In Acts 19, we meet Demetrius. He was a silversmith who made a good living crafting silver shrines of the goddess Artemis. For Demetrius and his colleagues, business was booming.
Until it wasn’t.
The gospel began spreading and people started turning from idol worship and toward The Way. Suddenly, idolatry was losing its profitability. Demetrius, worried about losing income and, perhaps, influence, stirred up the city. His no little protest against Paul quickly led to a riot.
To our ears, Paul's message may not sound controversial. For us, faith is a matter of choice. But don't miss how irrational and disruptive his message was to a poly-theistic world. To reject the gods of the Roman world would be to reject Roman civil life itself. You can hear that nervousness when Demetrius acknowledged that Artemis' reputation might suffer.
But the real trouble for Demetrius happened when people began living differently. That’s what I appreciate most about this moment. The problem wasn’t so much the preacher and his sermons but the response of the people. Panic didn’t set in when the word was in the pulpit but when faith got real.
As a preacher, that's something I pray for. Not good sermons, but real faith. Faith that reshapes priorities. Discipleship that impacts more than Sunday mornings.
When people follow Jesus with intention, things shift. Hearts change. Families change. Whole communities can change. Acts 19 shows us that even profit margins can tremble at the name of Jesus.
That's the kind of change we long for. A world where industries built on insecurity, exploitation or illusion feel pressure to change, too. 
What are the Artemis industries around us today? What do we keep funding, clicking and consuming? You can disrupt entire systems just by refusing to feed them.
That means you don’t have to shout at the darkness. Just stop paying for it.
Stay blessed...john | 
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