Acts 19:11-20--The Sons of Sceva

Acts 19:11-20
English Standard Version
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The Sons of Sceva
11 And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. 13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” 16 And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. 18 Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. 19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

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The text records how God was working in amazing ways with signs and wonders to heal people of disease and set the demonized free from their unclean spirits.  Paul didn't even need to be present, which shows me that the people here had great faith to believe that God could work from a distance but they lacked the faith to believe that God could work the miracle without some kind of object touching the person in need of healing--they still believed that it was Paul's touch (not the hand of the Lord Himself) who brought about all this.

The Sons of Sceva picked up on the fact though that Paul did all these miracles in the name of Jesus.  They too try to cast out demons and perform these miracles they had seen thinking that their special relationship with God by being the sons of the high priest (I assume this text means their father was high priest in Jerusalem, even though they lived in Ephesus and not that he served as high priest of one of the foreign gods or goddesses that were worshiped in the area).  However, the demons did not listen to them.  They knew of Jesus and they knew of Paul, but they had no respect for the Sons of Sceva who did not belong to Jesus and though that Paul's words were simply an incantation of sorts that they just needed to pray exactly as they heard it and whatever God did for Paul, He would have to do for them too.  Yet God was doing this to validate the gospel message he was preaching and teaching, and since the Sons of Sceva did not even believer the gospel, let alone teach or preach it, there was no reason for God to validate anything they were saying or doing with signs and wonders.

When the Sons of Sceva tried to case out demons from a demonized man the demons responded as mentioned earlier to say that they new Jesus and Paul, but not these men, and the demonized man rose up and attacked them and forced them to run out of the house naked and wounded--one demonized man bested and mastered all seven of the Sons of Sceva.

Everyone in the area, both Jews and Greeks, heard about this event and how the seven sons of the Jewish high priest were unable to cast out demons like Paul was able to do and how the demons could talk back to them and beat them and force them to run away naked and ashamed.  This solidified for the people in the area that God was doing something special through Paul and they should listen to the message he was preaching.  Those who were already believers believed even more strongly what they had heard and were encouraged and many that had been living in rebellion to the Lord and practicing magic, witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, divination, and so on brought all their texts on these subjects and they burned them all publicly.  Notice that Paul did not command them to do so--this is their natural response after seeing that the Lord Jesus Christ was Lord over all creation, including the spiritual realm, and these demons though strong enough to beat up the seven sons of Sceva could not stand up against the Lord Jesus Christ of his apostle, Paul.

Some accounting was done of the value of all the books that were burned that day and it was found that their value was over 50, 000 pieces of silver.  This is a lot of valuable books that people were burning and the people doing so were out a lot of money, but it also was apparent that this would probably be the end of the business there in Ephesus, and you can imagine that this would upset those who were the sellers of these types of books (it will be no surprise that one of the silversmiths who made silver idols in Ephesus would instigate a riot because of the revival that was happening and how it was negatively impacting his business).  Today's passage ends though with the statement that the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.  That is that God's message got out everywhere that God wanted it to go and accomplished the work that it was set out to do, and nothing and no one was able to stop it...thought that won't stop them from trying as we'll see next time.