” Many that believed.. brought their books and burned them”

“To show that God protects from harm and danger all those who put their faith and trust in Him.”


One day the people of Ephesus had a riot because of the things that Paul was teaching.(A riot  is when people in a city gather together in a mob and start to shout and make a commotion.They often break the law and rush about making everyone excited and angry and afraid.)


When paul was in ephesus, many people believed the Gospel.Some of them were people who had had a lot books about magic and all sorts of other things that they had believed before. They decided to get rid of them.

They brought all their books out together in front of everyone in the city and set alight to them.They counted up how much they could have sold these books for and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver- a fortune in those days But they burnt them to ashes to show that the things in those books were lies. They were going to believe the things of the Truth from now on.


Although many people were thrilled to learn the truth that Ephesus ,there were some who were not pleased about it There was a man named demetrius,who was a silversmith.( A silversmith is a man who makes things out of silver.) Demetrius used to make images and shrines to the idol named Diana. He used to sell them to people.He soon became rich doing this. But now he could see that if people were going to stop worshipping the goddess Diana , he was not going to make workmen who made idols and ornaments.


” Sirs”, he said,” you know that we make a lot of money by making shrines and idols to Diana”

You can also see”, Demetrius went on ” that this paul is turning people away from worshipping idols. Our craft is in  danger.” He was telling  them that if people stopped worshipping idols ,then people would stop buying the shines and silver trinkets and ornaments and then all the craftsmen would get no more money.

” Not only that ” he said.” But the great temple of Diana will be despised.” well, the people.listening thought that this would be a terrible thing. people would stop coming to Ephesus to see the magnificent temple of Diana and to worship there . If they did not come to Ephesus then they would not spend their money there.


The silversmiths came very angry. They cried out,

Then the whole city was confused by the noise.Some of them caught two of Paul’s friends, Gaius and Aristarchus, who had travelled with him, and dragged them to the theatre. ( The theatre was a large open-air hall where crowds could gather to listen to speeches and plays.) Paul tried to go in to speak  to the people,but the other disciples would not let him.

It was too dangerous. The Ephesians were so angry and excited they might have killed him.


Inside the theatre ,some people called out one thing , some another. Most of them did not even know why they had all come there anyway..They started to call out all together” GREAT IS DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS,GREAT IS DIANA OF EPHESIANS” . They kept yelling like this for about two whole hours. What a dreadful noise!


Then the Town clerk stood up in front of the people and told them all to be quiet.

“You men of Ephesus” he said, Everyone knows that the Ephesians all worship Diana and look after the temple.

You ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly.if Demetrius has a matter against anyone he can do the proper thing and take them to the court. We are likely to get into trouble with the Roman soldiers for this uproar because  we have no excuse for this meeting.”

And when he had finished saying this he sent everyone home.


After the riot was over Paul knew he must leave the city.It would not be safe for him to stay any longer.He called together all the disciples and said goodbye and went on his way.

BRIEF:        After they taught the people about God ,Paul and his friends were often in danger.  Those men at Ephesus were ready to hurt them. But God saved them out of trouble. We must always put pour trust in God to help us .He will not help us if we do foolish things.but if we put our trust in him, then whatever happens will be the best things for us.

We are not likely to worship idols these days ,but if anything in our life is more important than serving God then it becomes like idolatry for us.

*Remember that: Many people believed the Gospel at Ephesus.

*They burned their books about magic.

*Demetrius the silversmith was not pleased.

* All the craftsmen cried out,” Great is Diana of the Ephesians” and started a riot.

* The people were confused.

*The town clerk quietened the crowd.

God bless our readers

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: