Acts 19:1-20 Snap Shots of Power

We've been going through the book of Acts here and what I like to do is kind of set the stage read the read the Text and read the passage every week before we come to worship so that we kind of get our minds Moving towards God at the beginning of our time together.

We've been going through the book of Acts and we've really been given a backstage pass to the God is starting his church show. We're getting a chance to see how God started the church in the very beginning back in the book of Acts and The fact of the matter is as we get further along in the book.

We can begin to lose sight of the main point of the book. Really we get further away from Jerusalem. So as you're as you're reading the book of Acts the church starts in Jerusalem. That's where Jesus was crucified.

That's where he was raised again. That's where he ascended. Those are the core the core events of our faith and So as we as we expand out and we get out into the fringes of where the gospel is spreading and where the church is Spreading we can begin to lose that.

So last week we saw the Apostle Paul went back to Jerusalem. Basically kind of like on vacation. He went to Jerusalem. He went to Antioch and the church in Greece and Asia Minor kept on growing out there at the fringes of the extent of the knowledge of Christ.

Out at the extent of where the gospel is spread it continues to grow. Paul was back there. But if I can summarize the main point of the book of Acts as we come to worship this morning. It is that God is planting his church in the world.

He is the solid foundation of the church. He is the one who is building his church. It's not about the Apostles. It's not about those who are coming to faith in Christ. It's not about those who are working in the church.

It is about God starting his church God planting it and growing it. Jesus said that he would build his church on the confession of the Apostles and The gates of hell would not stand against them. So this morning we're going to get a chance to look at some snapshots of a city where the gates of hell had taken a stand.

Quite literally in the town of Ephesus where we're going to see the entire events unfold in our text this morning we're going to see a a stronghold of Satan a little little stronghold of satanic worship of Demonic influence in this town.

We're going to see where the gates of hell have taken their stand. And we're going to see that they cannot stand at all against the power of God. So as we get a chance to read this text and then sing praises To God let's reflect on the Almighty God who really is not even challenged by The forces of darkness there is no opposition that causes him to even sweat.

No concerns for God. Open your Bibles, please to Acts chapter 19. We'll be looking at 1 through 20 and that's on page 794 in the Bible in the seat back in front of you. So if you choose to use that Bible 794 and if you don't own a Bible we want you to take the Bible that is in the seat back in front of you.

Take that home with you. We want everybody to own a Bible. But follow along Acts 19. We'll read the first 20 verses and it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus there.

He found some disciples and he said to them Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed and they said no. We've not even heard that there's a Holy Spirit and he said into what then were you baptized?

They said into John's baptism and Paul said John baptized with a baptism of repentance. Telling the people to believe in the one who is to come after him. That is Jesus on. Hearing this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And when Paul laid his hands on them the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all and he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief speaking evil of the way before the congregation he withdrew from them and Took the disciples with him reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard the Word of the Lord both Jews and Greeks and God was doing Extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick.

And their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcist undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirits answered them Jesus. I know and Paul I recognize but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them and mastered all of them and overpowered them so they fled out of the house naked and wounded and This became known to all the residents of Ephesus both Jews and Greeks and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

Also many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices and a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and They counted the value of them and found it came to 50 ,000 pieces of silver.

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail.

Mightily, let's pray.

Father I thank you for the victory first and foremost that we have in Jesus Christ that he has come and defeated the powers of darkness on our behalf. Powers that would overwhelm us and destroy us. We are slaves to sin and we are slaves to our own flesh.

And and We just get rolled over time and time again without the power without your power in our lives. But father in you there is great power. There is the authority over all things. In you is freedom from darkness.

And so as we get an opportunity to come before your throne and worship you I ask that we would we would tap into You as the power source as the the one who provides the power for daily living for righteous living for walking with you for having impact on the world around us.

And Father that you would help us to have a healthy balance regarding this battle this war that is waging all around us. That we can become so quick to push aside and ignore and act like it doesn't exist.

I ask that you would help us to engage our world on a spiritual level With the warfare and the tools that the Holy Spirit has given us to wage battle. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Today. Amen.

