B, The Baptism of our Lord, Epiphany 1 - Acts 19:1-7 "Epiphany in Ephesus"
For two to three hundred years within “Jerusalem Judaism”, murder,
scandals, power battles, and political jockeying for favourable positions were
occurring at a time when big social changes outside the temple were causing
much chaos and confusion in a Greco-Roman world.
Jews whom God had allowed to be exiled to the east, were now not
returning to Jerusalem. Instead, they
were spreading as diaspora throughout this new world and were seeking to come
to terms with paganism and the philosophical thoughts that abounded in the
Hellenisation of the Greco-Roman world.
Years before, the Greek ruler, Alexander the Great, had annexed the
known world under his control. His
kingdom spanned from India in the East to Europe in the west. He became the father of Hellenisation, which
sought to integrate Persian and Greek culture, religion, philosophical
thinking, language, and identity. This
was the era in which the philosophical thoughts of Socrates, Plato, and the
like, spread throughout the Greco-Roman world.
There were both positives and negatives for Jews in this world. They were allowed to practice the Jewish
faith, and at this time the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek by
seventy-two translators at Alexandria in North Africa. The translation is called Septuagint,
commonly referred to as the LXX, or seventy, for its numbers of
translators. This was a notable positive
for the mission of God the Father of the Jews amongst the Gentiles. But the danger for Jewish faith was
monotheism was now challenged by a pantheon of polytheistic male and female
gods and ideologies.
Into this Jesus was born. John
the Baptist baptised Jews in the Jordan, preparing and refocusing the people of
God, for the fullness of time came for God to fulfill his promise to Israel,
made through the prophets of old. Three
full years saw the completion of God’s covenant with humanity, and then the
work of the Holy Spirit continued in a new way, revealing Jesus Christ as “the
way of God” for both Jews and Gentiles in Greco-Roman society.
The way of God born of one man and his remaining eleven disciples, at
face value, was not going to survive, for all that long, amongst a hostile
Jewish culture, from which it came. Nor
did anyone expect the “way of God” to survive the deluge of polytheistic gods
and ideologies competing for people’s attention in this diverse new world.
But it did! Why? It was the power of God the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, the Son
of God, who put his divinity aside, and suffered on earth as did any other
person. But he finished it without
sinning! Jesus allowed the Holy Spirit
to lead him in life and death, fulfilling God the Father’s will in the fullness
of time! The Holy Spirit then raised
Jesus from the dead to the right hand of the Father at his ascension after the
resurrection. Now the Holy Spirit would continue
revealing the ascended Christ to both Jews and Gentiles!
The spread of the Gospel through the way of God was helped by what God
allowed to occur in the dispersion of Jews in the four hundred years since the
exile to Babylon before Jesus’ coming.
Jews are notable traders, and they were found along the trade routes of
Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in the Roman Empire, that had grown and won out over
all former empires.
Ephesus, once a seaport, was one of these trading places enroute to
somewhere else! But not only were goods
traded, many ideas and philosophies were exchanged and intertwined along these
routes that passed from the Far East to Rome and onto Western Europe.
Artemis was a female goddess in Asia Minor. The world worshipped her. (Acts 19:27) Ephesus housed her temple and
the town relied on Artemis for its honour, as well as trade.
To the Greeks she was known as Artemis, to the Romans, this same
goddess is known as Diana. We might
consider her as a Mother Nature cult, since she was the patron goddess of
nature, hunters, wildlife, and childbirth, to name a few.
The way of God, the Gospel, first came to the Jews at Ephesus, as Paul
briefly passed through its port and synagogue on his way to Caesarea. This was his second missionary journey. (Acts 18: 18-21)
Next came a man named Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria in North
Africa. Being from this town named after
Alexander the Great, and encouraged as a centre of academia, diversity of
thought, and culture, Apollos was well equipped in the art of rhetoric and
debate, and was competent in the Old Testament Scriptures, most likely the
Greek Septuagint.
After Paul’s first visit, Apollos made a stand for Jesus Christ in the
synagogue in Ephesus. However, Priscilla
and Aquila, known tentmakers and acquaintances of Paul, having heard him, took
him aside and explained the way of God more accurately. From there Apollos moves onto what we would
know as Greece today. (Acts 18:24-28)
After these two encounters some of the Jews begin to believe in the
way of God. They know of Jesus Christ
but not of the power of God through the Holy Spirit. We hear what happens from Acts chapter
nineteen…
Paul said to the disciples in Ephesus, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No,
we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you
baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.”
