Background to the Letter to the Ephesians

Transcript

GR 2303
01/31/21
Background to the Letter to the Ephesians
Acts 18 - 20
Gil Rugh

I want to start a new study with you today that will be in the book of Ephesians but we will start with looking at the background to that letter and that church by looking into the book of Acts and that is what we will look at today. So if you want to get ready, you can turn into your Bibles to Acts 18 and 19 which is where we will start. But as a background and a little bit of foundation I just want to read a couple of comments to you from two different books, I just took these out. We are going to see in the book of Acts, as you see in the whole book of Acts, but we will see the church at Ephesus established by Paul in his ministry in bringing the gospel to these areas.
We as a church today, we want to be in line with the church at Ephesus, and it is a great church, a special church, and is named several times. We will be looking in the letter written to them. There is another letter addressed to them in the book of Revelation 2. Key part. Paul will spend three years of ministry on his third missionary journey at this church, and he has other contacts. My concern is the gospel that Paul is bringing to these parts of the world is the gospel that has been passed down to us, but within the umbrella of evangelicalism today there is a corrupting of that gospel and an altering of it.
So as preparation for us looking at Paul bringing his ministry of the gospel to Ephesus, I want us to be aware of some of the changes that are being made in the gospel, the only gospel, in our own day. And particularly I am concerned about those who claim to be evangelicals. That has become a broad word, but those who would claim that the Bible is the word of God, that Jesus Christ is the one who died, was raised from the dead, and we must believe in Him for salvation. And yet we are being told today that is not enough. I just copied a couple of pages from a book so I didn’t have to bring the book up. This is by a man who is in ministry in South America, the rest of the book is about ministry in this country. But this man’s ministry is included, as they say, in the preface to the book because it is in agreement with where they all are. This book published by an evangelical seminary, Denver Seminary.
So here is the view that they believe is wrong; what they believe was the problem with the church is called dispensational premillennialism. Which is what we are in case you may be newer here. And basically that is just the view that we take the Bible literally and that includes future things as well as present and past things. We accept the Bible at “face value,” we interpret it literally. Premillennial… we believe the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth to establish an earthly kingdom. That the church and Israel are distinct entities because we interrupt the Bible literally and that the message of Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is the message that must be proclaimed so that the lost can hear it, believe it, and experience God’s salvation, and the wonder of what was even presented with the songs this morning.
So this person writing, he happens to be a graduate of Dallas Seminary with a doctor’s degree in 2000 and is in ministry in South America. He says, “Dispensational premillennialism was the theological framework that supported the missions approach of the dispensational evangelism that was sent to Latin America through the faith missions movement.” The faith mission movement was the missionary movement to carry the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection, to other parts of the world. He is particularly focusing on Latin America. The faith mission was that it wasn’t connected to denominations, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, but it was money raised by Bible-believing Christians and given to a mission organization so that they could support people to carry the gospel, and here in this case to South America. And Tory Johnson, some of you may be familiar with him and his ministry of past days, connected with Youth for Christ and Billy Graham, but he says here is what their mission is about. He is writing in a mission’s work, this was in 1950 so this precedes a good number of you. I see some white hairs, some of you may go back this far. But this is what it was like in 1950, here is what he says, “The supreme task of the church of Jesus Christ is to evangelize the world as quickly and as effectively as possible, by ‘evangelize’ we do not mean to educate, to cultivate, to Christianize. By ‘evangelize’ we mean to announce, to proclaim, to witness to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.” I think that is a fine, concise statement of what we are doing in evangelizing, taking the gospel to the lost.
This writer is saying that’s not a complete gospel. Tory Johnson presented what he saw as complete, this man is criticizing that view. Let me read you of a couple more articles, parts out of this book. Now this man presenting… this is his writing, the former was Tory Johnson writing from the dispensational premillennial view which this man does not agree with even though he attended Dallas Seminary. He is very critical of the professors that were there, like Charles Ryrie, John Walvoord, Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder, and so on. This man says “Surely the spiritual element is a primary aspect of the gospel but in dispensational evangelism it’s been the only aspect. Within dispensational evangelicalism this emphasis is on the individual who is spiritually and morally transformed without regard to his or her social contexts. It is an individual spiritual salvation thus the mission of the church according to the thought and practice of dispensation evangelism in Latin America is to save people, to save souls from eternal damnation.” I think that is right. Isn’t that why we bring the gospel to people, the lost, whether here or in another country, to save souls from eternal damnation?