Thanks a lot to the praise and hopefully you were able to come before the throne of God and worship this morning. Were you able to do that thinking about God turning your attention towards him? That's the point of singing.

We don't just sing songs that recast by the way. This is into my notes. It's a freebie, but we don't we don't sing songs just because that's what you do when you get together as a church but hopefully that when you sing that is an overflow of Gratitude and of the blessings that God has given you.

And I know that you some of you have had rough weeks, right? Some of you've had a rough week. But how many of you can say that even in your darkest and toughest weeks you have some blessings? You have some good things to be thankful for for to God.

So hopefully the the singing in those songs flow out of that now as we get started I want to encourage you you can get up use the restrooms. There's coffee. There's donuts. There's some more juice back there and feel free to get up during the message.

You're not going to distract me unless you get up and shout at me that might that might you know. Stop me for a second. But other than that just make yourself comfortable. Now as we get into this text There's some groundwork that I need to lay at the beginning for us to understand and that is first and foremost that we live in a scientific.

Culture, would you agree with that?

America tends towards a scientific materialistic maybe might be a better way to say it a Naturalistic worldview where we tend to deal in the the realm of stuff. Not immaterial, but material stuff and that's where our common everyday life occurs.

Would you agree with that? You kind of say that's where we live. So that what happens is the idea of spiritual warfare or the idea or the concept that we're in a spiritual war. Can be very far from our minds, right?

You could live a whole week. You could live a whole month. You could potentially live a year without the thought crossing your mind that you're in a spiritual war here in America. Would you say that's true?

There's the potential for us to live that way. Think about this when we're sick. We go to the doctor when our car breaks down. We take it to a mechanic. When we need more income we apply for a credit card.

Don't do that, but but there are aren't there isn't it? Right? There are solutions and we tend to turn towards material solutions first. Now how many of you praise God that there's mechanics people who are I mean, I I do because I can't fix my own car.

Okay. I have a hard time changing a light bulb. You can ask my wife. I've literally broken changing light bulbs. I've broken them in the socket and it's turned into like an hour project anybody else done that.

Thank you. This is so encouraging. I'm not the only one. Okay, so. Okay. Yeah, I can get I can get into a mess just trying to change the simple light bulb but we have solutions for everyday everyday problems that face us and Although I'm grateful that God has given us so many practical solutions To the everyday problems.

I recommend that we take advantage of those. There's a reality that in those solutions often we become less Dependent upon God and we become blind to the reality that there is a spiritual reality. That is running just beneath the surface of all of our day in and day out.

Like I'm not real quick to say that when that light bulb broke off in the socket. It was a demon. Okay, you know, do you know what I'm saying? But could it have been? It could be. I mean I just you know, do we but do we think that way do we think that there could be forces?

Kind of working in the background to just kind of Cause frustration or to do things. I mean Anybody think I'm weird now because I said that because I mean that's what we're gonna look at in the text. Is that there is there is a spiritual dynamic to things that are going on behind the scenes of the material world that we live in.

Do you agree with that?

Okay, maybe not every time that some project goes bad or there's a car accident a demon was to blame but there is a reality to this and the reason I'm bringing us up to begin with is how Different the Ephesian culture that we're going to be dealing with in our text is from where we live.

There's a huge gulf between Madawan and Ephesus in our thinking not necessarily in the reality of the way that things are but in the way that we think about things. They were a culture where the first solution to a problem was to go to a practice a practitioner of the dark arts.

Where wizards and witches were real business not just on the silver screen. But that was really the way that it was and that's where you would go first and if a relationship was broken, where are you going to go.

You're going to go to The the temple of Artemis or you're going to go to one of the temples of one of the gods one of these pagan gods. And you're going to offer sacrifices and you're going to do all kinds of crazy strange bizarre Pagan rituals to try to accomplish or get where you want to go in life, or you need that promotion what are you gonna do you're gonna go make a sacrifice to a.

What what Paul in the book of 1st Corinthians identifies as demons says when you worship idols you're worshiping demons. So you just call it what it is. You're gonna go and make a sacrifice to a demons try to get ahead in life in that culture.