And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling
the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is,
Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when
Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began
speaking in tongues and prophesying.
There were about twelve men in all.” (Acts 19:2–7 ESV)
Apollos, like John the Baptist brought a baptism of repentance,
preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Now Paul, in the fullness of time, brings
Jesus Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Water and the Law came through Apollos, then through Paul the Holy
Spirit brought the fullness of the Gospel.
Just as Jesus has called twelve into service during his ministry on
earth, God did the same through Paul’s laying on of hands at Ephesus.
Paul remained in Ephesus for about three years on his third missionary
journey. (Acts 20:31) For the first
three months he boldly persuaded them about the kingdom of God in the synagogue
(Acts 19:8), but then moved to the hall of Tyrannus, where for the next two
years, he continued to preach and teach, not only the Jews, but the Gentiles as
well.
The Holy Spirit gave Paul extraordinary healing powers while in
Ephesus. The sons of Sceva, sons of a
Jewish High Priest, sought to copy Paul with their own exorcisms, but were
overcome by the evil spirits they were trying to exorcize, because they sort to
do it by their own power, without the power of the Holy Spirit. Here stands a warning to anyone who seeks to
work apart from the Holy Spirit, through their own human spirit.
So extraordinary was the event, the Sons of Sceva, were wounded and
fled the house naked, bringing a sense of awe upon all at Ephesus. So much so, a greater depth of reverence for
Jesus Christ was fostered. Even
believers came confessing and divulging their practices. Imagine that!
Such was the faith generated by the Holy Spirit in this event, they made
public what they were doing, rather than chance being cut off from the power of
God, by continuing in their hidden deeds.
Nearing the end of three years, as the Holy Spirit grew the way of God
through Paul and the gathering in Ephesus, some became concerned their
livelihoods were being diminished as more and more worshippers of Artemis
became believers in the way of God through Jesus Christ. There was much chaos and controversy in
Ephesus, so much so, Paul’s fellow believers would not let Paul speak to the
mob for fear of what might happen to him.
So, Paul left after being in Ephesus for just under three years, to
continue his third missionary journey in Greece.
On his way back to Jerusalem from Greece, Paul stopped in Miletus, to
the south of Ephesus in Asia Minor and called the elders of Ephesus to
him. Paul teaches the elders in the wake
of what had occurred earlier in Ephesus, and by what power he did it.
He says, “You yourselves know
how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in
Asia, serving the Lord with all humility
and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you
anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to
house, testifying both to Jews and to
Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem,
constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except
that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and
afflictions await me. But I do not
account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my
course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the
gospel of the grace of God. …for I did
not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to
all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the
church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” (Acts 20:18–24, 27b-28 ESV)
Paul knows these overseers at Ephesus will be attacked by those
seeking to subvert the way of God to the ways of men. (Acts 20:29-32) In fact,
Paul was so gifted with discernment in the Holy Spirit, the ministry to Ephesus
continues to them through his epistle to them (the book of Ephesians) and in
his encouragement for Timothy to remain at Ephesus. (Paul’s first and second letters to Timothy)
Paul’s letters to Ephesus and Saint Timothy, give us great insight
into the congregation and the pastoral care of it in the face of pagan and
Jewish persecution of the way of God.
Through Paul, the Holy Spirit leads the church in this era of
transformation. As the pendulum of
change swings, Paul seeks to keep the centrality of the cross before the people
of Ephesus.
Paul places the fulfilment of God’s fatherhood in Jesus Christ before
the Ephesian congregation, which is caught between, the fatherhood through
circumcision in the Law and its extreme opposite uncircumcised fatherless chaos
and corruption.
Through Paul and Timothy, the Holy Spirit seeks to put the brakes on
the pendulum swing from Judaism to pagan chaos and disorder in the church. He does this by encouraging faith in the
complementarian order within the church, as God had originally ordained in
creation and then corrected and restored in Jesus Christ at the cross. This is done in the face of “new woman”
Artemis cultic worship in Ephesus, which is not unlike the mother earth and
egalitarian imbalances pushed in our society today. Not to mention, the Artemis magic
similarities with the powers and principalities of the occult.
During 2024, as the LCANZ considers the expectations put before us in the last Synod, we will do well to further investigate and listen to the work of the Holy Spirit in Ephesus in the book of Acts and through Paul’s letters to the Ephesian congregation and Timothy it’s young pastor. We know and do this trusting the Holy Spirit will keep us in Christ Jesus so like Paul amongst the Ephesians we can be faithfully testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
