Ministry in Ephesus - The Kingdom of God and the Artisans

This third and final episode of the Ephesian ministry has Luke transitioning from Ephesus' occultism to its cultural paganism. Its central characters were a group of artisans who derived their living from the city's worship of the Asian goddess Artemis. While these men weren't practitioners of the magical arts, they, too, were "magicians" in the sense that they viewed religion as a means to personal benefit. Their interest in religion was more cultural and financial than spiritual, and in that way they differed from the occultists and the Jews of the synagogue. But when it came to how they viewed religion in relation to themselves, all three groups were the same. The Jews, occultists and artisans were equally practitioners of religion as magic, and that perspective brought them all into conflict with the gospel and the kingdom of God. That conflict resulted in repentance and faith for some, but fierce opposition for many others.