29 The city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia. 30 And when Paul wanted to go into the assembly, the disciples would not let him. 31 Also some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and repeatedly urged him not to venture into the theater. Acts 19:29–31
Demetrius had whipped his guild of craftsmen into a frenzy with accusations against Paul and exclamations, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” See No Small Disturbance. The mob then spilled onto the Arcadian Way connecting the Ephesian harbor to the city’s 25,000 seat amphitheater. Along the cobbled street to the theater they grabbed Paul’s companions Gaius and Aristarchus from the gathering crowd and dragged them along.
Finding out, Paul had to be physically restrained from joining the fray. Of course, he wanted in the worst way to defend himself and the Way before his accusers. Even the city’s aristocracy (the Asiarchs) urged him not to participate, showing Paul was politically astute in his relationships.
One commentator said this about this unusual intervention, “A sect whose leader had Asiarchs for friends cannot be dangerous to the state.”
Bottom line, there was no reason for him to get involved at this juncture. He must keep his powder dry. God had chosen a secular leader (the town clerk) in place in city government, not Alexander the Jew that some pushed forward to speak, to adroitly and logically calm the crowd and send them home wondering why they got so worked up.
Luke “comically” describes the two-hour “riot” like this,
32 So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together.
One is counseled in the study of Acts not to draw principles from the narrative without support from the Epistles. While Luke somewhat made light of the event, one could say Paul thought it to be an existential threat, and knew that behind it all was Satan, and that it would only get worse from here on out. In the context of defending the reality of the resurrection, Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 15:32.
“If from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
So then, the “soft” principle is this, Satan finds Christianity also an existential threat, a real and present danger, and with every fiber of his fallen diabolical existence will confront it and attempt to kill it and its messengers. For now, the needle was not moved one way or another. It is conceivable (for me) to think that what the devil really wanted most of all not to happen was for Paul to address this mass of humanity. Remember the demon in Acts 19:15, “And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”
The underlying question to me then is this, “Does Satan know who I am?”
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