Acts 19 | Day 14

Acts 19 (NIV 1984)

¹While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples
²and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
³So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied.
⁴Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”
⁵On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.
⁶When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
⁷There were about twelve men in all.

⁸Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for about three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.
⁹But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
¹⁰This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

¹¹God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,
¹²so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.
¹³Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”
¹⁴Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.
¹⁵One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”
¹⁶Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.
¹⁷When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.
¹⁸Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.
¹⁹A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.
²⁰In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
²¹After these events, Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. “After I have been there,” he said, “I must visit Rome also.”
²²And he sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself stayed in the province of Asia a little longer.