He finds a problem with that. He says, and there is much in the article -- but the evangelical holistic missions approach. Now any time you see the word ‘holistic’ in connection with evangelism, missions, the gospel, there ought to be red lights flashing everywhere because that means it is more than just the message of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to pay in full the penalty for sinners. So he is saying the evangelical holistic missions that developed in Latin America during the second half of the 20th century -- now we have a new development in approach to missions. What I read you to begin with by Tory Johnson, that was the old way, the end of the 19th century, the first part of the 20th century. You just went there to save souls, to bring them the message of Christ as the way, truth, and life and you must believe in Him. But a new approach developed in the last half of the 20th century that reveals a transitional movement within evangelicalism. It is a transition from the non-holistic missions approach represented by traditional dispensational and fundamentalist evangelicalism into the holistic missiological approach (the holistic approach to missions) of the emergent contextual evangelicalism. Contextual evangelicalism is also been called in Latin America, new evangelism or evangelicalism. (Some of you have studied neo- or new-evangelicalism.)
And then they go on, the changes in theology that had to be made. Let me just read to you from another book that is not dealing with missions at all but says the same thing. Again in the past -- to summarize what leads to this statement -- the approach to our evangelism was bring the gospel: the death, burial, and resurrection. We were concerned about the salvation of souls so they would not have to spend eternity in hell. He says, “No longer is this the emphasis,” and he is in favor of the new emphasis. “Over the past few decades the evangelicals have increasingly talked about a holistic gospel...” Not just the gospel but a holistic gospel, because what they are saying is the death and resurrection is not the whole gospel. So now the past few decades evangelicals have begun to talk about a holistic gospel. Now note this, “…that incorporates in its salvation story a Jesus who came into the world to minister to all needs of a hurting humanity: physical, and social, as well as spiritual.” And what both articles… And I don’t want to read anymore right now, more about that this evening in our discussion time. They have said now the gospel is not only the death, burial, and resurrection of sins, that is important, you got to have that, but if that is all you have you don’t have the gospel in its fullness, you don’t have the whole gospel. You have to have being involved in changing the social, racial, justice, situations of people.
That is the Galatian heresy, those of you who are familiar with the book of Galatians, the Judaizers said it is important to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But that in of itself is not enough, that is not the whole gospel, you also have to include requirements of the Mosaic Law. Paul said that’s not a variation of my gospel, that is a totally different gospel and whoever preaches it is anathema, cursed to hell. Now what they are saying is, it’s fine, you have to have the death, burial and resurrection of Christ but that is not enough. If you don’t have a plan to meet the social problems, the social injustices, that transform the life situation of people, you don’t have the whole gospel. So missions… And they admit it transformed Latin America from just a Roman Catholic country. An estimate, 70% of the people down there that are Christians, biblical Christians, were transformed by that original, incomplete gospel. But somehow they are blind. This is where evangelicalism, as they note, is going and has been going for the last half of the 20th century and into our present day.
I want that as a background because as we go through and see what Paul, we in our present situation -- we are dispensational premillennialist and believe the gospel is the gospel plus nothing -- we are more and more out of step with the evangelical world. Seminaries like Denver Seminary, their whole book was about a different theology (there again, I may mention more tonight). Gets into the whole view of the kingdom and if we are in the kingdom we do kingdom work and the kingdom will bring perfection to society and to injustices. So if we are in the kingdom we need to be just as much about that as we do about saving souls. And so now we elevate that and that is all the gospel. As I shared with you, others who use the analogy of two legs, and there are two legs to the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and the social transformation of society. And if you have only one leg you don’t have the complete gospel, you are not really doing the work of God.
As we come and see how Paul carried out his ministry in the book of Acts, he was driven by one thing, bring the message of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are going to read about where he is going to spend three years at Ephesus. You know what else he does besides minister at Ephesus? He writes a letter to the Corinthian church because he had visited those Corinthians in an earlier ministry, see that on a map in a moment. And you know what he reminds the Corinthians of? “When I came to you” with the gospel of Jesus Christ “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2) Now what do we say to men who claim to be evangelical Christians who say Paul brought an incomplete gospel, he didn’t bring them the whole gospel? He said, “ I determined to know nothing among you,” it is like I don’t know anything but this one thing: Christ Jesus died to pay the penalty of your sin and there is no salvation apart from believing in Him, His death, burial, and resurrection. Well, that is not the complete gospel. Paul said that is all I brought to you Corinthians; that is all he brings to the Ephesians.
