
• Ephesians 6:10 (NIV) – Be energetic in the Lord, and in the strength of his power…
• Colossians 1:11 (NIV) – May you be given energy, according to the strength of his glory…

You can add to that 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 2:4-5; 4:20 and 2 Corinthians 4:7; 6:7; 10:4, and 12:9. (Translations are NT Wright’s, italics are ours. Read Acts for Everyone, p. 116 for more.)

Ephesus was a center of power. Political power, religious power, and magic power. But God’s power is an awesome power. And more amazing is the power of God at work we see in the lives of these people when they burn their scrolls.

When the people saw God’s power at work through the message of Paul, something unable to be duplicated by the hacks that came along, and how powers of evil responded to each, it says great fear seized all the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, and the name of Jesus was held in high honor (Acts 19:17).

There’s more. Those who believed began to confess secret sins. Those who practiced sorcery burned their scrolls publicly. Luke says the value came to 50,000 drachmas. That’s 50,000 days' wages. That’s 137 years of daily pay, every day, no weekends or holidays unpaid!

The simple proclamation of King Jesus and call to repentance, coupled with the power of God at work, leads to amazing things. But even when that power in a person does not immediately result in this kind of repentance, trust God. Trust them to God. It’s not a failure of God’s power. It’s not because you don’t know enough.

We started this week by talking about how Acts is about witnessing. How it’s about spreading the good word of King Jesus to those around us and to the ends of the earth. How at its core, it prods us to be evangelistic. Praise be to God! God’s power is at work despite our limitations. Trust his power, which can so powerfully work through you.

If this plan helped orient you to the ongoing work and teaching of Jesus in this world, we encourage you to subscribe to our other plans on Acts.