All of Ephesus Hears the Gospel
In Acts chapter 19 Paul travels to Ephesus and stays, teaching about Jesus Christ for 2 years. In Ephesus, Paul found some more believers who, like Appollos from chapeter 18, did not know of the Holy spirit, but only of the preaching of John the Baptist.
Verses 1-7:
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 into 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.
We see here that while people were considered “believers,” they did not know all of the facts about how Jesus died on the cross for their sins, rose from the grave, and sent the Holy Spirit. To me, this sounds similar to Old Testament believers. They did not understand the complete plan of God, but were still believing in God for their salvation through the promised Messiah. After being baptized in the name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit came upon them in a physically recognizable way with the speaking in tongues and prophesying.
Next we see Paul falling into his normal routine of preaching in the synagogue.
Verses 8-10:
Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.
These verses give us another example of the necessity to believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. Unfortunately, some of the Jews refused to believe. To avoid more trouble, Paul started preaching at a lecture hall, instead of the synagogue, for the next two years. Soon Pauls teaching of Jesus Christ was so well known, that every person who lived in that province had “heard the word of the Lord.”
In the next few verses (11 – 17) we see that God decided to perform many miracles in that region through Paul, in the name of Jesus. Even others who were not even true believers (but more like opprotunists) would use the name of Jesus to try to accomplish miracles (see verses 13 – 16).
All these events resulted in the following.
Verses 18-20:
Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. 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.
The power of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a true believer in Jesus Christ can create dramatic changes of behavior and lifestyle in people. The believers publicly confessed their sin, and even destroyed very valuable sorcery scrolls (50,000 drachmas. A dracma was a small silver coin worth about a day’s wage). Apparently, sorcery is not a valid path to God.
In the next post we’ll see Pauls plans to go to Jerusalem and then Rome. But first, trouble breaks out in Ephesus.