Acts 19:19–20: “Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.”

April 16th, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Some have made assumptions and computed the value of the 50 thousand silver pieces, in today’s market, to be more than 5 million dollars. This astonishing sum of money was included to help the reader understand just how widespread the practice of witchcraft was in ancient Ephesus. Some have criticized what these early believers did as some kind of censorship, but on closer examination it should really be called good housecleaning. There are many things in print today that are just not healthy for human consumption because they are poisonous to our souls, things like pornography, racial/hate literature, and even some song lyrics. There is nothing wrong and everything right with keeping yourself and your kids away from poison.

This destruction of magic books was not done in a closet but in a very open and public forum, showing that true repentance had taken place. What was the result of this public denunciation of magic, “the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.” Their public repentance led to a focus on the word of God, or we could say that Bible reading began to prevail over the literature of hell.

What kinds of ungodly things do you have in your home, your office, or on your computer right now? Repent, go dump it, and you will be amazed at the freedom and clarity of thought that will immediately rush into your brain and heart. If we do the possible, then we can be sure that God will answer from heaven with a peace-filled cleansing of our souls and do the impossible in our homes and families.

“LORD, show us anything that stands between You and us so that we can turn and dump it right now.”