Acts 19:18

Acts 19:18. And many that believed came, and confessed, and showed their deeds. The ‘fear' of the Unseen came not only upon the superstitious idolaters of Ephesus, but, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira above related, upon the Church. It was a saddening confession, however, for the inspired writer of the ‘Acts' to put down. But such a statement pleads with strange power for the truth of the whole story. St. Luke, or whoever wrote the history of the first days, never hesitates to chronicle the Church's shame as well as the Church's glory. It was indeed a humiliating confession, which told how many of Paul's converts at Ephesus, men and women who apparently has devoted their lives to Paul's Master, who had accepted with the lips, at least, the doctrine of the precious blood, had all the time been living lives and committing deeds utterly at variance with the pure and holy religion they professed.