<p>19:18 <em>Many also of those that had believed came</em>- After seeing what happened to the sons of Sceva, it would appear that some who had &lsquo;believed&rsquo; went up to a higher level of commitment. This would seem to imply that despite having &lsquo;believed&rsquo;, perhaps with the same level of shallow conviction as some &lsquo;believed&rsquo; in the teaching of Jesus during His ministry, their faith wasn&rsquo;t so deep. They were taken up to an altogether higher level of commitment, resulting in &lsquo;confessing and declaring&rsquo;, and quitting their involvement with magic. &ldquo;Many that were now believers&quot; there (RSV) &quot;came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men... so mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed&quot; (Acts 19:18,19). The language here seems to be intended to connect with the description of baptism in Mt. 3:6, where converts confessed and shewed their deeds <em>at baptism</em>. The way the Ephesians made their statement &quot;before all men&quot; again recalls the concept of baptism as a public declaration. Yet the Ephesians did all this <em>after</em> they had believed. It would seem that we are being invited to consider this as a re-conversion, a step up the ladder. The context is significant. Some who had pretended to be believers and to have the Holy Spirit are revealed for who they are: &quot;they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all... dwelling at Ephesus. And fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified&quot;. The fact that the Lord Jesus is so essentially demanding, the way in which ultimately He will judge insincere profession of His Name- this motivated the new Ephesian converts to take their relationship with Him seriously (compare how the Lord's slaying of Ananias and Sapphira also inspired a great desire to associate with Him, Acts 5:11-14).</p><p><em>Confessing</em>- There are many connections between Luke's Gospel and his second volume here in Acts. The reference here would be to the Lord's comment recorded only by Luke that whoever confesses s.w. Him before men will be confessed before the Father in Heaven (Lk. 12:8). Note that their confession was before all men (:19). Luke saw that confession as not simply at baptism; because these were believers who were now 'coming out' at a higher level of conversion. Here, they confess their sins; in Lk. 12:8 they confess 'Jesus'. To confess Him therefore involves confessing sin. Perhaps Paul had this incident in view when he later wrote of how confession is made unto salvation (Rom. 10:10).</p><p><em>And declaring their sinful deeds- </em>God seems to have recognized with pleasure the degree to which Paul modelled his life on John, in that Paul's experiences of life were over-ruled to have connections with those of John. These connections simply could not have been engineered by Paul; e.g. the way in which they both died in prison at the behest of a crazy, woman-influenced despot. The Spirit also seems to make connections between John and Paul in the manner in which it describes them (e.g. Lk. 1:14 = Acts 15:13; 13:52; Lk. 1:15 = Acts 9:17; 13:9; Lk. 3:18 = Acts 13:15-19; Jn. 1:7,8,15 = Acts 23:11; 26:22; Jn. 3:27 = 1 Cor. 2:8-16). And the Spirit in Acts 19:18 seems to portray Paul in the language of John: &quot;they came (to Paul) and confessed, and shewed their deeds&quot; - just as men had to John.</p>