Why don’t you put up the map of Paul’s second missionary journey, we are going to look at the last two of Paul’s missionary journeys. He starts out here in Antioch of Syria, that is his home base, if you will. He is going to transfer up. We are on his second journey here. He did an earlier one but that really primarily centered in this region. This is the region of Galatia over here, the letter to the Galatians is written to these churches, this is where it occurred. But we are on the second missionary journey now. So he starts out here in Antioch, and he goes back and revisits these churches he established here on a prior journey. Then he is going to cross over and you’re into the realm called Asia here, Asia Minor. Don’t think of Far East Asia like Japan, China, and so on. We talk about Asia, it is a region more identified with present day Turkey. And the Spirit of God would not allow him to enter into this region and have a ministry in this area, so he will proceed on and end up going over into Greece. Then you come down into Greece but when he leaves Greece he is going to go by boat because that is the quickest way across. He will do this on his second journey.
The next one we are going to look at he is going to retrace his steps and go back up this way, but as you can see it is longer. He crosses over by boat and he’ll have a brief stop at Ephesus. Remember Luke is writing this history and you can’t write it all. Paul’s three-year ministry at Ephesus would be condensed into chapter 19 of the book of Acts. Now obviously Luke could have written a lot more about Paul’s ministry, but you can’t write it all or we would have multiple volumes for our Bible. Look in Acts 18, we are told he leaves Greece so he is traveling across from the region of Greece here. Macedonia is the Roman northern province of Greece, Achaia is the southern province, but this is all Greece. Philippi is up here and Corinth is down here, Athens is down there as well. So when Paul leaves his ministry there, particularly at Corinth and is going to cross over to Asia, there will be a brief stop, perhaps for the ship to take off cargo, to put on cargo, and so, and he will have a ministry there. In verse 18 he takes off, his real journey is to get all the way back eventually here to his original starting point. But it says in verse 19 they came to Ephesus so this is where he is traveling. He has done his missionary journey up around, he has carried the gospel into Greece, now he is on his way back home, he is going a different route. He crosses over and he came to Ephesus, he left them there (he is talking about Priscilla and Aquila). Now what Luke is doing is condensing things but preparing us for chapter 19 because the book of Acts from chapter 13 on is about Paul and Paul’s travels. So the other things are inserted just to help us understand what Paul is doing. But from chapter 13 of Acts on, so everything…
He is going to get into Paul’s ministry in Ephesus in chapter 19, this will prepare us for that. In verse 19 they came to Ephesus and Priscilla and Aquila are with him. That is important because they are going to stay in Ephesus so we know there is some ministry going on there before Paul comes back on his third journey. He “came to Ephesus, he left them there” when he leaves so that just tells you what happens with Priscilla and Aquilla cause we will pick them up in a little bit. “Now he himself entered the synagogue” at Ephesus, this is what Paul practiced because he is a Jew, good place to start is with Jews because he is going to talk to them about the Jewish Messiah and the prophecies of the Old Testament regarding the coming of Messiah. Then he's going to point out to them, yes, He had come to establish the Kingdom but He was rejected, and that is what the Old Testament said. Remember when Luke left off his account in the gospel, He had explained to them, His disciples, how the Old Testament scriptures prophesied His coming, His rejection, His death and resurrection. Peter, a Jew, speaking to the Jews in Acts 2 takes the Old Testament, explains that. So he goes into the synagogue and reasons with the Jews and it is making an impact, they are interested. But Paul does not believe he can stay longer so when they ask in verse 20 to stay longer he did not consent, he took leave of them, and set sail from Ephesus. And he is going to come over here and land at Caesarea. Then he will journey to Jerusalem and then he will be going up.
So the pattern here of his coming, can trace it down there, to summarize the points. Then we are going to come back and we are going to be back in Ephesus, look at verse 24, Luke tells when he gets back home he is going to leave again, we will look at that in a moment. So verse 23 gives you that, but let’s go back to Ephesus, cause that will help prepare you, cause where Paul is going when he leaves on his third journey is going to focus primarily in Ephesus. “Now a Jew named Apollo, an Alexandrian by birth.” Alexandria is in Egypt. It was an intellectual center, great library, a large contingent of Jews in Alexandria. So he is now up speaking in Ephesus, doesn’t give a lot of detail because Luke is not interested in giving the life of Apollos, this is about Paul. But he is brought in because Apollos is going to have a ministry at Ephesus and Paul is coming to Ephesus, but Apollos will have already left so his part of helping fills in a little bit of the picture. Came, and Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, he came to Ephesus. “He was mighty in the scriptures,” here is a man who knew his Old Testament, was an eloquent speaker, he could get his message across, he could present it in a clear, understandable way.
“This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord,” and that expression ‘the way,’ we won’t take time to look at all of them, but it becomes a key expression in book of Acts to talk about Jesus Christ who said He was what? The way, the truth, and the life. The way to salvation, the way to the living God, the way He has provided for us, so here it’s the way of the Lord. Down at the end of verse 26, Priscilla and Aquila will explain the way of God more accurately. When you get down into chapter 19 verse 9, the middle of the verse, some will begin to speak evil of the Way. We had a cult a number of years ago who called itself ‘The Way’ but they were nothing biblical. But the book of Acts will use that expression, it is a synonym for the gospel because what? It is telling you the way to salvation, Jesus founded that, ‘I am the way,’ so let me tell you about the way, I am telling you about Jesus Christ cause He is the way.
