Paul And Ephesus

Years ago there was a farmer from a very small village in Germany who was just itching to get out and see something of the world. His big chance came when his nephew got a job on a barge that would sail up the Rhine River to Rotterdam. Even if it only stayed there for one day to drop off one load and pick up another, it was his big chance to see the outside world. And his wife wouldn’t let him skip out on his chores any longer than that, anyway. So he hitched a ride on the barge with his nephew.

His adventure began as soon as they pulled into Rotterdam Harbor. It was full of the largest, most beautiful sailing ships he had ever seen. He saw a passerby and asked, in German, who owned all the ships. And the passerby answered in Dutch, kannietverstan, which means, I can’t understand you. The farmer thought about that for a moment, thanked him and headed into the city center. Pretty soon he passed a big store, so big that they could take all the shops in their village and fit them into just the ground floor of this one grand store. He had never seen anything like that! He asked another passerby who owns it, and got the same answer, kannietverstan. He saw a great mansion, asked who lived there, and the answer came again, kannietverstan. In the central square, there was a statue of someone who looked very important. He asked who it was, and was told, kannietverstan. On the way back to the harbor, he passed a funeral procession with the fanciest carriages he had ever seen, one after another. He asked a passerby who had died, and was told, kannietverstand. He was deeply moved at that. He took off his hat and stood very still until the last carriage had past.

And when he got back to his village he told everybody about his great adventure. He had learned all about an amazing man, who owned a whole fleet of beautiful sailing ships, lived in a great mansion, a national hero who had his statue in the city square. And he, the farmer, had been there and seen his funeral procession with his own eyes. And this wonderful man’s name was Kannietverstand.

I love cross-cultural adventures. But I always try to do a better job than that of understanding what I am seeing.

This morning I invite you to join me on a cross cultural adventure in the coming weeks, to meet some of the earliest Christians in the city of Ephesus. We are going to start a series of sermons from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. There are two difficulties in reading this letter. It was written in a culture very different from ours. That makes it hard for us to understand at points. And besides that, when we read the letter it’s like we are only hearing one side of a conversation, like you’re on the train and somebody is talking on their cell phone and you can’t help but overhear and you’re wracking your brain to try to figure out what they are talking about as you only hear one side of the conversation.

So this morning we’ll start out with just the first 2 verses of the letter. That will give us an opportunity to get our bearings a little bit before we really jump in. Maybe today can be the tourist brochure you read before you even leave home. May it open up for us new understanding of one of the most precious books of the New Testament.

Would you please stand for the reading of God’s word?

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesus was a port city on the Mediterranean Sea. Today it’s in Turkey. It was build at the mouth of a river, and it was the seaport where goods came and went from one of the most prosperous provinces in the Roman Empire. It was a provincial capital, so important government business was done there. It’s hard to say today, but the population was probably at least 250,000 in Paul’s time. It was a big, bustling, prosperous city, one of the four biggest cities of the Roman Empire, sort of like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston in the US today.

There was an outdoor theater built into a hillside with stone seats for 24,000 people. I assume they brought their own cushions.

Like many big cities, many religions were present there side by side. It was a very pluralistic city. The main deity of Ephesus was Artemis, sometimes called Dianna. The temple of Artemis in Ephesus was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It was made entirely of marble, 220 feet wide by 425 feet long, with the roof held up by 127 marble columns, some of them 60 feet high. It was beautiful. The temple was an important part of the city’s economy.