It starts with Emperor Claudius.

We need to go back in time just a bit.

You may remember Emperor Caius.

🤓 Agrippa’s chariot-cruising buddy.

Yes.

Well, he was murdered 🗡️ after a reign of only 4 years. Agrippa wept over his murdered friend and then acted as the spokesman and mediator for the Roman Senate to negotiate making Caius’ uncle Claudius the next Emperor. Claudius was a much milder man than Caius. Caius had been known for his bad morals and for being a tyrant.

Once Claudius became Emperor, he gave Agrippa more lands. He wasn’t just over Judea and Galilee. He was made king over Samaria too. When Agrippa later died, Agrippa Junior went to Rome to stay with Claudius’ own family.

Claudius was actually very friendly towards the Jews. At Agrippa Sr.’s request, Claudius sent out a decree allowing the Jews to practice their customs without hindrance anywhere in the empire. (See Josephus, Antiq. Book 19, Ch.5).

We don’t get much backstory or detail about why Claudius violated his own decree and expelled the Jews from Rome, but he did, in 49AD. Here’s the only mention of it I could find among ancient historians:

“Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.” – The Life of Claudius, 25.4 by Suetonius.  

This footnote in Roman history confirms Acts 18:2. Some scholars think that the “Chrestus” mentioned is a misspelling or misunderstanding of Christos, meaning Christ. And that the “disturbances” mentioned are ones similar to the problems Paul faced when he brought the Gospel to the Jews. It caused upheaval and mob violence. Without further proof, we cannot say for certain.

The expulsion of the Jews from Rome is the catalyst for Paul meeting 2 very important people when he arrives in Corinth; Aquila and Priscilla, a Jewish couple with a tent-making business.

Paul starts off as usual preaching Jesus as Messiah to the Jews in the synagogue. He didn’t make many converts. In fact, they got quite nasty with him and there was a synagogue-split over it. Paul and a synagogue leader, Crispus (and his family), walked out and went next door to start a church with a God-fearing Gentile named Justus. This is the beginning of the Corinthian Church to whom Paul will write 4 letters; of which, only 2 survive. We’ll note the mentions of the “lost letters” when we read through 1st and 2nd Corinthians.

Paul settles down in Corinth for a year and a half. He and his team are preaching and baptizing and discipling the new believers. Corinth is a huge ancient city. Wealthy. Cosmopolitan. Diverse. Idolatrous.

The recent expulsion of the Jews from Rome is sitting in the background of this chapter. When the Jews stir up an insurrection and drag Paul before the Roman deputy Gallio, he ignores the whole thing. The Romans are getting tired of dealing with the drama between the Jews and the new sect that follows Jesus.

When Paul leaves for Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquila go with him and stay there helping to establish the Church which will receive the letter we call Ephesians. While they are there, they meet a highly educated Alexandrian Jew with a very Greek name: Apollos. It’s a beautiful thing to see a tent-making couple discipling what amounts to a university professor. That just goes to show how in the Kingdom of God, everyone is equal. A blue-collar laborer who knows the Gospel has something to share with the most successful man in town. It’s also an indication of the good character of Apollos, and how he truly desired to know Jesus, that he humbled himself and listened as this tent-making man (and woman! Gasp!) instruct him in the Gospel. Once Apollos understood the Good News, there was no stopping him. He became one of the great missionaries of the early Church listed alongside Peter and Paul.

PAUL’S 3rd MISSIONARY JOURNEY

It didn’t take long for Paul to get back on the road to revisit the churches he had planted in the prior two trips.

Paul hadn’t stayed very long in Ephesus before. This time he finds a small group of 12 probably Jewish “disciples” who had come to Judea years prior and been baptized by John the Baptist.

That’s an interesting parallel. 12 Disciples.

They were walking in the light they had.

There are some important precedents in this narrative.

• Just believing in God and being repentant about sin does not equal salvation. That’s where these guys were.
• Paul asks if they have received the Holy Ghost since believing. The indwelling of the Spirit is THE primary indication whether or not these people belong to Christ. They had not heard of the Holy Ghost.
• When they heard the Gospel, they were baptized into Christ.
• Paul laid hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit. And this laying-on of hands was the normal method for believers to receive the Holy Spirit.
• The men spoke in tongues and prophesied. This was the visible evidence that the Holy Spirit had come upon them.

Paul basically starts the first Bible College. The unbelieving Jews had become hostile so Paul leaves the synagogue and takes the believers and they meet in a lecture hall or “school” of someone named Tyrannus.