So he was speaking in the way of the Lord, what he knew to that point about what a man should do to be acceptable to God but he was “acquainted only with the baptism of John.” Now that is going to connect us to chapter 19. That is what Paul is going to find when he gets there. Apollos was evidently saved. How? Was he in Jerusalem when John the Baptist was preaching? We don’t know, maybe some disciples of John had come to Alexandria, that wouldn’t be unusual. Remember what John preached, baptism for repentance of sins, believe, get ready for the Messiah, that is all he knew about. Keep in mind these are different days than ours, we travel in seconds on our computers. People are watching us in other parts of the country and you turn on you computer and if it takes 11 seconds you wonder what is wrong with this thing, I have to replace it. You know, it ought to be now. You know, we lose sight of the fact that in those days…
We will look at the third missionary journey when Paul will travel from Antioch all the way over to Ephesus, it is 1,500 miles, but it takes a long time to do that. It would take you a long time to walk to the coast, one of the coasts, we are about the middle, don’t get too precise. If you where just going to walk there but if you had to walk on backroads and paths and so on, it could take a long time. That is what we are talking about in those days, so he is only acquainted. Priscilla and Aquila, now you find out why we had to be told they were at Ephesus, and Paul left them there. They explained to Apollos the way more accurately, the end of verse 26. What John the Baptist preached has taken place, the Messiah came. The Holy Spirit has been given, salvation is found through believing in Christ and they could explain to him from the Old Testament scriptures as Paul would do. That it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and die and be raised from the dead on the third day, Isaiah 53 and so on.
Well, now he could teach the message with the clarity up-to-date, if you will. So we are told once he had that he decided he wanted to go to Greece, so we are not going to follow his ministry, he is in Ephesus but he is going over to Achaia to carry on a ministry and he will have a ministry there. At the end of verse 27 we are told he greatly helped those who had believed when he crossed over to Achaia, probably at the church of Corinth. He had a ministry and he was doing what? Powerfully refuted the Jews in public demonstrating by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. Showing that is the key, show He is the one the Old Testament prophesied, He is the Savior, you must believe in Him.
Now that is at Greece, now we can come back to chapter 19:1. Now “while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples,” verse 1. It happened while Apollos was at Corinth so here is what he has done. Paul leaves here again, and he is going up through this region, similar but not the same because before he wasn’t allowed to go into Asia, so he went up and around, over, and into Greece. Now we are not told why the Spirit planned for him to do that. I don’t know, couldn’t he have gone this way first, and then the other way? God plans. So this is the way he is going, its 1,500 miles as I mentioned, but it is not direct. It is not like getting on the interstate and going east or west at 75 mph, it’s a long walk, now you see what this would entail. So Paul passed through this region here which is Galatia, the green on the map, so he would have ministered to the churches he had established and would have had time. In those days time wasn’t marked off by the second hand on your watch, so he’d stop. We are not told much about it because Luke is summarizing again. If he stopped and told you day by day what Paul did, again we would have voluminous account. Now sometimes we figure it seems something is left out, yeah, a lot is left out.
But he comes to Ephesus and he found some disciples and “he said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said to him, ‘No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.’ ” So it’s a similar thing to what the situation of Apollos was before he was educated. Now these kind of Jewish believers would be coming in and out. You know, how would you communicate? The Messiah has come and died and raised from the dead, salvation is found in Him, the kingdom has not been established because He has to come again and that is what the Old Testament… Now you can get on the internet and find out whatever you want and all of us carry a Bible either in the printed form or on your electronic device. In those days these were handwritten letters, weeks to get them conveyed from one place or another. You talk about unreliable mail service, what are you doing? Ships sink and they had the mail on it so it was lost and who knew what mail. Robbers come and it’s like Paul talked about, dangers on land, dangers on sea, how would you get this message out? It takes time!
