Watch Your Walk

Context of Ephesians

About the Letter

Remember that this was written to real people at a real time and place.

Written by Paul from a Roman prison to the church at Ephesus — East Coast of Asia Minor (Turkey)

Only one of Paul’s letters that doesn’t address a specific issue or heresy within the church.

Instead, Paul encourages the Ephesian believers, and gives us an overview of what the Christian life is supposed to look like.

About the City

Important city in Roman empire

Metropolis — major hub.

250k people at the time of Paul’s writing.

Still not a small city by today’s standards — about the size of St. Louis.

Factor in today’s population density, and this is a major city — like a New York/LA population.

Important Economic Center

Built around it’s port.

Caster River

Could accommodate ships of all sizes.

Important point of import for the Roman empire as goods would flow through Ephesus, and then into the rest of the Roman world.

City’s feature was the Agora.

Giant, open air market in the middle of the city.

Goods would be taken off the ships, carried directly into the market and sold.

Craftsman’s Guilds controlled the Agora — they determined who was able to sell and what their products would be.

If you were a craftsman (most people were) and wanted to make a living, you needed to be able to sell in the Agora.

Important Religious Center

Steeped in pagan worship.

Temple to the Goddess Artemis, and the Roman Emperor

Right next to the Agora

Goddess of fertility.

One of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.

People would come from all over to “worship” in this temple.

The worship practices in pagan rites — part to goddess of fertility — were filthy and vile.

Ephesus was full of sexual immorality of all kinds.

Equivalent to like a modern day Vegas — “Sin City”.

Sodom and Gomorrah type place.

If you were going to trade in the agora, you had to be part of a guild. If you wanted to be part of a guild, you would be required to practice these pagan rituals.

You would have to swear allegiance to Roman emperor by worshiping him.

Would have to swear allegiance to Artemis by worshiping here. And worshiping her was not singing some songs and listening to a sermon. It was to be involved in all the aforementioned sexual immorality.

If you were going to make a living, you would have to participate.

Ephesus was a city that seems totally hostile to anything godly.

It’s a place that doesn’t make sense for Christianity to take root and flourish in such a harsh environment.

About the Church

Look in Acts 18-19, we see the birth of the Eph. church.

Spirit was moving and performing signs/wonders through the new believers so radically that it turned the city on its head.

All the witches/sorcerers of the day brought all their books in a pile and burned them.

50k drachmas = 5.5m

burned at conviction of the Spirit.

Believers coming to faith so quickly that the silversmiths staged a riot in the city.

Weren’t making silverware, they were making idols to be used in pagan worship.

In other words, so many people were coming to faith, their business began to suffer. So much so they decided they had to do something about it.

So they staged a riot and tried to blame the Christians.

Against a backdrop that seems so anti-God, the church is birthed in a radical fashion.

If there was a church that could boast about their heritage, it was Ephesus.

Pastored by Paul for 3 years.

Apollos followed Paul.

Founded by Priscilla and Aquilla — heroes of the faith.

Pastored by Timothy, Paul’s protege.

Pastored by Tichichus, another of Paul’s mentees.

Pastored by the Apostle John, who wrote Revelation.

Many think John was arrested and sent to Patmos while in Ephesus.

This is a church that from the outside has everything figured out.

It’s with that in mind that Paul subtly asks a question that still rings true for us — How’s your walk?

READ 4:1

Book of Ephesians is all about what it looks like to live a Christian life in a world that hates Christ.

Motif in Ephesians: You were ______, now ________.

Paul’s whole letter can really be summed up by that one question — How’s your walk?

Are you living the way Christ has called you to?

It’s easy for us to be to be thrown off course….

We get distracted and begin to drift. Might think it’s no big deal…

Ephesus didn’t just have a sin problem, had a silt problem.

Show picture 1

Silt — fine particulate that travels in flowing water and is deposited.

Harmless at first, but eventually it builds up.

US Army Core of Engineers — 400k truckloads of silt out of the Great Lakes per year.

In Ephesus, they would hire men to shovel the silt out every night.

Eventually, they got lazy. Other things became more important to spend money and effort on.

Show picture 2.

Ephesus now sits 12 miles from the port that was her lifeblood. The city died because they didn’t get rid of the silt as it came into their harbor.