Demetrius the Silversmith

 Paul is constantly teaching about staying faithful to God and don't worship idols. There are several applications for this lesson, and we talked about making God first in our life, obeying God and their parents. They loved their worksheet today!

Last week we studied about Paul at Corinth. He stayed with Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They were tent makers, like Paul. He worked for them and every week, Paul taught in the synagogue.

Some people didn’t believe what Paul was teaching, but a lot of other people did. They listened to Paul, believed and were baptized.

This week our scripture is Acts 19:11-41.  Have students look up: Acts 19:11 The scripture tells us that Paul did unusual miracles for God. Paul was doing miracles that God wanted. Vs. 12: People brought handkerchiefs and aprons of their sick family and friends and their diseases were healed!

There were people that practiced magic at Ephesus. They believed in Jesus and gathered their books together and burned them in front of everyone! When they added up the cost of them, it was worth 50,000 pieces of silver! 

Turn to Acts 19:20: The word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. There was a silversmith called Demetrius. He made silver shrines of Diana and made a lot of money doing it. Demetrius called the other men together that had a similar occupation and told them that “You know we make a lot of money in our trade.”

But there is a man called Paul who is traveling through Asia, and he told people to quit worshipping idols. He is telling people that idols are not gods because they are made by hands. So not only is our work at stake, but the temple of “the great goddess Diana” will be despised.

When they heard this, they were angry and shouted, “Great is Diana!” The whole city was confused and upset. The crowd grabbed two of Paul’s traveling companions and went into the theater.

When Paul wanted to go in, the disciples wouldn’t let him. It was too dangerous. The people were angry and hostile. Most of the people that were there, didn’t even know why they were there. There was so much confusion. They just kept shouting “Great is Diana” for two hours.

The city clerk finally got the crowd quiet and told the people that they know that Ephesus is the city that has the temple guarding the goddess Diana and since this fact cannot be denied, think about it and don’t act foolishly. Paul and these other men are not robbers, so if Demetrius has a case against Paul, let him go to court. He told them that were in danger of causing an uproar that couldn’t be accounted for.  When that uproar settled down, Paul left to go to Macedonia.

This is a fun and easy worksheet to help the students to really think about the things that we do that God doesn't like. The people threw their books into the fire to show they wanted to follow Jesus. Have the students write some things in the flames that Jesus doesn't want us to do. There is an example for the teacher included. You can print in color and black & white. Click here to print.

Click here to print the worksheet.

You can find all the Acts worksheets here.

Bible Verse: Acts 19:20 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.

Used by permission.

Passport: Ephesus

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