Starting from scratch
Ephesus - Year 1
Acts 18.19-27
For 9 sessions it is my intention to trace the Church at Ephesus as it unfolds in the New Testament. From Acts 18 to Revelation 2, we see the first half century of this primal church’s life. As it grows there are valuable lessons to be learned, which can help us to see how Churches cope, survive and thrive.
It is not my intention to build parallels between the church at Ephesus and Norma. The result would be contrived and probably untrue. Beyond that, since we are largely looking at the past, it would be irrelevant. It will be more helpful is for us to see the events in the Church’s life and what we can learn: to do things right, as Ephesus did them right, to pick up pointers as the Apostles gave them advice, and to avoid the mistakes that Ephesus made.
They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. But as he left, he promised, “I will come back if it is God’s will.” Then he set sail from Ephesus. When he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.
After spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.
Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. Acts 18:19-27 (NIV)
This is how it began for Ephesus.
Competent people stayed and worked
We often think of Paul as the great Church Planter of the first century, but he did not plant this church. Two displaced tent makers from Rome did. Priscilla and Aquila were Jewish Christians who lived in Rome, but were kicked out during a politically motivated mass exile from the city. They moved to Corinth. There they met Paul and signed on to travel with Him.
They must have been mature believers, because when they made it as far as Ephesus, Paul did not wait. He was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem, but he spoke, apparently only once, and resisted all efforts to get him to stay longer. As a compromise he left this couple behind to plow the field and begin the work of planting the church.
This woman and her husband had their entire life turned on its head. They had serious problems of their own, but now that they had moved on, they had settled in to their trade and began sharing Jesus, wherever they were.
• They had been forced out of their home by law
• They found themselves in a difficult and pagan place
• They connected with an itinerant
• And signed on for the journey
Now they find themselves in Ephesus, where there is apparently no knowledge of Jesus at all. Think of it. It is impossible that these believers had known Jesus for more than 15 years, probably not even that long. They had not had the advantage of living near the most seasoned teachers - the apostles. It is likely that their faith had been patched together from any place they could get spiritually fed, but they had grown.
Most of the people in today’s churches can claim a firmer foundation in the faith than Priscilla and Aquila had.
• We have been members of churches led by people with in-depth ministry training
• We have a complete Bible of our own
• We have freedom to worship without harassment
• We have long, rich Christian traditions
You may not think of yourself as qualified to forge ahead into raw, pagan territory with the gospel of Jesus, to change a town for Him, but you probably are.
Even if, like them, you have troubles in your life.
They began with people who knew something about God
When Priscilla and Aquila began their work, they followed Paul into the synagogue. Expatriate, Greek speaking Jews had settled all over the known world and they took with them the Scriptures - what we know as the Old Testament.
What this means, is that when they began teaching about the Messiah, these people knew what they were talking about. They read Isaiah. They read the Psalms. They knew the prophecies. They knew who God was and what holiness was. Much of the ground work for the gospel had already been laid.
Along with this foundation came baggage. The Jews of that day (like most cultures at any time) thought they had a handle on things. They knew what was required to be right with God, or they thought they did. It involved keeping the Law and going to Jerusalem for sacrifices. In their thinking the Messiah was going to be a conquering hero, not a suffering servant.
Priscilla and Aquila had both sides of the door to deal with. The door opened in for them, as they addressed things the Jews wanted to know about. It closed on them as they said things many did not want to hear.
The problem persists
When Dawn and I were in Africa, we were not introducing the gospel to people who had never heard. The Africa Inland Church had been their for 100 years teaching people that the church was all about giving money to people. In the process, they had created a culture of beggars, dependent on the rich white foreigners who could and would give without limit. No work necessary.
This flies in the face of biblical teaching and with newer developmental missions methods. The best way to bring economic aid is to teach responsible work ethics and practices. It is to plant monetary seeds into a community, not to spread money like fertilizer on an unplanted field. The money that was given out in colonial days, attracting many to a gospel that was all about a handout, is damaging to those who came later without bottomless riches to give away. It also contributed to the poverty that persists in some of these places.
• Sharon and Gregg, our missionaries in Lithuania deal with a concept if Christianity that is tainted by years of lax faith followed by decades of atheistic communism
• Melody and James, our missionaries in Asia deal with a concept of Christianity that is tainted by Muslim misrepresentation of Christ and by the legacy of the Crusades
Spreading the gospel is as much about correcting misconceptions as it is about introducing the truth. If you feel like every time you share the gospel, your hearers are coming with all kinds of baggage that garble the gospel till it is unrecognizable, you are in good company. This is part of the fact of speaking the truth in love. Sometimes people can get hostile when it comes to traditions. Stick with it. Represent the gospel in your actions as well as your words, and the deeper truth will be communicated exponentially.
They built with intentional discipleship
Priscilla and Aquila invested in a guy that came along with an incomplete education. Apollos was from the world’s center of education at the time, from Alexandria. He was a powerful speaker and he had a background in the Scriptures and in the teaching of John the Baptist. He knew who Jesus was, but did not understand the kingdom so well yet.
The church planting couple took him under their wing. They taught him about what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. They "explained to him the way of God more adequately."
I have to believe that this was the raw ingredient of Priscilla and Aquila’s ministry. They knew that in order to develop mature, confident disciples it was going to take an investment of time and energy. It was going to take intimacy. They took this guy home and taught him one on one.
