Before Luke could launch his travel narrative, he had one more story to tell of Paul’s time in Ephesus. That the silversmiths’ riot was simply a good story may almost have been reason enough to include it. But it had the added attraction of reinforcing Luke’s earlier point that the Christian faith and the Roman state were compatible, as borne out by the attitude of the asiarchs and the city clerk (see disc. on 18:1–17). Incidentally, this story reveals an accurate knowledge of the municipal institutions of Ephesus (see Sherwin-White, pp. 83ff.).

19:23–24 The last weeks of Paul’s stay in Ephesus were marked by one of those “dangers in the city” of which he writes (2 Cor. 11:26). A certain Demetrius instigated a riot because of the Way (v. 23; see disc. on 9:2). He was a silversmith whose …