.....return

Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. — Acts 19:19

Apollos had to let go of his pride in what he knew. Today we meet a whole crowd of believers in Ephesus who had to let go of something they could hold in their hands, and it was worth a fortune.

Ephesus was a city soaked in magic. People bought scrolls of spells, charms and secret formulas, and those books were valuable. When the gospel came through Paul, many believed. But believing was only the beginning. Some of the new converts still kept their old books at home, hidden on a shelf, just in case. Then the Spirit pressed the question on their hearts: could they follow Jesus and keep the old ways within reach?

So they gathered their books and burned them in public, where everyone could see. Luke tells us someone did the math afterward: fifty thousand pieces of silver, a sum that would take a laborer a lifetime to earn. This was not a quiet, private adjustment. It was a costly, visible break with the past, and it closed the door they had been leaving open.

You might ask, “Why burn them? Couldn’t they just stop using them, or sell them and give the money to the church?” Selling them would have passed the poison on to someone else. Keeping them would have left a way back. Ellen White states the principle plainly: “Whatever shall draw away the heart from God must be given up” Steps to Christ, p. 44. The Ephesians understood that some things cannot be managed. They must be ended.

And grace was at work in the fire. Luke adds that after this the word of God grew mightily and prevailed. The smoke over Ephesus was not a sign of loss but of freedom. Growing in Christ often means asking what we still keep “just in case,” and letting Him help us put it where we can never reach for it again.

Apollos teaches us to let go of the pride that closes the mind. The believers of Ephesus teach us to let go of the possessions that hold the heart, whatever they cost, because nothing we burn for Christ is worth what He gives in return.