Acts 19:23-41 | Living for Christ in a Confused WorldSample

Confusion with Counterfeits

Here’s a list of Bible passages (NIV) to consider:

• Isaiah 1:3: “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”
• Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
• Isaiah 42:18: “Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see!”
• Jonah 4:11: “Should I not have concern for [those]… who cannot tell their right hand from their left?”
• Luke 23:34: Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

In Jonah, it’s said about people who don’t know God. In Luke, it’s said about people who claim to know God, but don’t know God. In Isaiah and Hosea, it’s said about the people of God who have lost sight of God.

When it comes to God and his way, many people don’t know up from down. They’re caught up in their cultural narrative, media, popular opinion, personal desires, and so many other things. That confusion might not be marked by two hours of people shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” But it is certainly marked by 24/7 newsfeeds, endless short-form content, the constant voice of influencers and social handlers, and in many other ways. Competing voices, all trying to gain a few moments of attention. Of course, with the hope that those few moments will result in profit, power, or popularity.

Every culture and every age has its share of religious imitations and counterfeit spiritualities that delude those who don’t know God and confuse those who do.

How do you go into it? Do you want to go into it? God so loved the world that he went into it. Living for Jesus means doing the same – loving a confused world that doesn’t know spiritual up from down.

Ephesus was proud of its man-made goddess. It’s ironic how the Ephesian silversmiths try to condemn Paul: “He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all” (Acts 19:26). In a world filled with spiritual confusion, Jesus shows us the true and living God—not handmade imitations. He challenges a world built on spiritual falsehoods.

In a world where noise and emotion often drown out truth, we are called to live with spiritual clarity. While the crowd was confused, Paul and the disciples remained focused. Are you letting the noise of the world distract you, or are you holding fast to Christ? Living for Christ means devotion to the real in a world full of imitations.