Artemis and commerce

Good morning everyone
So far most of the opposition Paul and the other apostles have faced has been from Jewish leaders who opposed the Christian movement because they saw it as a distortion of their faith. Today we see opposition of a very different kind. Here a silversmith opposes Paul because he worries the spread of Christianity will hurt his business making statues of the local goddess and will generally weaken the civic pride their faith in Artemis produces.

This is often what got Christians in trouble with the Roman Empire. The general line of thinking was that the gods and goddesses protected their various cities and gave them prosperity in exchange for faithful worship and sacrifice. When Christianity spread people worried that this would take away from the worship of other gods and thus cause those gods to stop looking after the city or even bring disaster on it. As Christianity became more important in the religious landscape its interaction with pagan society became as important as the tensions it caused within Judaism.

Acts 19:21-27
21Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, “After I have gone there, I must also see Rome.” 22So he sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself stayed for some time longer in Asia.
23About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. 24A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. 25These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. 26You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. 27And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”