Acts 7

Chapter 7. Paul at EphesusDid you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? (Acts 19:2)The word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. (Acts 19:20)These words reveal to us at once the secret and the story of one of the most glorious chapters in the life of Paul, the missionary. It is known as his third missionary journey. We left him closing his second journey at Jerusalem and Antioch, having called on his way home for a brief visit to Ephesus to prepare the way for his contemplated campaign and leave behind him Aquila and Priscilla to direct these preparations. His proposed visit to Ephesus had been divinely interrupted three or four years before in order that he might plant the gospel in Europe first. But now God’s time has come, and the next three years find him in this splendid Oriental metropolis and engaged in the most remarkable and successful of all his missions. Ephesus The city of Ephesus, the scene of his labors, was to Asia what Corinth was to Europe. They faced each other across the sea somewhat as Liverpool and New York, only while Corinth was marked by all the energy of the western world, Ephesus was a luxurious and splendid eastern city, and given up to the magic arts and idolatrous superstitions of the Orient. Its supreme glory was the temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the world. But the Diana of Ephesus was a wholly different character from the Diana of the Greeks. This famous temple covered a rectangle 425 feet by 225 feet. It was enclosed by a colonnade of 127 pillars, 60 feet in height and finely carved in the richest Ionic style. Unlike our sanctuaries, ancient temples were not roofed, so that most of the enclosed space was open to the sky, the shrine of the goddess being covered and more completely enclosed. A great number of eunuchs and priestesses ministered in its courts, and its worship and festivals were maintained by a number of distinguished and wealthy citizens called Asiarchs, or “chiefs of Asia,” who met the expenses of these magnificent festive occasions from their personal means and counted it a distinguished honor to be permitted to do so. To this great city Paul now came, not as he had wandered into Philippi, Athens and Corinth, a lonely stranger, but to find the hospitable home of Aquila and Priscilla awaiting him and his future work at least in some measure prepared. But we are to look at this time at four pictures that stand out in bold relief from the story of his Ephesian ministry and speak to us lessons of peculiar appropriateness and practical power.

Section I: Aquila and Priscilla: The Picture of a Home Missionary

Section I—Aquila and Priscilla: The Picture of a Home MissionaryThe story of a great life is sometimes discouraging because so few can reach the high station of a great apostle and missionary, but the Bible was written for humble disciples and everyday Christians, and the story of Paul is filled with innumerable side lights and companion pictures illustrating the infinite varieties and possibilities of Christian service. Among these no characters were more interesting than Aquila and Priscilla, whom we met in our last chapter at Corinth, and whom we meet again here and frequently afterward as Paul’s friends and fellow workers. They could not be apostles, but they were indeed living “letter[s]… known and read by everybody” (2 Corinthians 3:2). Soon after coming to Ephesus they met with a distinguished and eloquent teacher and preacher from Alexandria named Apollos. Finely educated, mighty in the Scriptures and full of zeal and fervor, he had yet got no further than John’s baptism and was eloquently preaching of a Messiah to come. With fine tact and wisdom they introduced themselves to him and took him to their home and lovingly led him into the deeper knowledge of the truth. Soon afterwards he went over to Corinth and successfully continued the work which Paul had there begun, becoming in many respects as popular and successful as the great apostle himself. The word used to describe the reception given by these good people to Apollos is a strong one, expressing cordiality and hospitality. They did not “go for him” as some modern Christians do for ministers with whom they may not agree, but they took him to them and by love and winning example quite as much as by wise teaching led him into the deeper life. There are today many ministers as defective and as sincere as Apollos, men that have never yet been brought into favorable conditions for seeing and receiving the fullness of spiritual truth. Their ministry would be multiplied in value a hundredfold if they would but receive the Holy Spirit. They cannot be argued into it. Controversy only antagonizes. They must be won. Oh, for the wise Aquilas and Priscillas that can love them into the better way! When the story of the most useful and successful life comes to be told in all its fullness, doubtless it will be found that some holy mother, some faithful teacher, some judicious friends, some silent personal influence was the factor behind their deeper experience and wider usefulness. The chief value of the Sunday school class is not even the Bible knowledge conveyed. Perhaps there is even too much of the normal mechanical element about our Christian work today, but it is the strong and constant personal influence of a holy woman or a godly man upon the young minds and hearts under their care, and who perhaps have no other Christian friend on earth. Some of us remember our early teachers and the veneration and emulation with which we regarded and copied them. Oh, mothers, teachers, Christian friends, do not wait and wonder till some great occasion comes, but meet the simple opportunities of life and pass on the ministry of Aquila and Priscilla to the end of the history of the Church.

