Acts 19:21

It is now spring-time A. D. 57. Paul has been absent from Europe three years, traveling throughout Asia looking after the work. It is really imperative that he return to Europe, where much heresy and disorder have crept in during his absence. “And when these things were fulfilled Paul purposed in spirit, having traveled through Macedonian Achaia, to go on into Jerusalem, saying, That after I shall be there it behooveth me also to see Rome.” Macedonia is Northern and Achaia Southern Greece. As Paul was the apostle of the Gentile world, and Rome the great capital and metropolis, his heart was set upon that far-off city, whither he longed to go and preach the glorious gospel.

THE DEVIL'S CHURCH

21. Ephesus was the great New York of Western Asia, among many other notable institutions honored with the greatest and most magnificent temple of the goddess Diana in the whole world, one of the seven wonders of the world, having occupied two hundred years in its building. In all heathen lands the manufacture of statues and images, as well as the erection and ornamentation of temples, is the most lucrative financial employment, as people are always willing to pay their last dollar to save their souls, though not willing to give up their sins. Now Demetrius, assembling the image makers and the various artificers connected with the temple and the worship of Diana, delivers them a powerful and inflammatory harangue, stirring them up to recognize the fact that Paul's preaching is calculated in the ultimatum to undermine the worship of Diana, and thus vitiate their lucrative financial employments in the manufacture of innumerable images of this goddess to be sold to the millions of her faithful devotees. The result is a great uproar, of vast multitude, like the rolling billows of the ocean, rushing in impetuous stampede through the streets, shouting uproariously, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” Fortunately, Paul's friends hold him out of the hands of the mob who have already seized his traveling companions, Gaius and Aristarchus of Macedonia, meanwhile Alexander, a Jewish disciple and comrade of Paul, is also caught in the violent whorls of the incorrigible insurrection. After a two hours' uproar and stampede have somewhat exhausted them physically, the city clerk succeeds in commanding audience, warning them of their imminent danger of prosecution and punishment by the Roman Empire, and assuring them of their utter incompetency to defend themselves before a civil tribunal, should they be arraigned to give an account of that disgraceful uproar.