So here you have these disciples, did you receive the Holy Spirit and you believed? We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. What did you get baptized into? Well, John’s ministry, so they were like Apollos was before he got straightened out. Well, I either heard the ministry of John the Baptist when I was there for a trip or we heard it, somebody brought it to us, or those kind of ways. Well, Paul explained to them that John baptized with the baptism of repentance, repent of your sins and believe the truth concerning the coming Messiah, be ready for Him. Well, the Messiah has come, He died. John died, John the Baptist, without understanding and knowing the fullness of his ministry. Remember while he is in prison, he begun to wonder did I miss something, is something left out? He didn’t understand there were going to be two comings to earth of the Messiah. So these, yeah, we heard John prophesied the Holy Spirit would come when the Messiah came but we haven’t hear anything about the Holy Spirit coming. So don’t think of the world as shrunk as we talk about like our day where we find out what’s going on in another part of the world instantly almost. In those days it might be months, maybe years, because you have to be in the right place when they are talking about the right thing to get caught up on these things. Any rate they believed and they’re baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. We’re no longer just the followers of John, we are followers of the Messiah.
“When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.” Again in this passage, if you aren’t careful in handling the word of God consistently, literally consistently, people come to this passage and say well, see you have to get the Holy Spirit as a second blessing. I was taught that earlier in my conversion from well-meaning people. Well, didn’t it say in Acts did you get the Holy Spirit when you believed? Well, no. And what will be the sign when you get it? You will speak in tongues, you get the second work of the Spirit. Understand this is a unique phenomena to give evidence and proof that the message that Paul and others, particularly the apostles, are now preaching is a message from God. How do I know? Well, miracles are done. Remember Paul said I have evidence that I am an apostle, my ministry is characterized by signs, wonders, and miracles in 2 Corinthians 12. Not everybody is running around doing miracles. The apostles have those kinds of signs, because Paul is going to write the letter to the Ephesians, how do you know that is genuine? Well, sure, you say that Jesus of Nazareth was a Messiah and He was crucified and buried but you know Jews in Jerusalem say that His disciples stole His body. How do I know you are telling me the truth, that He really raised from the dead? I mean, again you get removed from this. Well, Paul does miracles, they speak in tongues.
In the book of Acts, tongues occur on four speaking occasions, speaking in another language they didn’t learn, when it comes with a new group each time. Acts 2, when the Jews hear and believe the gospel the day of Pentecost, Acts 2, they speak with other languages. Acts 8, the Samaritans, they are a specially unique group. Remember Jesus’s contact with the woman at the well in Samaria. The Jews and the Samaritans have no dealings. Samaritans were Jews who through the captivities of the tribes had intermarried so they are mixed blood and they created their own mixed religion at Mount Gerizim. Remember? It was a totally different group, different system. When Jesus sent out His disciples during His earthly ministry He told them only go to Israel, do not go to the city of the Samaritans or the Gentiles, so they are a separate, distinct group. When they hear and believe the gospel and Peter comes to them, they speak with tongues. In Acts 10, when the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius hear the gospel and respond, they speak with tongues. Now here we have these disciples of John in this part of the world.
What happens, each of these groups… what the Spirit of God is assuring that we don’t have different churches starting but they are all gathered under the apostles’ authority and teaching. When we get into Ephesians, the church is built on the teaching of the prophets and apostles, so it important to the church, otherwise the Samaritan church would have had its mixed up religious beliefs and the Gentiles church would have had its. But the purpose of the Jesus Christ is all… You know, in Christ there is neither Jew or Gentile, bond or free, male or female because they were not joined together on the basis of that kind of identification, so it is crucial that this happens. So there is not two churches, the churches of John the Baptist, mighty as he was as a prophet, and others. That is why you have these in the book of Acts, it is a transition time, and with the passing of the apostles we have the completed word of God that stands as its own authority.
True, in the Old Testament, its not miracles happening everywhere all the time. There are groupings of miracles like Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, the days of Elijah, and times of great apostasy, that is true. The book of Acts is a transition book. So what happens he sees these converts, there is twelve men, so that’s not a large group and there would have been other believers, Apollos was there and ministered, Priscilla and Aquila where there and ministered. You add these twelve men, we are getting a nucleus here for a church and that is important because they’re going to be elders appointed in this church. Maybe that’s why we are told there are twelve men here. We think where did they get the elders? Well, they would have had to been men who where qualified. These men, they had an advantage like Paul, they are not saved but having been saturated with the Old Testament they began with a head start. But most of us Gentiles, we get saved, we delve into the Old Testament and we are in a world of hurt, can’t put it all together. For the Jews that is already there. We know all about the creation account, we know all about Abraham, we know all about David, we know the prophets, so now they have to have it put together for them in a clear way and when they believe then that all comes.
So any rate, there are believers here, so he spends three months in the synagogue, showing up regularly to interact with the Jews because you have a starting point. The starting point is the Jewish scriptures and Paul knew them well, remember, Pharisee of the Pharisees, well-versed in the details of the Old Testament. Now he understands and can show them how Christ fulfills the scriptures. He had to suffer and die. You are looking for a Messiah who comes and reigns in glory because you have overlooked parts of the scripture that you didn’t want to have to see. But as he explains it, the Spirit of God opens eyes and people are saved, spends three months in the synagogue. But you know, something happens the longer the word of God is proclaimed, this is true in scripture and we need to remember it. Remember the book of Ecclesiastes reminded us, don’t say the former days were better, they were what they were. It is a pattern, the day of Pentecost 3,000 people are saved and baptized, soon it goes to 5,000 but you know what? By the time you get to the book of Acts, where is Paul? He is in prison.