Section II: the Holy Spirit: The Picture of a Whole Gospel

Section II—the Holy Spirit: The Picture of a Whole GospelThe incident of Apollos naturally introduces the next scene at Ephesus and teaches the same spiritual lesson. On arriving there Paul found a number of disciples, perhaps from the congregation of Apollos, who, like that teacher, had got no farther than John’s baptism. In answer to the inquiry “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2) they astonished him by telling him, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:2). The apostle then instructed them in the gospel of Christ and immediately on their baptism they received the gift of Pentecost, and from this new Spirit-filled company the work in Ephesus began. That is the right and only place to begin any deep spiritual movement. The condition of these Ephesian disciples is, we fear, representative of a great majority of professing Christians today. They have accepted the ministry of repentance. They have experienced to some extent conversion. They have begun to “quit their meanness” and change their course of life. But they do not know Christ as a personal and abiding presence. They have not received the Holy Spirit. They make no claim to sanctification, and, indeed, rather criticize and repudiate it as something for people that are inclined that way. And they hold themselves in some measure free to live a worldly and imperfect life because of the lower plane on which they are content to remain. Unfortunately many of their teachers are little farther on themselves. It is to these that God is sending home the question of our text, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2). And this question is supreme. It was supreme in the life of the Master, for He did not begin His public ministry until on the banks of the Jordan He had made the full consecration of His life and received the descending Paraclete. It was supreme in the lives of the apostles. They were not permitted to go forth and begin their ministry, notwithstanding their long acquaintance with Christ and their undoubted conversion, until they had tarried at Jerusalem for the power from on high. It was supreme in the early Church and in her message to her first converts. “Repent and be baptized… in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” was their first message, but immediately it was followed by the rest, “And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39). It is the heritage of the whole Church of Christ and none can be excused from it. Beloved, have you asked to be excused? Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? Have you had as a definite experience the baptism of the Spirit? Is Christ to you a living constant reality? It is this that gives holiness. It is this that brings rest. It is this which fills the heart with victorious joy. It is this which heals and keeps the body. It is this which brings love, patience and sweetness of spirit. This alone can give you victory. Without this you are powerless to pray, to witness, to work for Christ. This is your panoply and equipment for warfare and work, and this is awaiting every willing and earnest heart. If you really want Him more than anything else you will not be long in finding Him. He will meet you on the way. He will lead you all the way. He will bring you to Himself and abide with you forever.

Section III: Revival: The Picture of a Mighty Spiritual Movement

Section III—Revival: The Picture of a Mighty Spiritual MovementWith this deep spiritual beginning the work moved on, and soon we are in the midst of an extraordinary revival. Preaching in the Synagogue

