Introduction to revival

This week's verses are on Acts 19:17-20:

This became known to all who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks; fear came over them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised. Many of those who had believed came forward, confessing and making their deeds known. Large numbers of those who had practiced magic collected their books and burned them up in the presence of everyone. When the value of the books was added up, it was found to total 50,000 silver coins. In this way the word of the Lord continued to grow in power and to prevail.

I've been asked to help out with the curriculum preparation for a Bible study series my church is doing for the summer. It touches on some topics related to revival and leadership, so there will be a sort of theme to the next couple months of Bible studies. Kill two birds with one stone, right?

First week is on revival. These verses are the best New Testament example I can find of what revival looks like in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there are plenty of examples of the people being like "Wait, God said what??" and then freaking out and ripping their clothes and rioting and burning down stores or temples. I'm less interested in sharing those, because they are more of a reaction to the Old Testament law and its penalties than something spiritual. They're a product of their time, not something we can really picture today.

In Ephesus, on the other hand, rather than people responding to a reading of the law, or a prophet coming and yelling at them with a sandwich board sign and megaphone, the people were responding to the news of miracles taking place and strange supernatural events. The Holy Spirit was very clearly involved, and people were responding to direct evidence of God and his kingdom. This is more like what you see when you read about the revivals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This revival in Ephesus was a reaction to the supernatural. People were being healed of sickness just from items that Paul had touched, which is pretty freaky if you think about it. And an evil spirit beat the living daylights out of a ministry team that had come to perform deliverance on it, while basically testifying that it wasn't afraid of the humans but was very afraid of Jesus. Those two things together scared people into realizing that the gospel story is very much real. So they made some changes. These changes are what we call revival.

Revival, to me, is when the culture gets invaded by the kingdom of God and individuals are changed. If the US invaded a developing country and wanted to turn it into another US state, it would do certain things. It might mandate that education be mandatory, that it be done in English, that roads and electricity and things would conform to certain standards, and so on. There might be a systematic removal of corruption and a crackdown on crime and inequality. You would end up with something that looks and feels, and mostly functions, like the US.

If the US were to leave, and the people in this country were left to their own devices, some of the people would go back to their old comfortable ways of doing things, but others would stick to the things they saw as being better. Some things would remain, and others would disappear.

And this is what we see in revivals as well. For awhile, everyone is serious about God. Debts are forgiven. Immorality and wasteful activity is gone. Charity increases. People express love for each other. The sick are healed, addictions are defeated, and so on. But eventually people are left to their own devices and many of them go back to their old ways of doing things.

In our verses, the kingdom of God had become obvious and real to people. Just like tanks rolling down main street and the local warlord's house being turned into a smoking crater. The people in Ephesus did what people do when confronted with a great power that has come to emancipate them. They switched their allegiances to the new king in town.

The people who practiced magic were terrified. The story of the evil spirits beating up the exorcists showed them that their power wasn't enough. The same with the miraculous healing from the handkerchiefs. That was way more powerful than what they had. And at the same time they knew these things were offensive to the God who had done the miracles. Even though the magic books were extremely expensive, they burned them. They couldn't afford not to.

The magic books represented a way of life that people trusted in. They had invested time and money in learning what was in them, and in using them to solve their life's problems. But when confronted with the overwhelming greatness of God, they couldn't cling to those useless crutches anymore. Not only did they no longer trust in them, they found them offensive the way that God finds them offensive. They had to be destroyed.

You see that sometimes when oppressed people manage to topple their repressive government. The old statues and posters that they respected before get torn down and destroyed. Old party officials who they followed before get strung up from lamp posts. There is hostility to the old ways when better ways are introduced.

People are always asking how to make a revival themselves. Churches drool over the idea of a revival. It brings fame, power, and lots and lots of donations to the ones who are in the spotlight when it happens. Follow the steps to revival and instant church success! Great for the resumé. Great for the retirement plan. Great for buying God's approval. Or so it seems.

The problem with that is that the revival is not something that people make. Paul wasn't following some guide on revival when these verses happened. And miracles happen all of the time without revival automatically breaking out. People have been trying to game the system to make revival for over two thousand years now, and at best have just been a sort of Christian cargo cult. Only instead of coconut headphones and fake runways, they have tent meetings and pray over handkerchiefs, and do all of the things they read about from previous revivals.

The best viewpoint I've seen on what role we play in revival comes from Charles Finney who wrote a book on it in the 1800s (which is why he talks a bit like a character from a period drama on PBS.) Here is what he says:

I wish this idea to be impressed on all your minds, for there has long been an idea prevalent that promoting religion has something very peculiar in it, not to be judged of by the ordinary rules of cause and effect; in short, that there is no connection of the means with the result, and no tendency in the means to produce the effect. No doctrine is more dangerous than this to the prosperity of the church, and nothing more absurd.

Suppose a man were to go and preach this doctrine among farmers, about their sowing grain. Let him tell them that God is a sovereign, and will give them a crop only when it pleases him, and that for them to plough and plant and labour as if they expected to raise a crop is very wrong, and taking the work out of the hands of God, that it interferes with his sovereignty, and is going on in their own strength: and that there is no connection between the means and the result on which they can depend. And now,suppose the farmers should believe such doctrine. Why, they would starve the world to death.

We can't make God's kingdom grow in our own power, but we can still plant the ground and make a fertile ground for it. We still have a role. Paul prayed for miracles and preached the gospel to the crowds, but it was God who made it happen. If Paul had just sat around eating grapes and staring out his window, the revival wouldn't have happened, but it wasn't Paul who caused it any more than a farmer causes grain to grow in his own supernatural power.

We don't know when or where or even if God will do a revival in our communities, but we can still prepare for his invasion of our world. Let revival play out in your own life. Get rid of things that God finds offensive. Love others the way he loves us. Believe in miracles and look for them in the world around you.

When it boils down to it, revival is just a bunch of people inviting God's power and government into their own lives. If you want revival in your community, start with your own life as an introduction.