We think, well, it will just grow, pretty soon the whole world would be saturated but it doesn’t happen that way cause the devil doesn’t go away, the opposition to truth. So verse 9, the opportunity for ministry is a three month ministry, then the Jews who don’t believe start to plant their feet and openly oppose. Verse 9, “Some were becoming hardened and disobedient.” Remember that, 2 Corinthians 2, and the word of God either hardens or softens. Something happening when you listen to the word of God and every time you resist it there is a further hardening that takes place till finally the final hardening and God turns you over to your sin as we have talked about. Serious thing to listen to the word of God. That is what Paul says to the Corinthians, that the word that we preach hardens some and softens some. Here “some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people,” so opposition is built. We didn’t say, well, Paul, what did he do wrong, he should have kept this going. He doesn’t keep it going, we can’t keep it going; we are entrusted with the responsibility and we are thankful for those times that are the ‘in’ times, in season and out of season.
There was a response for three months; he has the freedom to go to the synagogue but that door closes, so he goes next door to the school of Tyrannus. This is probably not an individual, that is his formal name, because the word means ‘tyrant.’ Now we who believe in depravity from conception might think you could name your baby ‘tyrant’ because you see what is coming but it probably wasn’t his name. Professor Tyrant… his students might have looked at him that way. Some of you in school thought some of your teachers were tyrants. I didn’t think that, I knew some of my teachers were. But it was a school, maybe known for its discipline, for its strictness, we don’t know. But Paul evidently could rent the building when it wasn’t used. There is an old manuscript, an old Greek manuscript, that says he rented this facility from 11 to 4:00 which would have been the time of a break; where they got up early, did work, and then they took a break, then they went back to work. We don’t know, this was a suggestion. Any rate, where did the money come from? Perhaps Priscilla and Aquila, cause remember they are merchants, so they carry on a ministry but they run a business, so we don’t know. But he has the money, they probably rent this facility.
So verse 10, for two years he is there and “all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. This is where the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3 would have originated from. This time Paul is not the one going out but people are coming in and going out. He has people working with him, as we will see when we later get into Ephesians, that they go out to other places. People that are saved here go back to other cities in the area, so you have the establishing of churches in different cities in this area of Asia. You note what they do, they hear the word of the Lord.
We don’t have anything in here about Paul talking about how we are going to reform society, how we are going to deal with the issue of slavery. And much of the Roman Empire was kept going with slaves, it was the realistic part of the empire. But the empire was built by conquering the enemy, when you conquered the enemy you could take them as your slaves, so slavery was a natural part. You don’t find Paul ‘we have to get into this, some of the poverty situations we have to rectify, and social injustice,’ it is not there, I’m not interested… Those with the articles I read to you don’t primarily go to Paul’s letters to talk about the gospel. They go to the gospels Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John to try build a theology of what the church ought to be. The church is not even in existance during the time covered in the gospels. They build what they want and then they end up corrupting the gospel as it truly is now in its simplicity. Paul is not talking about anything we’ve got to do to get society right, to try to win people by we are here to improve your lot in life. I am here to tell you truth. They heard the word of the Lord, as we have seen, it’s the Way, I bring the gospel to you. I mean, that day had social programs, they had laws for marriage, they had laws for slaves and masters. They don’t say we are getting in here with an improvement. What they didn’t have is the Way, the way to salvation.
God’s performing miracles because, again, Paul is in a battle -- who’s true, who is lying. There is false teachers already pressing in. Paul… miracles are done, handkerchiefs, if you want one of those you could get a good deal, I will give you a bargain, it is usually $1,000, $500 today, so if you want this hanky come up afterwards, it’s been blessed. You can get on TV and get a number of these and if you are that kind of fool you deserve to lose your money. But for Paul there were miracles going on. That doesn’t mean I (speaker referring to himself) can do them. Paul had to demonstrate, he has come into an area with a new message, a new revelation, and showing how the Old Testament now sees its realization in Christ. How do we know? Look at this, there is some Jewish exorcists, verse 13, they’re going from place to place, these false ones. Like the Egyptian magicians, remember, they could throw down their snake and pick it up, they could do a certain amount of stuff with their tricks. And these exorcists, they went from place to place, they are going out, we’re going to get in on this, there is money to be made.
