This week, I would like for us to look at one of the churches that was planted during the book of Acts. As a matter of fact, there are more letters recorded for us in our Bibles today that were written to this one church than any other church. The book of Ephesians, the books of 1st and 2nd Timothy, and the books of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John were all written to this church. In addition, this church is mentioned in both the book of Acts and in the book of Revelation. The church that I am referring to is the church at Ephesus.
And it is in the story of the church at Ephesus that we discover a timeless truth that is necessary to embrace today if we are to fully engage in the co:mission that we have been given by partnering with God in order to advance His mission as we live our day to day lives in a way that reveals and reflects Christ. To fully understand the story of the church at Ephesus, however, we first need to understand where the city of Ephesus was located and the significance that the city played in the first century.
The city of Ephesus was a port city that was located in the southwest corner of Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey. Ephesus was the capital and the largest city in the Roman province of Asia. The city was a port city that was one of the main entry points to Asia, which made it a leading commercial, political and religious center in the Roman Empire. The centerpiece of the city of Ephesus was the temple of Artemis, which was considered one of the seven wonders of the Ancient world. The temple was four times larger than the Parthenon in Athens, Greece and was the center of idolatrous worship to Artemis, who was the goddess of fertility. A major part of the economy in Ephesus revolved around tourism and worship to Artemis, including the manufacturing of portable shrines and images of Artemis that could be purchased. And even today, you can still view the ruins of the temple of Artemis. As a result, the city was marked by rampant sexual immorality that occurred as part of their worship.
In addition, the city was a regional center for various cultic practices and the publication of magic and their formulas. Ephesus also contained the largest theatre that was ever built by the Greeks, which was capable of holding up to 30,000 people. While largely populated by those who were of either Roman or Greek culture and ethnicity, there was also a large settlement of Jewish settlers who also lived in Ephesus. And it was into this culture and this context that God’s co:mission would have to enter in order to advance into Asia. Luke records for us the birth of the church at Ephesus in Acts 19:1. Let’s look at it together:
It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. 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." And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said, "Into John's baptism."
As we enter into the story of the birth of the church at Ephesus, we see the Apostle Paul engage a group of men who had heard of the message and teachings of Jesus. Months earlier, a follower of Jesus named Apollos came to Jerusalem and began to share the message and teachings of Jesus. Apollos shared with these disciples God’s prediction and promise of a rescuer and Messiah from the Old Testament, and then powerfully proclaimed that Jesus had in fact fulfilled God’s promises. However, while Apollos clearly proclaimed the message and teachings of Jesus and that Jesus was the Messiah, Apollos failed to clearly communicate two important points regarding the gospel. First, Apollos failed to communicate Jesus promise that He would send His Spirit to indwell and unite His followers as part of the new community called the church.
Second, Apollos failed to communicate that one needed to respond tot he message and teachings of Jesus by placing one’s confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel by believing, trusting and following Jesus as Lord and Leader. Then as followers of Jesus, that Jesus commanded His followers to be baptized as a way to publicly identify themselves as being followers of Jesus who were part of the community of faith.
While this group of men had heard the message and teachings of Jesus, they had only been baptized into John. In other words, they had only identified themselves with their need to repent from selfishness and rebellion. They had not identified themselves with the One who would rescue them from selfishness and rebellion. These men had heard part of the gospel but not the entire gospel. Paul reveals this reality for us in verse 4:
Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus." When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. There were in all about twelve men.
Luke tells us that Paul responded to the situation by explaining that the baptism of John did not make these men right with God. The baptism of John was simply an acknowledgement by these men that they needed rescue. Instead it was by placing their confident trust in what Jesus had done for them that these men would be right with God. Luke tells us that that is exactly what these men did. These men placed their confident trust in Christ and then followed the Lord’s instruction by publicly identifying themselves as His followers through baptism. As Paul laid his hands on them and prayed for them, Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit indwelt these followers of Jesus in a way that resulted in them speaking in tongues and prophesying. Now a question that often arises here is “why did these men speak in tongues and prophesy? And is that normative? In other words, should every follower of Jesus speak in tongues and prophesy when they become followers of Jesus?”
To understand why these men spoke in tongues and prophesied, we first need to understand the significance of this particular event and how speaking in tongues and prophesy functioned in the Book of Acts. The significance of this event is that this was the first time that the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel had advanced into Asia. God’s kingdom mission had just advanced into a new region of the world. Speaking and tongues and prophesying were sign spiritual gifts that served to confirm and authenticate that this new message of God’s rescue through the message of the gospel was indeed from God and was not something that was simply made up by man. The reason that these men spoke in tongues and prophesied was so that they would be a sign to reveal the reality that God’s new community called the church had now arrived in Asia. And as a result of God’s transformational intervention and activity, the church at Ephesus was born. Luke then records for us what happened next:
And he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.
Here we see the reality, as we have seen throughout this series, that God’s co:mission and message is either enthusiastically embraced or violently opposed. For some, their response to the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel was used by God to confirm and set into place the selfishness and rebellion that was already present within them as they reviled and insulted the message and the messenger. For others, however, God’s transformational activity resulted in an embracing of the message of the gospel by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader. Luke tells us that after a period of two years, the church at Ephesus had grown and had such an impact that all who lived in Asia, whether Jew or Gentile; whether religious or irreligious, had heard the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel.
Now would you be willing to give money to a church plant that was having that kind of impact? Wouldn’t you want to be a part of a community of faith that was having that kind of impact? The church of Ephesus was a happening church. The church at Ephesus was a church that was devoted to God and to the co:mission that they had been given. Eight years after planting the church at Ephesus, Paul wrote a letter to the church that is recorded for us in our Bibles today as the book of Ephesians. In Ephesians 1:15-16, we see Paul express his thankfulness for the devotion of this church to God and the mission that they had been given:
For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;
The church of Ephesus was a church that was marked by a confident trust in Christ and a devoted love for Christ and one another.
Tomorrow, we will see Luke provide us an amazing example of God’s transformational activity in the church of Ephesus...
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