1. It commences in the synagogue, and for three months the apostle preaches to his Jewish brethren and others concerning the kingdom of God. The best evidence of the power of the work is the anger with which many of the Jews turned against him and openly denounced him before the multitude, and then the usual crisis comes and he withdraws. In the School of Tyrannus
2. The next phase of the work is in the school or academy of a prominent teacher named Tyrannus, where for two years the apostle is hospitably received and continues his teaching until this strong language was employed concerning the spread of the movement, “All the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord” (Acts 19:10). There must have been a constant concourse from the city and province and a ceaseless ministry of teaching and preaching, excepting only the hours of toil which Paul always spent in laboring with his hands and thus ministering to his necessities and those that were with him. Supernatural Signs
3. His ministry in Ephesus was now marked by a peculiar dispensation of divine healing. The spirit of power so rested upon Paul that something occurred which was unusual even for him. The very handkerchiefs which he touched were laid upon the sick and they recovered. This and a similar statement about Peter should not be twisted into an authorization of the fantastic claims of some modern teachers and workers. This is the peculiar method of spiritualism, and we should be most guarded in anything that approximates to it. But in the case of Paul at Ephesus there had been special claims made for heathen magic, and especially the images of Diana and the mystic inscriptions upon them were supposed to possess a healing charm. Therefore God met this thing once for all on its own ground, even as Moses met the magicians of Egypt in order to show the genuine and the false. We will find that in the story of early Christianity special manifestations of divine healing accompanied special advances into new territory. While the ordinary operation of the Lord’s healing is uniform and constant in the Church, the miraculous features seem to be intended as special signs to call attention to the truth and the gospel under circumstances where the divine seal is called for, for a time. Satan Defeated
4. In connection with this a signal victory over the devil is brought to pass. Seven young pretenders, the sons of a priest, possessed of a reckless ambition to imitate Paul, attempted to cast the evil spirit out of a possessed victim. But to their amazement the evil spirit turned upon them and, repudiating their pretended powers, cried out, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15). And then the possessed man leaped upon them and beat them within an inch of their lives, until they were glad to fly from the place naked, wounded and half dead. An incident so dramatic and even ludicrous as this was sure to take the popular fancy and spread like wildfire over the city. No better vindication of Paul could have happened. The people were profoundly impressed, and even those that had been hesitating or compromising were brought to deep conviction. Confession
5. This was immediately followed by a remarkable and public confession on the part of a number of professed believers who up to that time had accepted the new faith, but had still held on to some of their old idolatrous traditions and practices. Filled with awe when they saw the power of God upon the wicked men that had tried to imitate the apostles, they became convicted of their hypocrisy and were led to make a complete renunciation and bring their books to a public bonfire, so that from day to day, as the Greek term implies, the spectacle was presented of one after another bringing these mystical volumes and throwing them into the fire with humble and probably tearful confession of their wrongdoing. Ancient books were 10 times as costly as our literature, and the destruction of a library involved a large part of one’s fortune. The total value of these books is given by Luke as an intimation of the stupendous importance and extent of this breaking down of idolatry. If we count these coins in Greek figures the amount was nearly 10,000 dollars. If the pieces of silver were Hebrew shekels it would be 35,000 dollars. Either sum is large enough to show the fruits of a revival that can bear comparison with any similar movement in the history of the Church. Trade Riot
6. We next find the power of this movement expressed in a business way. It literally broke down one of the industrial trades of Ephesus and caused a trade riot on the part of the silversmiths who had made their living by manufacturing silver shrines or little models of the goddess Diana for sale. These men came together under excited leaders—and a great concourse assembled in the theater where political assemblies were held, until the peace and safety of the town were threatened—denouncing Paul for having destroyed their business and challenged the very existence of the worship of Diana. A gospel that goes down to the heart of Wall Street and turns business upside down must have some power in it. Would to God that the gospel of today might strike our crooked financial schemes, our reckless speculations, our dishonest methods, and bring to confusion the mammon worship of New York as surely as the Diana worship of Ephesus. The Chiefs of Asia
7. But even this was not so significant as the spirit of sympathy with the apostle which it brought out from the leading citizens of Ephesus. When Paul with his usual nobility and self-sacrifice was about to rush into the theater to save his friends from suffering on his account, the very rulers of the temple already spoken of by us as the Asiarchs, or “chiefs of Asia,” were the men who acted as his friends and begged him not to expose himself to danger. The gospel had reached even these men that were the official protectors and supporters of the worship of Diana. A little later we find even the town clerk himself tactfully taking the part of Paul, dismissing the mob with the official assurance that these men had broken no law, and anyhow whatever complaint was held against them should be presented in the lawful assembly and not made the occasion for a disgraceful mob which threatened to bring down the Roman army in one of its usual demonstrations upon them. These are some of the signs on the surface of events which showed the tremendous power of the religious current that for the time had carried all before it in the old capital of the East.

