Gospel-Power and Gospel-People

Acts 19:18-20

Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

Aaron Orendorff

There is an organic and indissoluble connection between the life of God’s people and power of God’s word.

Here in Ephesus, the connection in this: wide-scale, public repentance of a very costly and counter-culture kind is both preceded by and adds to the triumph of God’s word. This is not so much a formula for church-growth as it is a culturally specific example of what happens when the power of the gospel collides with and gets inside a city filled with every other kind of power imaginable—political, magical and religious.

The relationship is reciprocal—as Paul preaches, people change; as people change, Paul preaches. Another way to say this is: gospel-power produces gospel-people and gospel-people produce gospel-power. Both are uniquely dependent on the other.