And that's that's their first thought. So when the church enters this context the church is expanding and growing in the book of Acts and it enters and it begins to infiltrate some of these types of areas.

God in our text is going to show the importance how important and superior the Holy Spirit is over the forces of darkness. How powerful is his spirit. So in verse 1 we see Paul coming to Ephesus. He's been on vacay over in Jerusalem and Antioch and Luke doesn't give him any transition time.

It's like he just arrives in Ephesus and boom. He's just back into it. He encounters 12 disciples who have had some understanding about Jesus Christ. But have not been baptized after putting their faith in Christ.

So they haven't been water baptized, but we're also going to see that they do not have the spirit. Which means that if we if we just look at the entirety of Scripture at what Scripture has to say. About when the spirit comes on a person it is when they believe and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

So we are looking different than Apollos. Remember last week Apollos had not been baptized. Was he a believer? Yes, it said that the spirit was alive in him. These 12 are not yet there. They know some things about Jesus they studied some things about him.

But they followed John primarily John the baptizer. They are not in yet. They've been kind of Interested have any of you ever met anybody like that who is interested in spiritual things who has kind of a hunger to know more.

But isn't quite in yet and there they just need they're lacking something that needs to be brought into the situation. Namely the Holy Spirit that faith that comes. And then the spirit comes upon them.

So that's what we're dealing with it here. It's similar to Apollos, but they have a misunderstanding about baptism. They followed John the baptizer thinking that baptism is something that should be done before a person.

Puts their faith and trust in Christ, which was what the baptism of John was. We talked about that last week some of you weren't here the baptism of John was simply saying be baptized in preparation for Giving your life to Christ and the baptism of Jesus Christ is one that comes After you have put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Are you getting that? So disciples of John were baptized before the message was given to them but here in our context and throughout the New Testament baptism is seen to be. The commanded baptism for the church is what comes after you believe.

So they're missing something more though. And so to liken them to policy. It's important that I think that we see what we'd looked at last week in conjunction with this Apollos a believer not baptized.

Needs to be baptized by water. But these guys are not believers. They need to be baptized by water and the Spirit as well. So in verse 4 Paul explains that John the baptizer was a great guy. But he wasn't looking for followers for himself.

Look at what verse 4 Actually says and Paul said John baptized with the baptism of repentance telling the people to follow him and to become his disciples. Is that what the text says? No, it says telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him.

That is Jesus who did John the what was John the Baptist ministry all about? Jesus the one who is to come after him the one he said I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals. John understood his place his proper place in the kingdom.

And he said I'm just a forerunner. I'm just a herald. I'm just a the guy who runs ahead of the king and the king is coming and I'm the guy who runs ahead and hooks. Announcing to all the towns prepare because the king is coming.

That's all he did. And so these guys are followers of John and they need to be become followers of the one John followed.

Jesus.

So once they grasped that they missed the main point of the ministry of John the Baptist. They decided to be baptized a second time this time in the name of Jesus to show that they were all in with him so that shows.

To show what occurs next so to show that the ministry that happens in Ephesus is tied with Paul's ministry. God uses Paul's hands to confer the Holy Spirit. Now that's not something we see regularly in Scripture.

Is anybody kind of think that's a little bit dicey you can put his hands on them. The spirits gonna come upon them. They believe and are baptized by the Holy Spirit in Ephesus this was valuable because Spiritual experiences like tongues and Alleged prophecies were respected.

They were not rare. How many of you know they're rare today? Like to have somebody just get up and speak in a foreign language that they don't understand. They never studied or to have them prophesy stand up and prophesy thus sayeth the Lord.

That's not common today. But in Ephesus that was common that was routine. So tying these manifestations of the spirit to the ministry of Paul gave him some level of local Credibility it gave the Ephesians a sense of like oh we get this this guy has power Associated with him.

So there is an element of street cred that comes with the speaking in tongues and this prophecy. Do you see that he gets some credibility in the eyes of the Ephesians, but that's not all that's going on here.

Because also we see speaking in tongues often associated with the spirit claiming a major new territory. So as the spirit expands in Jerusalem, the very first followers 120 gathered in the upper room the spirit comes on them.

