Many Christians can cite a specific "life verse" from the Bible that encapsulates their faith and life. Something like "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31) or "I can all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) or the like.
Nobody ever picks Acts 19:32.
Here's the lead up: Acts 19 recounts an incident which took place in Ephesus with a silversmith named Demetrius whose main source of income was creating shrines of the goddess Artemis. He calls together fellow craftsmen and tells them that the Apostle Paul's preaching is endangering their income. And not only that, but Artemis will be "robbed of her divine glory".
(But mainly it's the money.)
So Demetrius stirs up the craftsmen, the craftsmen start chanting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" and soon the whole city is in an uproar. The crowd sort of kidnaps a couple of Paul's friends and everyone pushes into the city theater, a great big noisy mob.
Paul stays home, urged by other friends not to venture near the theater himself.
At this point we get this gem of a verse: "The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there." (Acts 19:32)
Acts 19:32 may not work as a life verse for me or you, but I'd like to suggest it might be perfect for a national "life verse" for the United States of the 20s.
Works, right?
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