I do that with a few people ... as of now, four. I would love to do it with more. It takes a few things:
• It takes humility to acknowledge that what you know is incomplete and needs to be augmented
• It takes a teachable spirit, openness and a willingness to learn
• It takes time - In our case, an investment of about an hour a week
• It takes persistence - it is easy to give up, to forget, to allow other things to push your discipleship out of the way
This kind of training was lavished on me twice in my life. When I was in High School, a man named Ron Braswell gave me the benefit of his discipleship, and when I was in college, Dr. Don Rickards took me in for year, for a half hour a week.
I am not the only person in this congregation who does this or can do this. In fact, for the women in our congregation, it would be better if one of our women who are seasoned in the faith would teach you. But I can’t think of any who would not see it as an awesome responsibility and a privilege.
Discipleship is basic to our growth in the faith. Find a more mature believer and have them help you on your path in whatever way works best for the two of you. Find a person you can help and build friendship.
They were strengthened by a powerful man of God
As a result of his discipleship, Apollos had the capacity to exert his considerable education and skill toward evangelizing and building the church. In those days, the synagogue was not just about listening to a message, it was about discussing ideas, sometimes in lively debate. A rabbi would tell you that the Talmud is all about, not coming up with one right answer, but exploring all the possible, appropriate interpretations of the Law. This is what Apollos did among the Jews.
The results of this kind of discipleship are competence and confidence. A person learns more about their faith and how to handle the scriptures for themselves. They develop a walk with God that can withstand more spiritual dryness than average.
I like a commercial I have seen a number of times recently. A guy is having trouble sleeping and he is plagued by daydreams of a deep sea diver, Abraham Lincoln and a talking beaver. They are his dreams and they miss him. He explains to them that he has not been sleeping well, and the beaver says,
"Really, and not doing a thing about it hasn’t helped?"
This is the way we approach sharing our faith. We are paralyzed by fear
• of rejection
• of hostility
• of our own ignorance
• of our own incompetence or hypocrisy
And rather than seeking out help to learn the skills involved in sharing the gospel, we allow fear to stop us from obeying this most basic command of Jesus:
Go into all the earth and preach the gospel to every creature.
We are frozen when we think about it, and not doing a thing about it does not help at all.
Learning the story you have to tell and learning how to do it with freedom helps in your spiritual walk more than you can know till you take the leap. For Apollos it helped him so much he took a step further.
They sent out a missionary very early
Within the first two years of this church’s existence, Priscilla and Aquila
• transformed the Jewish community
• took in an educated if inadequate man and made him more competent
• released him for ministry in the community
Finally Apollos came to them and said he wanted to take his ministry to Macedonia. Notice what they did. Priscilla and Aquila did not make the decision themselves, but took it to the brethren. Apparently there was a large enough group of believers in Ephesus by this time to allow group discernment of important decisions, in this case to allow an educated and energetic leader to go elsewhere to minister.
This has happened here. There are a number of people who are in ministry leadership positions in other places who can to one degree or another trace their spiritual roots to this place.
• It happened in Ephesus
• And it happened here
It is a source of great pleasure, and we will know that we are doing something wrong if it ever stops. Notice the steps that are necessary for it to happen.
• Leadership must be in place
• A vital church must be established
• Intentional discipleship must be practiced
• Active outreach must be moving forward
Then those active in ministry become the instruments of God’s calling.
If someone asks you whether you would be willing to move into an active ministry position, whether it is in the congregation or somewhere else, you might say, "I’m not ready for that." This is fine, for the moment. But why are you not ready? Is it an issue of gifts and personal limitations? Or is it that you must move forward into deeper understanding of the faith?
• Within two years of its planting the Church at Ephesus had taken these steps.
• Any church that is healthy and active for Christ should be constantly moving through these steps
That means that individuals in the church should be sensing that they are somewhere in the process
Are you in the process?
What you can do now - ask 3 questions:
Ask yourself which you are:
• a discipler (that is a mentor helping others to a deeper understanding of Christ)
• or a disciple (that is a person who is being taught by a mentor or a discipler)
Who is your Priscilla and who is your Apollos? I believe that every follower of Christ should see himself as one or the other, and ideally should be both. There should be a person you look to as a primary mentor and a person learning from you.
Ask yourself this also, in the life of the church, how do you see yourself as reaching into the world?
• Who do you know who doesn’t know Jesus?
• Have you found what is keeping them from faith?
• What is the mode of your gospel communication (action, spoken word, written word)?
Ask yourself this question: What is my current ministry and my next step in ministry? Everybody in the kingdom of God is a minister and should be actively involved in doing something for the kingdom. You should be
• serving
• giving
• teaching
• helping
• leading
• sharing
or based on your spiritual gifts, be doing something.
If you cannot easily name what you are doing for the kingdom, chances are you should be doing more. If you can name what you are doing, you should have no problem asking what more you can do or what you could do next.
Ephesus went from being a pagan place with a few Jews to the center of one of the most prominent churches in Asia Minor with a legacy that lasted centuries.
Norma started with no Mennonite presence, and now has an established Mennonite segment of this community. You are a part of that change.
The kingdom life in the individuals of this community comprise the kingdom life of the church as we embark on the next 50 years.
What is your part?
