On a Wednesday night on Howard University’s campus, I stood in front of 20 to 30 college students, going through a series on the basics of Christian ethics. We were looking at the first commandment and using the story of the sons of Sceva in Acts 19 as a case study.
With tongue-in-cheek humor, I said to the group, “Ephesus was something like out of a Harry Potter book. Because our culture is still pretty influenced by Christianity, our culture isn’t like this yet, but we’re headed there.” I paused and second-guessed what I’d said. “Actually, let me ask you all. Do y’all see these things on campus?”
“Yes!” The room quickly replied. A few students began to detail the experiences they’d had with New Age spirituality, witchcraft, and more.
This room full of college students surprised me: I’ve always known the post-Christian drift of Gen Z is real, but it hit me that night. Their post-Christian landscape was similar to Ephesus’s pre-Christian landscape. Perhaps the sons of Sceva have a lesson to teach us about how to engage our increasingly religiously pluralistic friends and families.
When considering how this story in Acts 19 relates to the first commandment to worship Yahweh exclusively, the narrative doesn’t appeal to Yahweh’s judgment, jealousy, or law per se; it appeals to his all-sufficient, all-satisfying power. He’s the one-stop shop and all you need. In light of this truth, subscribing to multiple religious systems is not only forbidden but also unnecessary.
Christianity will only become compelling to a post-Christian culture when people realize that Jesus’s demand for exclusive worship comes coupled with Jesus’s demand to trust him for security amid life’s threats. This powerful Jesus melts away the spiritual anxiety that animates our religious pluralism.
Religious Pluralism as an Antidote to Anxiety
What defined Ephesus’s landscape––and increasingly defines the urban American college campus––is religious pluralism. I’m not speaking of the attitude of civility that allows people with religious differences to coexist in the same society but of a worldview that allows a person to subscribe to multiple spiritual systems simultaneously, even if they conflict. Such a worldview often requires someone to remix spiritual systems to fit them together.
Allow me to paint a picture of Ephesian spirituality. As a large, prestigious city in the Roman Empire, Ephesus was religiously pluralistic. Worshiping and devoting yourself to many different gods and religions at the same time was normal, and many did so without cognitive dissonance. Magical practice and devotion to the imperial cult were also widespread.
This powerful Jesus melts away the spiritual anxiety that animates our religious pluralism.
This is the kind of place where Paul went to preach the gospel. This is increasingly the kind of culture to which we preach the gospel. Jesus still dominates the religious landscape of the United States, but for many, he’s one among many.
Religious Pluralism Today
I haven’t often encountered a thoroughgoing religious pluralism like that in Ephesus, but the instinct of many belonging to the generation I serve is to embrace multiple spiritual systems as different ways of tapping into a common spiritual reality in which all people, knowingly or unknowingly, participate. This reality is explained by forces, energies, universal principles, spiritual realms, and a spiritual being or beings.
Sayings like “They’re all the same god” or “Each religion taps into the same reality in different ways” or “All religions are pretty much the same to me, and I try to take something from each of them” are ways of expressing a pluralistic instinct. It explains how you can participate in the practices of many different spiritual systems yet not have a crisis of incoherence.
Why We’re Pluralistic
At the heart of the Ephesians’ pluralism—and much of our own—was spiritual anxiety. They lived under the constant threat of malevolent spiritual forces, structuring their beliefs around magic and rituals to ward off curses and secure blessings. Their spirituality wasn’t about logical coherence; it was about control—an insurance policy to mitigate unseen threats by any means necessary.
While modern secular society in the U.S. is less attuned to spirits than the Ephesians were, doesn’t the same anxiety drive our pluralism? We crave fortification against danger, loneliness, insignificance, marginalization, lack, failure, stagnation, and disappointment. Committing to one system while excluding others feels risky—what if the one we choose isn’t enough?
While the spiritually pluralistic narrative feels inclusive and safe, it’s incoherent. And as the sons of Sceva discovered, it’ll eventually let us down and leave us bruised.
While the spiritually pluralistic narrative feels inclusive and safe, it’s incoherent.
In Acts 19, people saw Paul performing miracles through Jesus’s name and assumed they could wield that same power like magic. The seven sons of Sceva attempted to use Jesus’s name in an exorcism, but the demon replied, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” (v. 15). The possessed man overpowered them, leaving them beaten, naked, and humiliated.
Likewise, treating Jesus as one tool among many will leave us disappointed and ultimately harmed by the threats we’re seeking to repel. To know Jesus truly is to trust in his supreme power, rather than hedging our bets with a mix of spiritual safeguards. Only in him do we find real security from the anxieties that drive us.
Fear That Drives Out Fear
Do you have a one-stop shop, a place where you go to find anything you need? For me, it’s Amazon. I rarely visit other online stores because I know Amazon will quickly get me what I need at a decent price. It’s a waste of time and energy to look elsewhere.
Jesus is our one-stop shop because he offers a new center for our anxious lives. After the demon-possessed man confessed Jesus’s power, everybody respected the power of Jesus and his messenger Paul. So much so that people who’d already been believers but were clinging to their old magical practices came together and burned their magical arts books, displaying their faith that Jesus was powerful enough to have victory over any curse, any calamity, any demon. They’d found their spiritual panacea, and it was a waste of time and energy to look elsewhere.
The truth is, the Ephesian attempt to get out from under fear and anxiety is nothing new. The Athenians had the unknown god; Judah had the high places; Israel had the golden calf; Adam and Eve had the Serpent and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. At the center of our pluralism is the anxiety that Yahweh isn’t enough and that we must make him one of many to thrive.
Do you doubt that Jesus is powerful enough to secure you? Look at his resurrection and ascension. The historical reality of Jesus’s resurrection is a display of his mastery over every threat at the center of your spiritual anxiety. Jesus “was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4, NIV) and was given “the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:9–10, NIV). The gospel is good news because it offers us a Savior who isn’t just a god among gods or a spirit among spirits but a God who is above and victorious over the spiritual realm and, therefore, the earthly realm.
The historical reality of Jesus’s resurrection is a display of his mastery over every threat at the center of your spiritual anxiety.
This doesn’t mean you’ll never be harmed. However, it means all fears are under Jesus’s authority, and he’s working everything “for the church” (Eph. 1:22, NIV), which includes you. Jesus’s resurrection and ascension means he can take threats and work them for your blessing. It’s with the truth of the resurrection and ascension that the apostle Peter comforts suffering people (1 Pet. 3:13–22). Jesus is the fear that drives out fear, even amid ongoing suffering.
Witness to Jesus’s Power
The Ephesian Christians saw the true nature of Jesus’s power. Where can we testify to that power in our daily lives to people searching for something greater? This could be as small as a conversation where we share how we were anxious about something and trusted it to Jesus, or it could be something as big as naming the resurrection as the proof of your security as you uproot your life to start a new vocation that will more faithfully serve the kingdom.
How are you visibly testifying to an anxious generation that Jesus is all you need?
The Gospel Coalition