Section IV: Worldwide Evangelism: The Picture of a Mightier Ambition

Section IV—Worldwide Evangelism: The Picture of a Mightier AmbitionBut not all this could satisfy the heart of Paul or turn him aside from his grander ambition to carry the gospel to the uttermost part of the earth. It was at this very time that there rose before his mind the supreme conception of one more advance movement upon the heathen world destined to capture Rome itself, the capital of universal paganism. Here again we see the same aggressive mission of the Church breaking through every obstacle and hindrance. Just as the Church had to be driven out by persecution from her first home in Jerusalem until “those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went” (Acts 8:4); just as Philip was hurried on from the great revival in Samaria to meet in a desert the heathenism of Africa in the person of the Ethiopian eunuch; just as Peter was pressed beyond his Jewish conservatism and compelled to go to Caesarea, the Roman capital, and begin the great work of Gentile missions; just as the center of apostolic Christianity was removed in due time from Jerusalem to Antioch and the first missionaries sent out from that church, and just as a few years before this present story Paul himself had been pushed out of Asia, forbidden to come to Ephesus and compelled to go across to Macedonia to a more remote heathen world; so now the ever-irrepressible forward movement reaches on even to Rome itself, and neither his affection for his Philippian friends, his interest in the splendid work at Corinth, nor his magnificent success in Ephesus can interrupt the supreme necessity that is laid upon him to go into the very heart of heathenism, Rome itself. “I must visit Rome” (Acts 19:21), is strong language for mortal man, but there is a must in every divine calling. There is a resistless impulse. There is a conscious heavenly calling. There is the faith of a mighty destiny beckoning us on and assuring us of victory. The missionary calling is always a supreme one: “I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Oh, that God would put this must upon some heart that reads these lines! The reason his strong language was not presumptuous was because he purposed it in the Spirit. It is right sometimes to have such purposes and plans. The Holy Spirit does not always lead us a moment at a time, but gives us far-reaching visions for faith, hope and holy service. Such purposes, when in the Spirit, will stand the tests that came to Paul—the mob at Jerusalem, the prison at Caesarea, the storm on the Adriatic, the viper at Malta, and even the warnings and entreaties of the too-fond friends that begged him to desist from that purpose for the sake of his own life and usefulness—none of these things moved him, but on to the end he followed that purpose and saw it all fulfilled. The mighty mechanical forces which are driving our factories, our locomotives and our swift ocean racers are not of recent origin. Were I to ask you where this power comes from, of course you would say, “coal.” But where did the coal come from? Perhaps you would answer, “from the mine.” But where did the mine come from? Ah, that is an ancient story. Ages ago yonder sun flashed down upon one of the tropical forests of ancient geological periods a consuming flame, burned it up and turned it into coal and packed it away by no human hand in those great depositories in the rock-ribbed mountains where today men find their coal. And so, God comes in some early period of a Christian life and there falls from heaven the fire of the Holy Spirit upon some chosen heart and life, and a mighty call, a heavenly purpose, a divine ambition and a supernatural enabling are granted to that life hidden away perhaps for years under the discipline of God’s providence. But when God’s hour strikes, the power is there, the instrument is ready, the missionary comes to the front, and that silent purpose is wrought out in living characters of mighty and everlasting blessing. Oh, that that purpose might rise today in some of your hearts! Oh, that that fire might fall, and the brief and coming years which precede the consummation might see it as divinely fulfilled as in the story of Paul and Rome!