Act 19:20 | KingComments | STEP | The testimony also has the effect on many that they come to faith. In all who believe, the power of satan is broken and his territory seized. There has been a breakthrough in this demonic city. The conversion to God and faith in the Lord Jesus is genuine. We see this when they come to confess and disclose their practices. Those who have come to repentance and faith have nothing more to hide anymore. All selfishness and everything that has kept them imprisoned is confessed as sin. Among those who have come to faith are many who have practiced magic. They had mastered these occult occupations by means of books. They collected those books and set them on fire. As a result, no one else can be harmed by it. Only after the books have been burned do they calculate their value. If they had calculated the value before they were burned, they might still have reconsidered. A fortune has therefore gone up in smoke. A silver piece can probably be compared to a drachma or a denarius. At the time of the Gospels, a denarius was the wages of a day laborer ( ). The gross minimum daily wage for someone 23 years of age or older is €61.62 at the time of writing this commentary. That amounts to just over €50.00 net. For convenience, let’s assume €50.00. The amount that goes up in smoke would then, converted to today, correspond to 50,000*€50.00 = €2,500,000.00. Fortunately, even today there are believers who show the authenticity of their conversion by burning or destroying demonic music, movies, and games that determined their lives before their conversion. When the wrong things are removed, there is space for the Word, which here again is called the Word of the Lord. At the same time, Luke, with , again gives an ‘in-between stand’, as we have seen before ( ).

‏ Acts 19:20

Effects of the Word of the Lord

The testimony also has the effect on many that they come to faith. In all who believe, the power of satan is broken and his territory seized. There has been a breakthrough in this demonic city. The conversion to God and faith in the Lord Jesus is genuine. We see this when they come to confess and disclose their practices.

Those who have come to repentance and faith have nothing more to hide anymore. All selfishness and everything that has kept them imprisoned is confessed as sin. Among those who have come to faith are many who have practiced magic. They had mastered these occult occupations by means of books. They collected those books and set them on fire. As a result, no one else can be harmed by it.

Only after the books have been burned do they calculate their value. If they had calculated the value before they were burned, they might still have reconsidered. A fortune has therefore gone up in smoke. A silver piece can probably be compared to a drachma or a denarius. At the time of the Gospels, a denarius was the wages of a day laborer (Mt 20:2). The gross minimum daily wage for someone 23 years of age or older is €61.62 at the time of writing this commentary. That amounts to just over €50.00 net. For convenience, let’s assume €50.00. The amount that goes up in smoke would then, converted to today, correspond to 50,000*€50.00 = €2,500,000.00. Fortunately, even today there are believers who show the authenticity of their conversion by burning or destroying demonic music, movies, and games that determined their lives before their conversion.

When the wrong things are removed, there is space for the Word, which here again is called the Word of the Lord. At the same time, Luke, with Acts 19:20, again gives an ‘in-between stand’, as we have seen before (Acts 6:7 ; Acts 12:24 ; Acts 16:5).