Acts 19 and the Ephesian fire
There's no way to come up with a modern equivalent to 50,000 drachmas in terms of pounds and pennies or dollars and cents but it comes out at something like 50,000 working-days pay. That's what these converts burned! Books they once made a living by or books they shaped their lives by; books they now thought were an offence to Jesus who had become their Lord—that's what they burned! See Acts 19:17-41.
When you're not into magic and gods and idolatry of the crass and obvious kind I'd have thought their bonfire, while impressive, wouldn't bespectacular but since Ephesus was a town that would literally riot over the idol industry you've got to sit up and pay attention. Maybe to burn your entire tobacco crop in Virginia or your vineyards in France or your poppies in South America or to destroy your dairy-herd in parts of England—maybe that would come close to the emotional equivalent of what they did. [You have your own illustration?]
They burned a lot of money!
They burned an established means of livelihood!
They burned an offence to Jesus, the Lord Christ!
They burned bridges that led back to idolatry!
They said a definitive and permanent no to the satanic!
They made themselves a threatened minority!
They defied their vast city!
They became part of a tiny group that defied the colossal world!
Augustine said in his Confessions (4:14:21), "One loving spirit sets another on fire." That's an established truth we keep forgetting though millions of us have experienced it more than once. These nameless Ephesians make you feel like standing up to applaud and even the atheistic (or has he been misread and was a Joban figure instead?) Nietzsche, taking a brave stand against a lily-livered religion that make weakness a virtue and honourable strength a vice—he commands our admiration. When in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra the prophet urges a would-be follower: "Neglect not the hero in your soul!" we're reminded that however wrong he was, Nietzsche wasn't gutless, in his own life he took his own medicine and we're compelled to think how lightly many of us hold our inherited creeds.
If we are sensitive at all, there are people all around us, Christian and non-Christian who disturb our sleep.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.