Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Acts 19:19 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 19. 19Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Reports practitioners burning valuable magic books publicly.
Read It With
- Acts 19:11–19:20
Read Acts 19:19 with 19:11–19:20. In isolation, this contribution—reports practitioners burning valuable magic books publicly—can be mistaken for the scene's whole claim, detached from its speaker or narrator, or separated from its outcome. The complete unit establishes: God works unusual miracles through Paul, itinerant exorcists misuse Jesus' name and are overpowered, fear spreads, believers confess practices, costly magic books are burned, and the word grows.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Reports practitioners burning valuable magic books publicly. This precise contribution belongs inside “Extraordinary healings expose magical imitation” because God works unusual miracles through Paul, itinerant exorcists misuse Jesus' name and are overpowered, fear spreads, believers confess practices, costly magic books are burned, and the word grows.
Follow the Context
- God works unusual miracles through Paul, itinerant exorcists misuse Jesus' name and are overpowered, fear spreads, believers confess practices, costly magic books are burned, and the word grows.
- The unit distinguishes narrated event, participant speech, the narrator's framing, material uncertainty, and the ethical boundary: The scene does not endorse relic sales, formulaic exorcism, anti-medical practice, coercive book burning, or fabricated deliverance claims.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not detach its specific contribution—reports practitioners burning valuable magic books publicly—from Acts 19:11–19:20 or negate the unit's explicit boundary: The scene does not endorse relic sales, formulaic exorcism, anti-medical practice, coercive book burning, or fabricated deliverance claims.
What Remains True
Acts 19:19's particular contribution—reports practitioners burning valuable magic books publicly—shows that faithful witness remains accountable to the verse's speaker, narrated setting, affected people, and the complete movement of Acts 19:11–19:20.
How It Can Shape Life
- Practice Acts 19:19's particular contribution—reports practitioners burning valuable magic books publicly—through this passage-controlled response: Reject magical imitation and spiritual name-dropping; treat repentance as concrete renunciation without using fear to coerce vulnerable people.
Teach It Back
Explain Acts 19:19's precise role in Acts 19:11–19:20. Distinguish narrator and speaker, include the first Jewish, Gentile, household, disabled, enslaved, imprisoned, or Roman horizon as relevant, disclose the material uncertainty, and name one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Acts 19:11–19:20 — Extraordinary healings expose magical imitationSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The narrator explicitly calls the miracles extraordinary, making them a poor template for routine commerce; the sons of Sceva tradition and the value calculation contain textual and historical questions.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and unit coverage.
Exact location: Acts 19:11–19:20, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control, without pretending one edition is a complete apparatus.
Exact location: SBLGNT official text, Acts 19:11-19:20
Open the Acts Greek text file ↗Lexical and grammatical evidence
STEP Bible Data
Tyndale House Cambridge
Tyndale House Cambridge, repository snapshot verified 2026
Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for words explicitly discussed in this unit.
Exact location: STEP Bible Data, TAGNT rows for Acts 19:11-19:20
Open source ↗open translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Acts
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, geography, chronology, and historical notes actually printed for the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Acts PDF, printed pp. 2104-2205, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 19:11–19:20
Open source ↗open university bible study course
Acts of the Apostles Course and Study Guides
Yale Divinity School faculty
Yale Bible Study, 2019
Supports: Introductory critical orientation to the unit's place in Luke-Acts, with contested judgments retained as interpretations.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study Acts course, course unit 'Co-operative Ministry,' Acts 18-20 study guide
Open source ↗open confessional commentary
The Acts of the Apostles
Alan J. Thompson
The Gospel Coalition, 2023
Supports: One complete confessional commentary reading, independently checked against the text and critical controls.
Exact location: Thompson, online Acts commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Acts 19:11–19:20
Open source ↗primary manuscript transcription
Codex Bezae: Electronic Transcription of Acts
International Greek New Testament Project
Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, University of Birmingham, 2012 transcription; current online edition
Supports: Direct manuscript evidence only where a material Western reading is named; Bezae is not treated as the Western text as a whole.
Exact location: IGNTP Codex Bezae Acts transcription, verse-addressable witness at 19:11–19:20, checked with SBLGNT and the NET tc note
Open source ↗