Title: 13
Author: Joe Griffin
Last saved by: pauld
Company: GDC

The Church of the Living God

		08-09-07-A.FBC08-13 /

Architecture of the Temple of Artemis; the Manifest Anger of the Silversmiths, Acts 19:28; the Progression of Uncontrolled Anger, Eph 4:26, 31 

When you understand the wealth that was invested in the heathen temple of Artemis then you come to realize how easy it has been for our Congress, without blush or apology, to glibly pass an annual budget of over three trillion dollars.
Here is a brief description of the architecture, construction, and artist’s conception of the temple:
The Temple of Diana [Artemis] was quite different from the lofty and ascending form of those buildings which have since arisen in all parts of Christian Europe, and essentially consisted in horizontal entablatures [A horizontal part in classical architecture that rests on the columns and consists of architrave, frieze, and cornice.] resting on vertical columns.  They were not roofed over for the reception of a large company of worshippers, but were in fact colonnades [A series of columns set at regular intervals and usually supporting the base of a roof structure (entablature).] erected as subsidiary decorations, round the cell which contained the idol, and were, through a great part of their space, open to the sky.  The scale on which the Temple was erected was magnificently extensive.  It was 425 feet in length and 220 in breadth, and the columns were 60 feet high.  The number of columns was 127, each of them the gift of a king; and 36 of them were enriched with ornament and colour.  The folding doors were of cypress-wood; the part which was not open to the sky was roofed over with cedar; and the staircase was formed of the wood of one single vine from the island of Cypress.  The value and fame of the Temple were enhanced by its being the treasury, where a large portion of the wealth of Western Asia was stored up.  (A German writer says that the temple of the Ephesian Diana [Artemis] was what the Bank of England is in the modern world.)  It is probable that there was no religious building in the world in which was concentrated a greater amount of admiration, enthusiasm, and superstition.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., s.v.: “entablature” \in‑ta′‑bla‑chur\.

Ibid.

W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, (repr., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 423.

It is easy to see how invested the people of Ephesus “and the world,” i.e., Western Asia, were in this temple for the worship of Artemis was culturally engrained in the lifestyle and economics of the entire region.  It is no wonder that the unions, the businessmen, and the bankers were up in arms.
Acts 19:28 -	And when they heard these sayings, they were full of anger [ pl»rhj qumÒj, plērēs thumos ], and shouted and shouted, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
PRINCIPLE:  The Ephesian union workers are now transformed into a shouting mob by means of anger.  The phrase is “full of anger.”  The word “full” is the adjective plērēs, which means “wholly occupied with, completely under the influence of.”  What occupied and influenced them was “anger,” the ablative of source from the noun thumos.  This is explosive anger which occurs at the reception of information that is viewed by the members as an unjust threat to their livelihoods, their customs, and their culture.  As all mobs do, they began to shout, the ingressive aorist active indicative of the verb:
kr£zw, krazō:	“to cry out; to scream”
imperfect:	Ingressive: used to stress the beginning of an action, with the implication that it continued for some time.
active:	The mob produces the action of prolonged shouting, motivated by intensive anger.
indicative: 	This is an accurate presentation by Luke of a historical event.
Anger is a mental attitude sin which results in verbal sins, heresy being the one expressed here, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.”  Once united in mob frenzy, these men will move toward overt sins.  This is the modus operandi of an aroused mob.
We have this today in a more sophisticated way.  Politicians rouse the rabble by telling them they have been deprived of something; that they are victims because of misdeeds or institutional hatred by those in power.  Once filled with anger, the group becomes a mob expressing its outrage with slogans shouted during demonstrations that can become violent and often metastasize into civil disobedience.
This process is made possible by the strategic use of words to incite violence with the intent of silencing the unwanted challengers.  The manipulation of a group into a mob by means of anger is typical of change agents who have ulterior motives behind their expressed concerns for the alleged injured parties.
Mobs:  When a group of people with common interests are made to feel threatened they become emotional which leads to irrationality.  Emotion cannot think and the problem-solving device is whatever the change agent motivates them to utilize.  Being irrational, the newly formed mob is anxious to oblige.  Once enraged the mob causes disturbances that are designed to threaten or alter the current status quo.  The root cause of mob mentality is anger that is coaxed into bitterness and a change agent can cause the anger to go proactive with his propaganda.
Anger:  This is an emotional mental-attitude sin that expresses hatred, resentment, and bitterness.  There are four words in the Greek of Ephesians 4:26, 31 that express the progression of uncontrolled anger.
The first is Ñrg», orgē which is impulsive anger and can be managed with rebound.  However, if it is allowed to go uncorrected then it will eventually progress into an “angry mood,” expressed by the noun parorgismÒj, parorgismos, an anger that results from being provoked.
If rebound does not correct this then eventually the anger is suppressed where it simmers into pikrÒj, pikros, the Greek word for “bitterness.” 
The fuel for the initial impulsive fire of anger—orgē—is the unfair circumstance to which one reacts.  If biblical solutions are not utilized then an angry mood develops: parorgismos.  Unresolved it is suppressed as bitterness: pikros.
Anger plus bitterness works much like a fire—anger being the flames and bitterness the quiet smoldering embers hidden behind a thin façade of gray ash.
But when you are reminded of what you perceive as an injustice left unaddressed, it provides fuel to the smoldering embers of bitterness causing the embers to billow into flames, manifested by the rage of qumÒj, thumos: explosive anger.
Impulsive anger is motivational anger: orgē (v. 31).  It refuses to either resolve the problem or decide to let it go.  Unresolved it is transformed into an angry mood: parorgismos (v. 26) that is suppressed into chronic sin of bitterness: pikros (v.31).  Fueled with the oxygen of recalling the perceived injustice, these embers billow into the explosive sin of operational anger: thumos (v. 31).
The last two verses of the passage read like this in expanded translation:
Ephesians 4:31 -	All bitterness [ pikrÒj, pikros ], both operational anger [ qumÒj, thumos ] and motivational anger [ Ñrg», orgē ], both brawling and slander, must be removed from all of you along with all evil.
v. 32 -	But become kind, performing gracious acts toward each other, and compassionate, and keep forgiving each other just as God also by means of Christ has forgiven us.

© 2008 by Joe Griffin Media Ministries.  All rights reserved.	www.joegriffin.org