Life Project Blog

 From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.

Acts 20:17-21

Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian elders is remarkable for several reasons, one of which is the relevance of his remarks for those of us who are leaders in the church of our own day.  For some of you who read these remarks and follow along with me here, you know that you are a leader in some way or fashion; some of you are paid ministers, other teachers or ministry leaders in your home congregations− some are Christian bloggers whose writings of instruction or encouragement are available to a worldwide audience. So you too might want to reflect upon Paul’s message to these elders.

As Paul began his farewell remarks to the elders of Ephesus, he does so by reminding them of his approach to ministry and of the style of ministry that he exhibited in their midst for an extended period of time. He reminds them that his ministry was a ministry of humility, of service and not of haughtiness, pride or exalted position or high status, which of course is quite a contrast to that of the Pharisees, or even to some leaders in today’s church. He also mentions something that might strike us as strange here, for he mentions the “severe testing” brought about by his “Jewish opponents”. I say this is odd because while in Ephesus, Luke really didn’t mention much about opposition from Jewish sources, other than the fact that after three months of teaching in the synagogue, some spoke openly against him; his last recorded close call from Jewish opposition was in Corinth.

Of course, it is possible that there was behind the scenes opposition that Luke did not describe in his narrative.

Paul goes on to remind them of how he was always available, either in public or private to teach, instruct and encourage anyone who needed his help, with the implication that he didn’t consider his own needs when called upon: He demonstrated selflessness in his ministry. His ministry and teaching were always available to all peoples, and in everything he did, he brought his listeners face-to-face with the Lord Jesus Christ, whose servant he always was.

There is a great deal here to reflect upon, so we’ll pick up next time with the next “chunk” of his remarks; I am sure that all us might want to consider how our own efforts reflect Paul’s approach, for surely Paul’s approach to service mirrored that of Jesus Himself.

Acts 19:8-20

In this passage Luke tells us of the wonders and marvels that came about in Ephesus and the surrounding area when Paul arrived there. The narrative begins in 19:8-10 in which Luke tells us that Paul spoke persuasively in the synagogue for a period of three months. In this period, many, possibly most of his hearers came to follow Jesus Christ. I say this because in verse 9 Luke uses the words, “but some of them” which strongly implies a minority, became “obstinate” and refused to believe. After this, Paul, as was his custom, took the message to the Gentile population, with the result that everyone in the region heard the message of the Lord.

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. (19:11-12)

Once again, we are reminded of all that had happened in Samaria after Peter was called upon to make a dramatic demonstration of the Holy Spirit coming upon the population in chapter 8, and in this community where Paul did the same thing in the previous passage.

In vv. 13-16 we have a curious account of some Jews attempting to drive out demons in the name, “of the Jesus whom Paul preaches” (19:13). It doesn’t appear from Luke’s wording that these men were followers of Christ who were working with the power of the Spirit, for the demons in question caused them to be badly beaten, and when the people heard this, they came to recognize that the name of Jesus was not a name to be tossed around lightly. Consequently, it was held in the highest respect thereafter― God was not messing around in Ephesus.

Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. (19:18-20)

Jewish sorcerers were not uncommon in Gentile lands, and they, according to historians, had a reputation for effective incantations. Here we see that after the incident mentioned above, many people including a number of sorcerers, came to sincere repentance and were willing to divorce themselves entirely from their past lives. In our text these sorcerers actually burned their scrolls with a combined worth of 50,000 days’ wages, an astronomical sum. In the Roman world. Scrolls were very expensive, and scrolls with magical incantations and formulas were very highly prized, and these guys were so moved to repentance that they destroyed a fortune.

Indeed, God was not messing around in Ephesus.

Paul’s work in Ephesus was about complete; he made arrangements to move on, but with so many amazing things taking place there, the Evil One was about to make his move…

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”

“John’s baptism,” they replied.

Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.

Acts 19:1-7

Paul arrived in Ephesus on a route from the north, and upon arriving he met a small group of “disciples” who had been taught by Apollos, apparently before he had been instructed by Aquila and Priscilla. It would seem that Apollos’ initial misconceptions had been passed to these men, who had not been properly instructed. Paul seems to have noticed that something was missing, and asked them if they received the Holy Spirit only to discover that they had not even heard of the Holy Spirit, even though they had believed.