They tried to cast out spirits, note the end of verse 13, “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Note this, they know Paul’s got something we don’t have so we will just ride on his coat tails. I’m commanding you by Jesus whom Paul preaches; they don’t know anything about it themselves. Seven sons of one these Jewish chief priests, not the high priest, but he would be the leading priest in the area, he had seven sons, they are doing this. “And the evil spirit,” I love this, most of you probably have it marked it your Bible, “The evil spirit answered and said to them, ‘I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who (in the world) are you?’ Then the evil spirit just beats them to a pulp, tears off all their clothes so they have to run out bruised and bleeding, naked, and everybody gets the point.
Paul has the message of truth, everyone else is false, every other message is false, so you see how it keeps everything together. It keeps the false… Now once we have the recorded message it stands on its own, God doesn’t keep validating His word, He doesn’t keep sending miracles so people who won’t believe what he says will believe. It validates new revelation, primarily what is going on. So what’s going is the message spreads, impact spreads. Look at the end of verse 17, “the Lord Jesus was being magnified.” Many were being saved, they believed and they didn’t want all these magical things they had collected, that they could cast spells and discern the way of the Lord in books that instructed them how; we’ve got to get rid of this. One of you after being saved brought me a collection of books that were supposed to be just for those who were part of that organization -- said I don’t want these anymore and I don’t want to give them back to the people so you can dispose of them how you will, I just don’t want to have anything to do with them anymore. It is sort of like this. You know, when a person gets saved they don’t just drag their own life along with them; God saves them, they are made new. Like the Thessalonians, Paul writes to them and said you turned to God from your idols, you turned away from them. Some people say well, yeah, I trusted Christ and they go on with the old life, that is not biblical salvation. So here they bring all this stuff and it’s worth a lot of money, 50,000 drachma. A drachma was what a working man was paid for one day’s labor, so this is what a working man would make in 50,000 days. Now its not just one person, but it tells you how much we are talking about. You can sit down and if you work 5 days a week say, or work 6 days a week, 50,000 days’ work… If you were going to build a house and they said, well, I can tell you it will cost you 50,000 days’ work, that will be the price and here is what we charge an hour, it is one drachma for a day, here is what we get a day. Well, you say that might be an expensive house -- I didn’t figure it out.
What’s going on? Look at verse 20, “the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.” You see it’s all the word of God, it’s the Word, it’s the Word, it’s the Word. We want to translate that into works. Not that the individual’s life is not changed and our life, our works, are different. But when you try to say it’s works plus this powerful Word, no, that is the same as the Galatian’s heresy. You not only believe but you must do this or you don’t have a true salvation, it’s not complete. You know what happens? Its growing, but you know what else is growing? Down in verse 23, “About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way.” It’s the message, it’s the problem, that is why people keep wanting to shift off the message. They think, well, if we tell people we are here to improve their living conditions, to deal with injustices that are carried out, to deal with conflicts and unfair… well, they will like that and they will, we are all selfish. You say what you are going to do to me is going to double my salary? I’m open, talk more. But all you want to do is tell me I am on my way to hell because I am a sinner and you want to tell me about a savior who loved me and died for me so I could escape hell and go to heaven, uhm, I’m pretty busy. So we think we are going to put the two together and create our own gospel, now won’t God be pleased. And He says cursed to hell.
What happens? No small disturbance arises, and what happens? The word spreads and then they translate it to the economy. For the Jews it’s more religious, not that they aren’t concerned for the money but for the non-Jews here… Ephesus had two main incomes. Commerce, which was fading because the harbor is silted in and so it was even difficult in Paul’s day, now ships couldn’t get as close as they once could, it was turned to marshland. Now I believe the city of Ephesus is seven miles or more away from the water, just the process of time. But that was major, but it was deteriorating. The other was the temple of Diana, as her Latin name is more familiar perhaps to us; Artemis is the Greek name, it’s the name here. There were eight temples through the Roman Empire to this goddess but the main one was in Ephesus. And this brought in thousands of people to visit that center, get the blessing. Like Roman Catholics, some of them will travel to certain places because there are special blessings there of a saint that was there. This is what was going on. So a trade builds up, we are selling items associated, little statues, and all those things, it was a thriving business. Now the silversmiths who made these little images of Diana… The original evidently made out of a meteorite, that is why they said she fell from heaven so obviously it is a sign, Diana putting her blessing on Ephesus. This magnificent temple was one of the seven wonders of the world at that time, people flocked here. Now you have the merchant class, they are destroying our business, if we allow this to go on nobody will worship Diana, no one will come and buy, sell, and trade. You get all of this going on and the city is in an uproar.