They speak in tongues and three thousand are added to that number that day. Okay, so big movement of God would you say on Pentecost huge deal speaking in tongues occurs there? Then we see the first time that the gospel expands out to Gentiles very first time that non Jewish by birth.

Not ethnically Jewish people put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ in the house of Cornelius. What do we see happen there? Speaking in tongues. Okay another major Bubble burst in the sense of the spread of the gospel.

It's expanding. It's expanding and it's taking on new territory. So what's going on here in Ephesus? Most scholars see this is the expansion of the church and actually a Removal of the hub of the Gentile Church from Antioch to Ephesus.

We're gonna see Ephesus is going to become the central place of Gentile Christianity for centuries big movement. We see speaking in tongues. Okay, so we see that as major movements of God to validate.

It is a how many of you know that if somebody speaks in tongues and they prophesy and they say and things Come to pass that they prophesy you're paying attention to them. Is there some validation something you can see about their faith?

Yeah, you can see something there, right? I mean, you know if I've never studied Russian and I'd present the gospel and eloquent Russian. That's that's kind of that's kind of a little out there. Okay, you with me you can see something is reality in my life.

That is beyond just what you see. I mean, I can't I'm gonna you know, somebody can tell you that they're a Christian. Somebody can tell you they're a follower of Christ, but you just have to take their word for it.

Right. So there's some stamp. There's a validation in this process of speaking in tongues that happens here. So we're gonna look at four snapshots here of the power of God and snapshot one is this The power of God shown in the Spirit in dwelling these twelve Believers and giving miraculous ability of speaking foreign languages and giving prophecies that the seal of the Spirit is there in Ephesus.

Okay demonstrated in power. You see that. Okay, everybody. Okay with snapshot one. Verses eight and nine are snapshot two. And that is the miraculous spread of the word now since Paul received credibility through these twelve men.

He speaks for three months in the synagogue. Okay in the Jewish meeting place now remember that last week we saw Paul went to the synagogue and he went to Ephesus and He was coming through and he left Aquila and Priscilla there and the synagogue requested and said, would you please stay here?

We want to hear more about these teachings and what did Paul say to him?

Anybody remember.

Said no. I'm on my way to Jerusalem I've got plans and I need to get on a ship or else the shipping lanes are gonna close for the winter. I'm on my way back there to give a report and to complete a vow.

But you know what if God wills I will return to you and then we saw I had a PowerPoint presentation of the 1400 mile Journey that Paul took last week and boom. We're back in Ephesus. I mean that was pretty quick, right and he's traveled all the way by foot all the way from current-day Israel basically the area of Lebanon all the way across the country of Turkey to the West.

By foot or by by horse or whatever. We don't really know. He's traveled all that distance in just a couple verses in between here and he's coming back into Ephesus and apparently God willed it. Cuz he's back in Ephesus.

He said if the Lord wills I'll return to you. Oh great that worked out cuz here I am. So God willed it he's there and he is Going to hang out there, but things. What is his message here he's returned his reasoning and he's persuading them boldly about the kingdom of God the text tells us.

Whenever you get confused anybody find some confusion in their mind about this phrase kingdom of God. Like what is the kingdom? Everybody feel pretty good about that. Okay some I know that sometimes the more that you read it in Scripture.

Sometimes it becomes a little bit fuzzy in our mind. Like what is the kingdom and even the more scholarship you read the more fuzzy it becomes because people love to muddy words. And they love to confuse things.

So is the kingdom of God something that's in the future is the kingdom of God something now? The kingdom of God like the earthly ministry of Jesus. What is the kingdom? I think that the easy solution to understanding the kingdom is something is meant by the phrase kingdom.

That is very simple kingdoms are defined by a King. Right all kingdoms have a king and the king is the central point of the word kingdom. So when we talk about the kingdom of God the kingdom of heaven.

There is someone we're supposed to be thinking about in our minds when we think kingdom of God.

Who is that?

Jesus he is the king and he is the king that our our focus is to be on who is the king of the kingdom Of God Jesus Christ. And then you can begin to think what kind of activities do people who are in a kingdom do for the king.