🤓 Dinosaur school? 🦖

No. Tyrannus means tyrant.

🤓 A school run by a tyrant? Sounds awful.

I think that was just the name of the guy who ran the school.

Paul wasn’t necessarily “debating” every day. The Greek word is dialegomai [dee-a-lego-mah]. It’s where we get our word dialog. It means to discuss. And he held classes (discussions) for 2 years.

Remember how the Holy Spirit did not allow Paul to go into Asia before? Just because God says “no” once, doesn’t mean it will always be a “no.” His timing is important. Because now everyone in Asia hears the Gospel.

😲 Everyone in China and Japan too?

No. Not that Asia. What they called Asia then was part of what we call Türkiye now.

It’s also where the 7 Churches in Revelation are.

UNUSUAL MIRACLES

Charismatic evangelists like to try to build a doctrine on Acts 19:11-12 where cloths that Paul had carried or worn were taken to the sick and tormented, and the sick were healed and demons fled. This is where the idea of “prayer cloths” come from. But everyone seems to ignore that verse 11 says these were “special miracles.” They were a one-time thing, like the shadow of Peter healing people. It’s never recorded again in scripture and there is no instruction anywhere on “how to send a prayer cloth” because it was never meant to become Christian practice; especially not a thing to be sold.

The Seven Sons of Sceva find out that if you’re going to try to cast out demonic spirits, you better have real spiritual authority. When the demon says to them “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?,” it might make us wonder if we’ve caused enough damage to the kingdom of darkness that the demons know who we are.

ERASTUS

While in Ephesus, Paul sends Timothy back to check on the churches in Macedonia. And he sends with him a Christian brother, Erastus. In Romans 16:23 Erastus sends his greetings to the church in Rome and he is identified as the oikonomos of the city of Corinth. That’s basically like being the City Treasurer or Director of Public Works.

In 1929 a 1st-century Latin inscription was discovered near the theater of Corinth.

It reads ERASTVS PRO AED S P STRAVIT, which means: “Erastus, in return for his aedileship, laid [the pavement] at his own expense”

Many scholars connect this Erastus to the biblical figure. In 2 Timothy 4:20, Erastus is mentioned as living in Corinth. He’s an example of someone who serves Jesus and shares the Gospel while also working a “secular” job.

While Timothy and Erastus are building up the churches in Macedonia, Paul is stirring up trouble. Again.

THE RIOT IN EPHESUS

The goddess known to the Greeks as Artemis had a temple in Ephesus that was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The temple standing when Paul was there was actually the 3rd temple. The first temple was destroyed by a flood in the 7th Century BC. The second temple was destroyed by fire in 356BC. This third temple was filled with statues of various goddesses but the main draw was a version of Artemis unique to Ephesus, called “Artemis of the Ephesians.” The Romans called her Diana.

This site had been a place of worship since very ancient times associated with the story of the Amazons.

🤓 They had online shopping back then?

No, silly. The Amazons were mythical female warriors like Wonder Woman.

🤔 Wonder Woman? Wait, isn’t her name Diana too?

Yes.

😲 The Ephesians were worshiping Wonder Woman?!

Well, no. Not exactly.

😐 Oh. You’re right. That looks NOTHING like Wonder Woman.

🤓 Yeah. Gal Gadot and Lynda Carter are way prettier.

🤨 Uh… My old barn is prettier than that thing. It’s weird.

Artemis was basically like the “patron saint” of Ephesus. For a long time, scholars interpreted the bulbous shapes around her middle as breasts, but more recent scholarship has suggested eggs, magic potion pouches, or even bull testicles.

😒 Ew.

The locals apparently believed that her image had “fallen from heaven” but that may have been a legend.

☝️🤓 Could’ve been a meteorite. ☄️

Maybe. But no other ancient source says anything about it falling from the sky. And they were pretty proud of their goddess so if she had been carved from a meteorite, you’d think they would’ve written that down somewhere.

At any rate, Paul and his team are leading so many people to Jesus in all of Asia that sales of Artemis temple souvenirs are way down. Business is bad for the silversmiths and they start a riot. The mob grabs a couple of Paul’s team: Gaius and Aristarchus. There’s also a Jewish man named Alexander mixed up in this. They’re all jostled into the theater and it’s pandemonium for 2 hours until the town clerk manages to talk some sense into everyone and send them all home.

We should try to keep all this in mind for when we get to the letter Paul writes to the Ephesians. Paul is going to continue on his travels but he will stop back in Ephesus one more time.