Ministry In Ephesus (18:18-19:41)
Bible Passage: Acts 18:18-19:41 (NB – This is a long passage and you may wish to read certain portions of it and summarise the rest).
Having left Corinth, the next major focus of Paul’s missionary journey was Ephesus. Initially he left Priscilla and Aquila to be a church planting bridgehead into the city whilst Paul himself went to a few other places before eventually joining them there. As we see the story of the church in Ephesus being established, we find a number of contrasts between the real and the fake or incomplete:
True Teaching (18:24-28): When Apollos arrived in Ephesus he was eager to teach what he knew. He had a good understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures and had heard of the baptism of John. He taught boldly in the synagogues, but his message was incomplete and gave no mention to the Holy Spirit. Priscilla and Aquila heard him and privately explained to him what he was missing. In this we see the humility of Apollos to learn from others, the leadership of Priscilla and Aquila to teach the truth accurately and the benefit to the church of clarity around the gospel and theological truths, as we see from the subsequent fruit that Apollos bore in his teaching ministry.
True Power (19:1-16): When Paul finally arrived in Ephesus, he encountered a group of disciples who did not know about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps they had been taught by Apollos before he had learned the Word more fully, or maybe they had encountered similar ideas from elsewhere. Paul then shared with them about Jesus, baptised them in water and prayed for them to receive the Spirit. As the Spirit came upon them, the moment was accompanied by supernatural signs. A little later, another group of people had seen the miracles that Paul was doing and wanted to be able to do the same things themselves. Rather than turning to Jesus, being baptised and asking Paul to pray for them to receive the Spirit, they instead tried to invoke the name of Jesus to cast out evil spirits without having a relationship to Jesus themselves. This did not work and they ended up being attacked by the person who had the evil spirit! True works of spiritual power are not about a certain technique or formula, but they flow from relationship with Jesus himself.
True Response (19:17-34): Having seen the power of God on display, the people of Ephesus respond, and once again there is a contrast between two very different responses. The initial response is awe, and people begin praising Jesus and turning from their spiritual practices. Their repentance is shown by them burning their occult books. This response is a great example of what it is to turn to Jesus, wholeheartedly giving up those practices that are not pleasing to him. After a while there was pushback from tradespeople who made their living from the false religion. They stirred up the crowd against Paul and the others, and advocated for Artemis. As the gospel is preached and the power of God is shown, both enthusiastic acceptance and hostile opposition will be seen. This is the story all through Acts and Ephesus is no different.
Potential Applications:
- The passage shows the importance of good doctrine. Perhaps there is a school of theology or some other resource that you could encourage people to sign up for to grow in their understanding of Scripture.
- Paul prays for a group of people to be filled with the Spirit and they are. You could create a response moment where you also pray for people to be filled with the Spirit.
- The response in Ephesus shows what repentance looks like. You could call any who have been involved with occult practices to repent and give up those practices just like these new Ephesian believers do.
