When Jesus' Name Becomes a Weapon: Spiritual Authority vs. Religious Cosplay

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead like dying wasps. I sat in a used car finance office that smelled of stale coffee, desperation, and the particular brand of anxiety that comes from negotiating over something you need and hope you can afford. The salesman was filling out paperwork when he made the mistake of small talk.

"So what do you do for work?"

It's a question I've learned to dread. Not because I'm ashamed of being a pastor, but because of what happens next. The moment I say those words, I watch people transform. Sometimes they shut down completely, suddenly remembering they need to be somewhere else. Other times, like this particular Tuesday afternoon, I accidentally activate what I can only describe as an evangelical sleeper agent.

"Praise the Lord!" he exclaimed, suddenly animated in a way that felt performative and hollow. "Hallelujah! Well, brother, the good Lord must have brought you here today!" The religious confetti kept falling—"Jesus is so good" and "God's got a plan"—while he tried to upsell me on extended warranties and paint protection. He wielded Jesus' name like a sales technique, a magic incantation designed to make me trust him, to make me more pliable, to close the deal.

It was spiritual manipulation dressed up as fellowship. And it made my skin crawl.

I recalled this unfortunately interaction while I was reading Acts 19, a passage that contains one of the Bible's most satisfying examples of spiritual comeuppance. The seven sons of Sceva—traveling Jewish exorcists who had apparently been watching Paul's ministry from the sidelines—decided they could franchise Jesus' power without actually following Jesus' way.

"In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches," they declared to a demon-possessed man, "I command you to come out!"

The demon's response is so perfectly devastating it reads like satire: "Jesus I know, and Paul I'm familiar with, but who the hell are you?" Then the possessed man proceeded to beat them so thoroughly they fled the house naked and bleeding.

The demon could tell the difference between authentic spiritual authority and religious cosplay.

Luke doesn't place this story in isolation. Immediately following this spectacular failure, he tells us how the genuine gospel message compelled people to publicly burn their magic books—texts worth about 165 years of wages.

The contrast is deliberate and pointed: those who tried to use Jesus' name as a technique got humiliated, while those who actually turned toward Jesus' way gave up their tools of manipulation entirely.

In first-century Ephesus, "magic" wasn't about crystal balls or tarot cards. Magic referred to the use of drugs, incantations, and rituals to coerce spiritual forces for personal gain. It was about control, manipulation, bending divine power to serve human agendas. The sorcerers of Ephesus were essentially spiritual mercenaries, selling supernatural solutions to anyone willing to pay.

Sound familiar?

When I watch MAGA Christianity co-opt Jesus for their political theater—wrapping nationalism in gospel language, claiming divine endorsement for policies that harm the vulnerable—I think about those seven wannabe exorcists. When I see televangelists promising prosperity if you just say Jesus' name with enough faith, turning the cross into a cosmic vending machine, I hear echoes of ancient Ephesian magic. When Christian nationalists use "Lord, Lord" language while practicing the opposite of everything Jesus actually taught, I wonder if the demons are laughing at the religious cosplay.

Because that's what it is: cosplay. Performance. Theater.

The sons of Sceva had observed Paul's methods but missed his relationship. They had technique without transformation, formula without faith. They thought they could download Jesus' power like an app, use his authority like a credit card. But spiritual authority doesn't work that way. It can't be borrowed, bought, or faked.

Paul had spent years learning to die to himself so Christ could live through him. The sons of Sceva wanted a shortcut—all the power, none of the surrender. All the authority, none of the cross.

There's something deeply satisfying about this story, isn't there? In a world where Jesus' name gets weaponized for everything from political campaigns to prosperity schemes, where "thoughts and prayers" have become the spiritual equivalent of a participation trophy, it's refreshing to see manipulative religion get its comeuppance.

But the story doesn't end with the sons of Sceva running naked through Ephesus (though honestly, that image alone is worth the price of admission). The real transformation happens when people witness authentic spiritual power and respond by burning their books of manipulation.

One hundred and sixty-five years of wages. Gone. Up in smoke.

These weren't people giving up harmless hobbies. They were destroying their livelihood, their security, their power over others. They were choosing vulnerability over control, relationship over technique, revolution over religion.

I think about what it would look like if American Christianity had a similar bonfire. What would we throw on the flames?

The prosperity gospel, with its promise that God is basically a cosmic slot machine? The purity culture that turned bodies into battlegrounds and sexuality into shame? The nationalism that baptized violence in holy water? The complementarianism that caged half of God's image-bearers? The biblical literalism that turned Scripture into a weapon against the very people Jesus came to liberate?

What would it cost us—really cost us—to follow Jesus instead of just using his name?

Because that's the choice Acts 19 presents: Will we be like the sons of Sceva, trying to leverage Jesus' authority for our own purposes? Or will we be like the Ephesian converts, willing to burn everything that gives us power over others?

The demon knew the difference between Paul and the posers. It recognized authentic spiritual authority—not the kind that dominates, but the kind that liberates. Not the kind that manipulates, but the kind that loves. Not the kind that coerces, but the kind that suffers.

Real spiritual authority looks like Jesus washing feet, not building platforms. It sounds like "love your enemies," not "God and country." It smells like burning the foundations of systems of oppression, not burning books that challenge your worldview.

The sons of Sceva thought they could use Jesus' name like a magic spell. They learned, painfully, that Jesus' name isn't a technique to be mastered but a person to be known. His authority isn't something we wield but something that transforms us. His power isn't something we borrow but something that breaks us open until there's nothing left but love.

That's what the world needs to see from those of us who claim to follow Jesus: less religious cosplay, more naked vulnerability. Less technique, more transformation. Less magic, more love.

The demons can tell the difference. Can we?