They pledge their loyalty to the king they defend the honor of the king. They serve the king and they receive from the king so you can begin to see. I mean you can work out a theology Of the kingdom of God just by simply realizing the center point of a king of the kingdom of God.

Is that there is a king and his name is Jesus. Just start from there. So that's the message that Paul is proclaiming in Ephesus. There is a king. There is a king and you should be in the kingdom of God.

You should be following that King and you can see how that message rolls out. Things turn all too familiar. However, he's proclaiming the kingdom of God and what happens often at the synagogue. What have we seen as a pattern in the synagogue after synagogue.

After synagogue? He ends up getting The boot right? It's gonna get punted out of the synagogue things turn hostile towards Paul. Some there became stubborn. The text tells us they persisted in their unbelief.

They take it a step further and literally begin to speak evil of the way Christianity was known as the way during that time kind of an interesting title in and of itself the way to salvation. The way to forgiveness the way to eternal life.

It was the way and they begin to speak evil of it in the synagogue. So rather than hang around and argue with the hostile crowd Paul withdraws and begins holding dialogue and what the text translates.

ESV translates at Hall. It's literally the word school so you can do it either way. It is the hall or the school of Tyrannus. It's interesting to note that Paul was not into public argument. He wasn't eager to Argue with the people in the synagogue, so he's not going to get kicked out of the synagogue this time.

He's gonna voluntarily leave like he did in Corinth he would proclaim the truth and Dialogue with people as long as they were respectful and open minded, but when they turned hostile he had no problem moving on.

I Think that speaks to something in our lives as well. And I'll let you draw your own conclusions because you know the people that you interact with and engage with every day. But how many of you have experienced hostility towards your faith?

How many of you think the arguing with that hostility helps?

Does it?

Maybe sometimes just giving them a card with your name and number on it and saying if you ever Find yourself in a pinch. Give me a call. Otherwise, I'm not gonna debate this with you. There's no need for us to argue, right?

Move on but care for them obviously do does that mean that you don't love them? Does that mean that Paul hated and despised the synagogue and was like oh, you know you guys just burned. Was that was that his attitude towards them not at all?

But how many of you know that you're a limited finite being with a limited number of days given to you? And you can't spend it all with one person, right? I mean you could spend your entire life. Just trying to Argue with a hostile person.

When there are others who are eager to hear and need to hear and others who are gonna be hostile to you're leaving them out Of the equation when you're spending time with that one who's hostile. So I mean you get that you get the picture here so he Takes off and heads up heads out and meets at this Hall of Tyrannus where he's speaking and proclaiming I don't doubt for a second that Paul was friendly to those who were civil to him.

So this isn't primarily about not hanging out with those who don't believe it's not it's not their unbelief that Caused him to move on. Are you hearing what I'm saying? It was their hostility that moved him on.

But I mean man if somebody will listen and hear and interact with you and talk with you and they might have they might have Questions and they might put up a you know, some pretty tough questions to you, right?

That doesn't mean that they're hostile towards you. So you got to work through that and figure that out in your relationships. If you need help, I'd love to talk with you further about that. But so for two years the Gospels proclaimed in a culturally acceptable forum there at the Hall of Tyrannus for dialogue.

And.

They're they're working there there's success success as such in the Hall of Tyrannus that the residents of all of Asia get a chance to hear the word of the Lord people are traveling are coming in to Ephesus are hearing going out to the villages and all of this region is reached basically by the Word of the Lord.

It spread throughout the region and the and in that Roman district Asia became an actual stronghold for the Christian faith. Are you ready for this? We're talking about this occurrence somewhere between 50 and 55 ad.

There will be known churches.

Effective.

Witness in that area of Asia Minor until 1929. There will be effective growing healthy churches until the Turks in battle and war actually fight the Greeks and kick them out in 1929. Are you hearing me?

That's the how solid the church was there became a bastion a center stronghold for the Christian faith. What kind of a town are we talking about here? One that's steeped in Spiritism one that is like maybe one of the last places we would want to go on the face of the planet at that time a very uncomfortable place and that's going to be the place where Christianity is going to take the deepest roots in a place that is the darkest.

