The Greek verb ektarasso is a compound of ek (intensifier) and tarasso (to disturb, agitate), meaning to greatly disturb, throw into confusion, or thoroughly agitate. It appears only once in the NT (Acts 16:20), where Paul and Silas are accused of "throwing our city into an uproar" in Philippi.
Acts 16:16-24 records the arrest of Paul and Silas in Philippi. The charge against them — ektarasso, causing great civic disturbance — was technically about social order but was really about spiritual disruption. Every significant gospel advance in Acts generates turmoil: the message of Jesus disturbs entrenched powers, economic interests (the slave girl's owners lost their profit), and social structures. This pattern fulfills Jesus' own warning: "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). The gospel's apparent chaos is the disruption of the kingdom of darkness. Paul and Silas's midnight hymns (Acts 16:25) transformed the prison's agitation into worship.