We have seen mobs and you know what happens in mobs, we see it on TV, some of the people don’t have any idea what they are doing. I shared with you our experience with a mob and a parade in New York many years ago when the kids where young. And we parked our car and walked the streets of New York and this is great, then there’s a parade. Everyone was walking down the street so we just took the kids and got into the parade. We are walking along with everybody and Greg says, dad, those two guys are kissing. Checked around and made a little inquiry, you’re in the gay parade. Oh, Greg put your shirt over your head and get out of here, we are going.
It happens, you just do it. So these people… and people were flocking into the huge stadium that was at Ephesus, you had thousands of people in there. We are not reading the account for time but some of them didn’t even know why they are there, everybody is upset about something. Some about the religion, some about the commercial stuff, some about somebody causing a problem in our city, and it’s getting out of hand. Paul wanted to go in but some of the leading political figures who had become believers restrained him because you know what happens when you have a mob that size so out of control. Paul could have been mauled and torn apart and killed, little they could have done to protect him, so he doesn’t go in. And the political leader in the city brings things to order. He tells them, look… You know, one thing that Romans required: they rule. They have officials they put in place, those officials are required to keep order in allegiance to the Roman Empire. If you can’t keep your city in order we don’t need you there. They don’t want to be sending out there troops but if order isn’t settled, and this is what he warns them about, Rome will take care of it. You don’t want the Roman soldiers coming because they will tell you, you can’t self-govern anymore. We will put our own authorities here and we will stage our troops here and anybody who disobeys will suffer Roman punishment. So he basically calms them down. He doesn’t say all that, I just put it all together as to what the impact would be. So once he settles them down, he says you go home. We have laws that you have to follow, if these men have broken those laws then you will apply to the courts and it will be dealt with. So you can see how government works for good on occasion because here it worked to settle the mob down, bring order again.
Well, chapter 20, you see what happens, Paul is in Ephesus here, he is going to leave in chapter 20 and he is going over and visit Greece again. Remember we saw this on the second journey, although he bypassed Asia and came across here and went over, then you are up in here where Philippi, Thessalonica, and that are. He is coming down, he is going to go to Corinth and he going to leave. Keep in mind, you know he has all this trouble over here and while he is here for three years he writes 1 Corinthians back to the church that he established and built up on his second missionary journey. And he was to write the first letter to the Corinthians, read that; Paul didn’t have enough problems, he is trying to get this church back in order. But then he comes down and visits. He is going to leave, he is going to take a ship, and as we saw on that previous map you could just go by ship across here.
But then he gets wind there is a conspiracy, they are going to murder him on that ship trip. Well, you say, how could that happen? Well, you are on a sailing ship, they carry a lot of cargo, these weren’t just the passenger ships we think, all of a sudden you don’t show up one morning. What happened? I don’t know, he probably got drunk and fell overboard or got seasick and went overboard. So when he hears about the plot to murder him on that trip, instead of going by ship across here, he retraces his steps and goes up, back around, and comes back down. Then he gets a ship and he is coming down here and he comes to Miletus and he sends for the elders. That is about 65 miles from Ephesus down to Miletus, so that would be about a two day walk they say. So he has to send for them and they have to come back. But your commercial ships, they take time, everything runs on that time, not ours. And he calls for the elders and that is what takes place then, he gives them instruction. We will leave it there, but it is another visit. So you see what happened, there was a short contact early on, then there was this long contact. Second missionary journey was just here for a short time, ministered the Word, others ministered. Then he comes for three years. Now he is back just for a period of days, maybe a week, and then he is gone, this will end up imprisonment. They had his fourth trip, sometimes called, where he has to travel to Rome. He will write a letter when he is in prison in Rome to the church at Ephesus. Jesus will address a letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2. We see something of the greatness…
Well, let’s come back, evangelism is about carrying the simple, pure gospel of Jesus Christ. When the church has lost sight of that we have a Judaizing gospel which does not bring salvation. It ought to concern all of us that this… If writers will say evangelism has changed in the last half of the 20th century, it has changed because they have changed the gospel. And the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes and when that message has changed there is no longer any power for salvation. That is why the devil works so hard to make those alterations, he cancels out the power and leaves people with empty religions. Let’s pray together.

Thank you, Lord, for Your Word. Thank you for faithful servants like Paul and others, Lord, who through trials and difficulties and opposition, persecution, pain, and suffering, yet blessing, were faithful to you. Lord, we want to be those people today, not discouraged, not quieted, but bold, through difficulty, through trial; we don’t expect everything to be easy. We want to be careful that our thinking is biblical. Thank you for bringing us together as believers today, for the encouragement there is in that, and even as opposition may grow, may we not be diverted from the task of presenting the way of salvation to a lost world. Bless this day. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.