What follows is quite interesting theologically, for Paul sets for us a clear linkage between baptism and receiving the Spirit (19:3-5), followed by events that parallel those we saw take place in Samaria in chapter 8. Notice that Paul explained to them that John’s baptism, which they had received, was a baptism of repentance, and that John had taught those who received to believe in the One who would come after him, Jesus, and that upon hearing this, the men were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (cf. Acts 2:38). Then, as Peter had done in Samaria, Paul lays his hands on the men and they received the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts that made the Spirit’s presence obvious. Notice they had to first be baptized into Jesus Christ, and then they would receive the Holy Spirit.

At this point, it might be useful for us to consider that we are looking at an event that took place roughly 20 years after Pentecost, and for that length of time, the Gospel had spread orally from Jerusalem throughout the known world. As we might expect, as the great story was retold over those years, there was some confusion about some of the details that was beginning to be problematic. Of course, this shouldn’t be any great surprise, for even now after having the New Testament Scriptures for so many centuries, there is a great deal of confusion about these same matters. For example, what baptism should a Christian receive? As you know, asking a question such as that one will spark endless debates today, and having been in my share of those debates myself, I can assure you that not many of those debaters will mention this particular text, even though it is one of the clearest teachings on the subject.

At any rate, the men obviously received the Spirit, and the stage was set for the next part of the story, an amazing series of events that demonstrate the spiritual power of what was going on in that region…

Acts 18:18-28

Paul eventually left Corinth taking Aquila and Priscilla with him to Ephesus. Paul remained there only a short time, and then left the two in Ephesus, probably to set up a base for more operations in the future, and traveled to Jerusalem and then to Antioch, ending his second missionary journey. He remained in Antioch for an indeterminate period of time, and then left on his third missionary journey.

Meanwhile, back in Ephesus, Aquila and Pricilla seem to have been making some progress when a man named Apollos came upon the scene. He was an educated man who hailed from Alexandria, and an excellent teacher and debater, yet he still lacked a few fundamentals of the faith. Aquila and Priscilla quickly got him up to speed, and he became a powerful force for the Gospel. Soon he was off to Achaia where he was known to have debated leading Jews about Jesus, proving from the Scriptures that He is the Messiah.

Clearly this is a transitional text, covering the time from the winding up of Paul’s second journey and setting the stage for the drama of the third. Yet even with that said, it has an interesting and very relevant message for us today, for in these few verses, we can see a dramatic example of the way that discipleship is supposed to work.

Paul disciples Aquila and Priscilla, and when they were ready, he didn’t simply leave them to repeat the same things they had always done, rather he took them to Ephesus so that they could play a central role in the establishment of a whole new church in that city. Then Apollos comes along, a man who had a gift for preaching the Word, yet even though he was a very talented and gifted man, he still needed some guidance in his teaching, and Aquila and Priscilla provided that guidance, and soon sent him on his way to establish new congregations in another area. In this we see discipleship on the part of Paul paying dividends for the Kingdom, and then his disciples in turn passing the torch to newly trained disciples who go out and repeat the process with the result that the Gospel spreads throughout the region at a much faster rate than it would have otherwise been able to spread… and God being glorified through all of it.

Most of us don’t do that today.

At one point in my life, I taught a Sunday school class for 10 consecutive years, and never missed a Sunday. For the entire time, I had essentially the same people in the class; no one ever graduated. The reason that I didn’t miss a single Sunday as teacher was that there was no one else who would fill in for me. It wasn’t because the people hadn’t learned enough, and it wasn’t because they couldn’t have done a terrific job of it. It was because they had no concept of ever doing anything other than filling a seat on Sunday, instead they thought that that’s all anyone ever really needs to do, and no matter how often I told them otherwise, they simply could not comprehend that there was anything else for them to do, for they had sold out to the idea that they were going to be “lifelong Bible students”.

Teaching along with ministry was supposed to be someone else’s problem; leave that to the professionals.

Obviously, that wasn’t the attitude in Paul’s day, and just as obviously it shouldn’t be ours today.