That's the power of God that we're talking about in our text. Do you see that? Pretty awesome. Snapshot three here is the presence of extraordinary miracles that accompanied the ministry of Paul. Now one thing is I was studying this is and help me see if you agree with me on this.

Do you think that the adjective extraordinary before the word miracles is a bit redundant and Is that registering with you? Extraordinary miracles like like there's ordinary miracles and then there's extraordinary miracles like like just take those two words and bring them apart.

Extraordinary beyond the ordinary routine miracles that you encounter every day. You know, these were extraordinary Miracles now, dr. Luke who is the author of this? He was a medical doctor precise. He was a historian.

He's doing his research. I mean, you know, he he's looking at this from a medical standpoint. He's looking at this from a scientific standpoint. He's looking at this and he's kind of going these were some crazy miracles that happened in Ephesus.

If I'm being honest here, you know, and I'd like to be honest with you guys. These miracles are hard for me. They are. Okay, they're they're just they're a little bit weird miracles. Anybody registering like did you already read the text?

You heard me read it. You you know what I'm talking about here. So you part the Red Sea sure. Why not? That's cool. Okay, or Walk on water Jesus. That's awesome. That's cool. I'm down with that Stop a funeral procession and raise the dead.

Cool.

Amazing love to be there and see that. Okay, but bless some hankies some sweat rags that Paul wore around his head or around his waist or whatever or one that he used to wipe off the sweat while he's making tents bless that and send it to the Sick and watch them get healed.

Anybody a little creeped out by that. Okay, am I the only one or is that nervous laughter? Or is that are you just laughing at me? Um. It's a little weird. Is that weird to you? Raise your hand if that's a little weird to you I mean, I just okay.

It just seems and I think part of the weirdness for me. What makes it feel a little bit wack is That this kind of stuff is abused by televangelists still today. Right. Have any of you ever watched the TV and had them try to sell you a hanky?

Has that raise your hand if you've seen that you've seen it. Okay, it creeps me out a little bit. Okay, and I will bless this hanky and by the way, the more money you spend for the hanky the more blessing you're gonna get.

Right, do you get that you get that picture? So I think that's what weirds me out about it a little bit but what's helped me to come to terms with this miracle is that at the beginning of verse 11 what it says here and God was doing extraordinary miracles God is the one doing this.

You see what do we see on TV? We see somebody blessing their hanky and mailing it to you. This is about God. I don't believe Paul Stood there in the Hall of Tyrannus and came up with hatched a plot and a plan to bless hankies and give them out to People.

I think it was just like oh my goodness. Somebody encountered the sweat rag and they were healed. Whoa. Check this out. God is doing extraordinary Miracles in our presence wasn't some plot or plan of Paul to bless people with his sweat rags.

Happened and.

They were all and just the way Luke writes and calls him extraordinary miracles showed you that he thought it was weird. He was amazed by it. He was like, whoa, this is crazy stuff going on here. I mean the Spirit came on us in power and some amazing stuff happened there the handkerchief aprons.

By the way, I keep calling him sweat rags because technically that's what they were that's what the words that are used here. One was a sweat rag that a Laborer somebody in a guild or in a trade would it would have a rag tied around their mid.

They're there the middle of them here around their waist. To wipe sweat off while they're working because I mean, you know they weren't air conditioners back then and you'd be working and making and working with leather and Cutting and doing all that stuff and sewing stuff together making tents and then there'd be another rag that he would use to wipe off the sweat off of his face and.

Those are the words that are used there. The handkerchief is the one for the face and then the apron is the one around the the waist there. So that's why I keep talking about those and those are the things that were being shipped around and healing people.

The reason these miracles are so important is the proliferation of magic in the town of Ephesus so that we're going to get a chance to contrast what's going on through Paul with Satan's counterfeits in verses 13 through 16 and.

That that passage stands in contrast to the power of God in his work through Paul. So we see these seven Jewish exorcists who are identified as sons of the of a chief priest named Sceva now I say a chief priest if your translation says high priest, but the fact that the the word before that.

Is a.

High a high priest. Let you know that you're talking about a chief priest. Not just because there's only one high priest. So the word can be translated high or chief and so it's not. There is no. You can look back through historical documents.